Erin Condren Life Planner 2015

I just ordered my fancy, new Erin Condren life planner for 2015. If you want one, this link will get you $10 off:

https://www.erincondren.com/referral/invite/kimbaldwin0520

Why am I buying a $50 paper planner? What is this, 2003? Here's the deal. I live by Google Calendar. I have one for races, training, work, birthdays and anniversaries, and they're all magnificently color-coded and synced. But they're just digital appointments and reminders. There are no notes about FEELINGS, or milestones. My Augusta Google Calendar has my training plan, but my paper planner has a year's worth of notes about how I FELT during my training. There are stickers and exclamation marks every time I did something for the first time, met a goal, or lost weight. It's so satisfying to have something you can flip back through and see your progress. For instance, here's my first entry:

Tuesday, February 11, 2014
*180 lbs
Trainer ride, 30 min
Strength, 30 min
First day with TriSuccess! Feel like a badass!
Had pie for lunch. You can lead a horse to water...

*The author would like you to know that she's currently weighing in at a svelte 159 lbs, thank you very much.

Last year's planner

Last year I chose one of the super cute classic covers, but this year I went rouge. I noticed on Instagram that a lot of girls have covers I couldn't find on Erin Condren's site. I did a Google search and found an image that took me to Etsy. Y'all, there are Etsy sellers that make you custom covers for just $5! So yeah, I totally bought one of those.

Heart by KadyPlansIt

Let my online detective work be your gain. It looks like there are two Etsy sellers who specialize in EC covers:

Evelyn Lane
KadyPlansIt

I went with Evelyn Lane because she is offering 15% off everything right now. She was great and easy to work with. And P.S. if you're new to Etsy, here's a link that gives me referral credit:

http://etsy.me/11FAx4x

Sparkly Dots by Evelyn Lane

So here's the deal. These planners already cost $50 ($40 if you use that link up top) + $8 for shipping. They're not cheap. To do what I did will cost you an additional $15:  $5 for the Etsy cover, $5 to EC to upload your own front cover, and another $5 to upload your back cover.

I'm a special snowflake and it was worth it in my case, but I want to be up front about the additional cost. Also, figuring out how to do this isn't intuitive, so if you decide to go this route, here's a step-by-step guide:

• Buy the Etsy cover and save the png(s) to your computer
• Select the 2014-2015 EC life planner - picture this! full frame - custom colorway
• I didn't want any additional text on my cover, but EC doesn't give you a way out of this, so I opted for a black "2015", which I did by selecting Black as both my primary and accent color, then selecting Other under Personalization and typing "2015" into Line 1.
• Under Capitalization, I chose the "as sampled" option
• Upload your front and back covers. The images will then show up in the boxes under "front cover" and "back cover". Mine didn't do this the first time and I had to start all over. It seems to be a bug in her site. It worked the second time.
• Under Special Instructions, I clicked the "no thanks" option. The other $15 option is if you want to do more than upload images for the front and/or back cover.
• Double check that your shizz is correct, then hit Continue, and you can take it from there.

Her site's a little clunky and could use some updating and a more streamlined way to customize and purchase, but I forgive her because I love these planners so much.

Happy planning!