Apparently I’m not really ready because I typed that title “I’m Ready for 2012.” I’m only ready to plan 2013 I guess 🙂

Two years ago I made this wall calendar and we put it up in our kitchen

I love it and I use it all the time

And now that 2012 is coming to an end I cleaned it all off and got it ready for 2013. When I made it, I wrote out all the grids and names of the days of the week in Sharpie so that they wouldn’t come off, and everything else is in wet erase marker (I’ve found that it stays a bit better). Once it was all clean (just a damp paper towel) I got out my color coded pens and got to work. Yes, that’s right, my color coded pens

What kind of organizer would I be if my pens were not color coded? Black is for basic stuff like days of the week and when there’s no parking on our street for street sweeping

Red is for holidays and birthdays

And Cashew’s due date. That’s a holiday, right? (it actually got pushed back 2 days at our last appointment)

Orange is for things we do together, like when family comes to town, when we have dinner with friends, some party we’re going to, or an OBGYN appointment

Green is for me!

Yes, that’s right, I put the A’s Opening Day on the calendar. I go every year with my dad (a tradition for many, many, many years now that I can’t wait to have Cashew participate in. In fact, I already know that her first A’s game will be Opening Day of 2014. Yup, I’m that crazy.) My dad routinely sends me a meeting request through email pretty much the second the next season’s schedule comes out. I told you, we take this seriously.

And lastly, blue is for Chris and purple is for house stuff. We don’t use purple too much because it’s used when we have a contractor coming over or something like that, and well, that only happens about once a year.

It usually takes me about 30-45 minutes to get everything erased, put down all the birthday and holidays, write down when we have no parking (I haven’t gotten a ticket in the last year or so, knock on wood!) and anything that we know is already on the calendar for next year (hello Ms. Cashew’s scheduled-but-of-course-not-arriving-on-that-day-arrival)

December is of course still showing all our 2012 stuff going on (busy, busy holidays), but other than that I’m ready for 2013!