Planning and Organizing 101

Good morning Friends! As we speak I am taking a brief break from unpacking endless moving boxes.  Such fun! Sarcasm aside, it got me thinking that keeping your moving organized would be a fantastic blog topic. So, without further ado, here are my 5 Ideas for staying organized while moving. Idea #1: Keep a manifest (like an inventory log) When my family moved from North Carolina to Idaho (long story), we labeled all of our boxes with a number. In a notebook, we wrote down what was in Box #1, then Box #2, then Box #3, etc. You could also wait to number the boxes until after you have determined which are the most essential to the most non-essential, and then use the numbers as a rank-order system. Personally, unless you’re trekking across the country in a 20 year old, salt-eaten Ford Expedition toting a 6x10 trailer with ALL your family’s belongings (like I said, long story), then I think this method is a little TOO organized. And that is coming from someone who writes blogs a...

Good morning friends! We are halfway through January, which means two things: taxes and budgeting. I am not a CPA by any stretch of the imagination, so I’m not going to talk much about taxes. However, budgeting is something anyone can do and that I have been doing since my first allowance when I was 7 years old. Everyone and their cousin has an opinion about budgeting. There’s the Dave Ramsey way and the 50 20 30 rule and values-based budgeting. The real trick though is to find something that works for you. If you have a ton of debt, you probably need to work paying that off into the budget. Right now my husband and I are under about $40,000 in school loans between the two of us and the loan we took out to build our house. So, its a pretty safe bet that we will be focusing in on paying off some debt this year. What if you’re debt-free? Congratulations, by the way, you super star! Then obviously you don’t need to focus on debt, but where is that money going? Are you trying to save u...

Good morning Friends! The new year has begun! Some of you have been consistent with your resolutions for the first week of the year; Great job! Keep up the good work! Some of you have already given up on some of those resolutions. This is about the time of the new year season when reality hits again. School starts back up; family finally leaves town; all the sugary sweets from the holidays are FINALLY eaten. It’s time for life to start again, and that can be disheartening. I have no clue what your resolutions were or are, but I am going to encourage you to get back up and go again. And you know what, I am writing this in January, but you may not read it until July. Guess what? It’s still not too late not get up and go again. See my blog  How to Keep Your New Years Resolutions  for more information on that. Today, we are going to rabbit trail off the New Years Resolutions track and talk about vision boards. There is known power in visualization. And I am not talking Eastern...

Good Morning Friends! I wanted to post this blog a little early this week for one specific reason... New Years is in exactly 1 day, 11 hours and 52 minutes!!! YAY!!! Except for New Years Resolutions... yes, I just rained on your parade. According to Forbes, studies have shown that less than 25% of people actually stay committed to their resolutions after thirty days, and only 8% accomplish them. Ouch! Unfortunately, I cannot stand on a soap box and pretend that I have never been part of that 25% that quit after January or part of the 92% who just don’t accomplish them. I wish I could. But, I have been part of the 8% a few times. So, the real question is, how to we become part of that 8%? I know, I know, if a bunch of people join the 8%, it wont be called the 8% any more...I got it. (Statisticians calm down). But in all seriousness, how do we stop being the group of people that gives up on themselves and become part of the group that accomplishes their goals? Here’s the lay down: 1...

Hey guys! You don’t know me from Adam... or Eve, so let me introduce myself. I am Ashley Seguin. And that fact means nothing to you. I have been happily married for two and half years to my sweet husband, Daniel ( who is every ounce the most perfect and wonderful human I have ever met). I am a senior at East Texas Baptist University, majoring in Secondary Social Studies Education. I graduate in May 2020! We are in the (very long and trying) process of building our first house right now while living in an apartment in the meantime. I have a beautiful Australian Retriever named Mandie Lorian (like the Star Wars character Mandelorian; we thought that was super clever). Mandie Lorian Seguin - born March 1, 2019 Daniel and Ashley Seguin - Thanksgiving 2017 I am a nerd of nerds. I love history like no normal 25 year old woman should love history. I especially love the Middle East and ancient history, and it actively bothers me that many American history textbooks are at least as thic...