I've talked to y'all in the past about my favorite family planner/calendar, the More Times Mom Family Organizer. I've even given one of these away because I wanted to share it with others. However, due to recent health issues and stress, my memory has gone kaput! Most days over the last year and a half, I didn't remember to look at my calendar. My aunt had invited 2 of my cousins and me to a wonderful event last year and I forgot all about it because I didn't even remember I had a calendar to look at. Everytime I think of that, I am still embarrassed! It's been really rough living inside this body and the stress I piled on myself when things like this happened just made the memory issues worse. Even when I looked at my calendar and repeated an appointment on there over and over in my head, as soon as I turned away from the calendar, it was forgotten.
Since last Fall, I've been going to doctors appointments a lot. At the end of each one I would be asked when I could come back for this or that test and then when can I come back to discuss the test results. I had no idea when I was or was not free! I would have to call them back when I got home after checking my calendar, but that also posed problems. 1) I could have obligations that I just forgot to write on my calendar, and 2) I have a terrible fear of phones. I would put off calling a doctor for weeks because I simply could not make myself pick up the phone and call. I needed something else to keep track of my life because my way of life no longer worked with my beloved MTM Family Organizer (oh, how I truly grieved over that loss!).
Then one day at the beginning of the year I was on The Fly Lady's website looking for a Contol Journal for B. I had decided that he needed something to keep him on top of his household obligations and school lessons. He was old enough and I was tired of having to remind him all the time. (Well, it's kind of hard for a child to be organized and remember everything when he has such a poor example in his Mom!)
While The Student Control Journal was printing, I looked around Fly Lady. I hadn't been there in a while, but she has helped me organize parts of my life before - for example, Cruising through Christmas & doing Christmas cards - so I wanted to see what's new. I was clicking on all the headings at the top and bottom of her homepage and one was "Cozi". I had no idea what that meant so I went to the page to find out. According to The Fly Lady's website:
"FlyLady.net and Cozi have teamed up to bring to you the FlyLady Online Organizer. This is a web-based calendar and organizer program that will allow you to schedule, plan, have time-zone-specific reminders, shopping lists, to-do lists, a family journal section that you can even opt in to post to Facebook, and more! Oh yes, and we did mention it’s free?"
I was curious, so I went to Cozi's website and read more about it. It sounded good and, since it was free, I decided to sign up. I really liked what was included! I was quite overwhelmed in the calendar, however, because it was full of Fly Lady reminders on each day. I am not currently "flying" with her system and would not need those, but soon figured out how to hide them all. I immediately added a couple of items to the calendar, looked at the list options and perused the recipe bank. It was quite
easy to maneuver through.
