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Happy Friday, y’all! Aside from celebrating Jacob’s birthday this week, we’ve been pretty lazy. We’ve had stormy weather here pretty much every day, so we’ve spent a lot of time this week at home, indoors, hanging out, working on a puzzle, cleaning out some things, and just soaking up the second to last week of laziness before school starts.
Today, as always, I’m sharing some favorites here, a couple of which were items that I bought in the Amazon Prime Day sale! All of our items have started to arrive, and it’s been fun unpacking all of them and seeing what works and what doesn’t. So far, everything has been a win!
O N E – Simplified Digital Planner
Those of you who have been following me for any amount of time know that I LOVE my Simplified Planner. I’ve been using a Simplified Planner for six years now and it’s the absolute perfect planner for me. The Simplified team just announced some huge news on Wednesday – they now have a DIGITAL Simplified Planner!!!!
I have always said that I would never use a digital planner, but y’all, this Simplified digital planner has me re-thinking everything because it’s just like a paper planner, but dare I say… better?
It. Is. Spectacular.
It’s identical to a standard paper Simplified Planner, but in digital form. It’s fully dated, linked, and high resolution, and you use it with Goodnotes on your tablet or phone so you can use a stylus and write in it just like you would a paper planner!!
The planner is currently on sale for just $26 which is a fraction of the cost of my beloved paper planners, and whereas with a paper planner, you have to choose between a weekly spread or a daily spread, with the digital planner, you get it ALL OF THEM! It includes everything that the standard SPs have + more:
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Monthly pages
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Weekly pages
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Daily pages
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Simplified Prep Work pages
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2024 – 2025 holiday dates
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6 styles of notes pages (lined, wide-lined,
narrow-lined, blank, grid, and dotted – and with the digital version you can duplicate
these pages to make as many as you need!)
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6 beautiful cover options (again, with the
digital version, you can choose any cover option and you can switch them out at
any time whereas with the paper planners, you can only choose one cover option)
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The Simplicity Challenge
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Over 1,200 pre-cropped digital stickers
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Instructions for how to use everything
I watched several demos last night by the Simplified team, and this thing is seriously amazing. Again, you use a stylus (they recommend the Apple stylus) to write in the planner as you would with any other planner, and you can change the “ink” colors to any color in the entire color wheel. You can even customize your ink colors to match the Simplified color palette so your entire planner can flow aesthetically.
As far as planner navigation goes, you can easily toggle back-and-forth between daily, weekly, and monthly spreads + notes pages as there are links all over the planner that you just tap. And you can write in each page, use stickers, and use this digital planner as easily as you can with the paper planners… except this one is better because… if you make a mistake, you can just delete it in the digital version, unlike the paper version! No more whiting-out or scribbling out like when you make a mistake on paper!!
This product (this is the August 2024 – July 2025 version) is already available for INSTANT DOWNLOAD and you can purchase it here. All of you ladies who have always preferred a digital planner can now rejoice as you can now own one of these beautiful Simplified Planners, too!
And again, you can use it on a tablet or a phone! And for those of you worried about using it on a phone (since the phone is so small), you can pinch and zoom to write/view/use stickers, etc.
The Simplified team has hit a home run with this one!!
T W O – Hair and Face
Patch Bags
I bought this set of two bags for Olivia for Christmas as she’s been needing something to store her hair accessories and makeup in for all of her recitals. I am so pleased with the quality of these bags, y’all… they are SO NICE. They are sturdy, the zippers are smooth and well-made, and the patches are excellent quality, and they’re attached nicely… I was worried that the letters might be cheap and fall off, but these are boutique quality bags!
Both of the bags are very large… large enough to fit a paddle-sized Wet brush
with plenty of room to spare for all of Olivia’s bun donuts, bobbi pins, hair
spray, and everything else she needs to bring to her recitals.
They’re also the cutest things ever, and I love that they’re clear so you can see exactly what’s in them. If you’re looking for a cute gift for any tween or teen, these would be a great idea!
T H R E E – Dance Bag/Weekender Bag/Carryon
Bag
Olivia desperately needed a new dance bag for the upcoming dance season. She has been using the same bag for six years, and the one she was using was the original teeny tiny bag that we bought for her when she was four, so it barely held a pair of ballet and tap shoes.
She picked out this duffle bag, and it’s so great! It’s very spacious – spacious enough to hold her ballet shoes, tap shoes, jazz shoes, lyrical shoes, and hip-hop shoes + her leotard, and a bag for hair stuff, and there’s plenty of room to spare. It has a side shoe pocket that holds her “street shoes” so they can stay separate from all of her dance stuff (so they won’t get anything dirty), and it has several other zipper/non-zipper pockets including a pocket on the other side that will hold her Stanley Cup. It has a pocket for wet items (swimsuits, towels, etc.) and it also has a panel of fabric across the back that allows it to slide over the handle of any rolling suitcase, so it can be used as a personal item on a flight! It comes in many different colors and patterns, too! This one is a big winner and Olivia is ecstatic about it!
F O U R – Wooden
Puzzles for Adults and Kids
Jacob’s BFF gave this puzzle to him for his birthday, and Jacob loves it so much. We had never seen anything like it, and it is seriously one of the coolest things ever. The puzzle comes in a ton of pieces that you have to put together, and when you’re done, you have a wooden safe complete with a combination lock (that works!!) and keys that turn to open it. There’s room inside to store something small, and it is such a gorgeous piece! Jacob enjoyed putting it together (even though there were a couple of parts that took some extra time), and he loves it so much that he just bought the wooden puzzle piano with his own money.
This would make such a great, unique gift for kids and adults who love puzzles, and it’s a piece that will look beautiful on display for years to come. This brand (ROKR) has a huge line of these puzzles including a globe (that lights up), a cello (that plays music!), the piano (that plays music!), a marble run, a merry go round, a record player, a pinball machine, an old locomotive, a stagecoach, and so very many more. I just cannot get over these! They are so great!
F I V E – Abe Parker
My new music obsession is Abe Parker… I stumbled upon him on Instagram a few months ago, and I loved him from the second I heard his music. It’s rare for me to love someone that much from the get-go, and it doesn’t happen very often. I love music, but it usually takes my love some time to grow and develop as I listen to an artist’s songs, but with Abe Parker, I heard his song It Is What It Is and instantly fell in love. After hearing that song, I went and downloaded his older album, Everwood, and I love the entire thing from start to finish, no skips. Then, he released a song called Numb followed by another song called Masquerade, and I just cannot get enough!
Last week, he released unplugged versions of It Is What It Is, Numb, and Masquerade, and OH MY WORD, it is fantastic, y’all. Fantastic. Acoustic is always my favorite way to listen to music. Just an artist and their acoustic guitar or piano… that’s all I need.
I rarely take the time to comment on any artists’ Instagram posts or DM them simply because I know most don’t read them, but he is very responsive on Instagram. I responded to one of his stories the other night and almost fell out of my chair when I got a response from him just a few minutes later.
Totally fan-girling over here.
Oh, and also? He is opening for another band in Atlanta in October and WE GOT TICKETS! EEK!
Anyway, if you haven’t heard of him, I urge you to check him out. His song-writing is insane in the best way and his voice is great.
I know I’m gushing, but I’m done now. Haha.
Friday Funnies
Happy Thirteenth Birthday to Our Jacob Brian!
Happy Friday, y’all!
I think I'd need to use the digital planner on a tablet...I have an iPad somewhere, I don't know if Simon uses it or what! I also don't have a stylus. All of that is to say that looks very cool!
ReplyDeleteYeah, we have an iPad, but I don't have a stylus either. I'd have to get one.
DeleteThat wooden puzzle is so neat! The planner looks neat too but I learned years ago that I am really not great at actually using planners at all.
ReplyDeleteI would be lost without mine... I just wonder if the digital thing would actually work for me. I'm such a visual person that I love having it on paper, but it's annoying not being able to easily access it on the go!
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