:: goals and my olw ::

Most people post goals on their blogs at the beginning of the year, month, week.  Nope.  I'm posting in the middle of the week toward the end of the month, and twenty three days into the year; I'm fun like that, yo!

I decided that I cannot do a post about my word for this year, without also sharing some goals I set for myself.  I also couldn't share my goals without my one little word.  They are so connected.

If you are a friend, or happen to have followed my blog over the last year or so, you will know that 2012 was a rough year, a rough year that actually started October of 2011.  :-)  Our miscarriage, my oldest daughter's marriage dissolving, adjusting to her and nearly two-year-old Mikaela moving in (but I was glad they were with us), Mikaela's accident and death, and several other deaths in our family, to name the biggies.  Ugh.  I'm am glad that is over!  There were positives to last year too, and I have NOT forgotten them.  My mother, who lost a daughter to a car accident many years ago, said something quite wise to me during all of this, "There will always be a hole, but I don't have to live in it."  I am happy to say that she is completely right (as usual) and that I haven't been living in it, but I'm keenly aware that it's there!  :-)

What a powerful quote this has been for me!  I am happy to say that my oldest daughter is participating in Ali Edwards' One Little Word class with me.  I am so excited about that!  Her word is strength. What a wonderful word for anyone, and perfect for her.  I contemplated that word myself, but another one just kept coming at me.

Be Present. If I've learned anything over this past year or more I've learned that nothing is permanent, and that it is important to embrace the present...and be present for yourself and for those around you.  So present it is.  I need to remember to live in the present, not worry obsess about what the future brings  (at least not too much) because it 'empties today of it's strength'.  And today is so strong.  Completely connected to that, my word is also about being present for my family. Listening to my Soul Mate completely; noticing, appreciating and loving him as he deserves. Three year olds, work and life can make that seem impossible sometimes, but it's so important, and so possible.  Computers, blogs, and memory keeping also get in the way, if you let it.  My goal with this word is not to let it. And work, let's not forget work -- it can so easily engulf you me if allowed to, and I must not allow it.  Being present is about being present in both body and mind. So, my focus with this word is also related to choosing to be physically present at those things that are important to me, namely with family & friends.

I will continue to share my adventures with this word in future posts.  As I finish Ali's first prompt (which has been amazing to work through) I will also post pictures of my product, and more about my focus and experiences with this word. What a fun journey this word will bring me.

Goals.  In addition to Ali's class I am also participating in another self-paced class at Big Picture Classes.  This one is with my other mentor, Elise Blaha Cripe, called I Choose, and it's all about goal setting.  It seems so funny to call Elise (who is more than ten years younger than me), a "mentor", but I cannot think of a more perfect word to describe it.  I would love to be more like her when I grow up -- she starts and finishes things!  LOL. The class has helped me to look at goal setting a bit differently, and likely more manageable.  I'm looking forward to getting 'er done.  I think this has been a perfect match with OLW for me this year.  Many of my goals are silly and fun, and others are more serious and connected with keeping my word close to me.  My plan is to "share as I go" with this one.  I thought about following Elise's lead and sharing a list at the beginning of the month and then checking them off as I go, but I think I'm going to let these goals seep into my blog as we go, if that makes sense.

Seep. If you follow my instagram feed or flickr, you may have already caught a glimpse of one of my goals. Do you pin stuff on Pinterest and then never do anything about it?  One of my goals is to do something with all of these lovely pins; do a project, use a sketch, scraplift a layout, make a recipe, transform my house, etc.  At least one per month.  At least that's how I'm looking at it now. So, by the end of the year, I will have done at minimum twelve projects that I've pinned.  Not too lofty, but still progress compared to pretty much nothing.  ;-)  I have a feeling that I will end up surpassing this goal, and I may even beef the goal up more as the year progresses.  Either way, this is one that I hope to share here, and I'm calling it my Pinterest Challenge.  If you want to play along, I would love to hear about what you are doing, please share!  I have met this goal for January and will share soon.  There have already been sneaks, so it may not really be a secret.  ;-)

More information about One Little Word with Ali Edwards can be found here (and the class is still open).  More information about Elise Cripe's I Choose class is here (and it's a self-paced class, that is also open)!  Also there are links on my sidebar!

Peace, love and understanding to ya!
:-) o.g.

project life 2013 :: week 1

Week One Spread

Holy smokes, Batman! This project life thing is addictive!

Week One :: Left Side

Week One :: Right  (I will probably write a bit on the photo with the hole in the glass, but I haven't decided exactly what to write yet!  It's quite the story.

Here's the lo-down: I'm not yet satisfied with my "product", but the "project" is awesome. What does that mean? It means...

I love the idea of Project Life, or at least my idea of Project Life. I am an everyday scrapbooker. When I am motivated to document something with photos and words, it is almost always something that happens in everyday life, and almost never an "event" (such as a birthday or holiday or reunion, etc.). Project Life, as I see it, is exactly that...documenting the everyday. I especially realized that this might be for me when I did my December Daily 2012. I am loving the memory keeping part of this project.

My product isn't there yet. I think I'm not in the groove, or maybe I just haven't found my style for PL. That is OK. The project is worth doing, and I know that I will figure out the product part as I go.  In fact, I have almost completed week three, and each week the product has gotten better, or at least closer to something I can be happy with. I'm going to try really hard not to go back and fix the stuff that I don't like.  :-)  Also, I am a bit worried that I won't make traditional layouts anymore, mostly due to time constraints, and I'm not sure that this project meets my needs in the creativity department. That is totally what is adding to my dissatisfaction when it comes to the product.  I can't put my finger on what I don't like exactly other than it just looks amateurish, which is probably understandable, since I AM! :-)

A bit about how I am tackling this project: I decided to have my weeks go from Sunday to Saturday. I have no reason for this, I just had to pick a starting day and I didn't like starting on a Tuesday (Jan. 1st) so I chose Sunday. I may need to switch that at some point (maybe not until next year) so that my weekends are together.  Not sure. Did you notice that I'm already talking about next year? That is how much I love this project and it's only been three weeks. It's difficult for me to imagine not doing it...indefinitely. Anyway, so Week 1 started on Sunday December 30.  I am also attempting another 365 (photo a day) project, and sharing on flickr.  However, I am not tackling Project Life in that way.  I don't necessarily include every 365 photo in my book.  And I'm OK with that. I imagine that many of them will be included, which is cool, but not necessary.  Also I am using both my Canon and my iPhone (can't wait to upgrade the iPhone though). I do plan to incorporate quotes each week (sneak: so far they are all related to my One Little Word, but I don't know that it will stay that way). Finally, I'm looking at this as more of a "week in review" and not being super strict about having a photo or story for each day.  So far I think I actually do have a photo/story for each day, but I'm not worried about too much, it's mostly about the stories!

I am using the Becky Higgins Project Life Seafoam Core kit designed by Elise Blaha Cripe.  It wasn't available when I started, and I'm impatient, so I decided to purchase the digital kit and print from that for those first couple of weeks.  I am so glad I did that. I liked being able to start right away and not feel like I was behind from the get go. Plus, I think I may use, modify, and print cards from the digital kit throughout the year.  I like being able to change the cards a little bit before printing. Here is one example of that:

On the original the stripes were all the mustard color. I wanted orange (of course), so I changed it in PhotoShopt to orange using the eyedropper tool to pick the color, and then the paint bucket to color each stripe.  Then I decided that I wanted one stripe aqua, so I repeated the same process with aqua for one of the stripes.  LOVE the result.

I think this will help keep the kit fresh for me.  The kit is awesome. And I love it even more now that I have it in person!  I'm not sure that I will be able to use just the kit all year, though, so I will likely incorporate other papers and things throughout the year. I will probably not link every single product that I use because I want to get the blog updated and that part holds me back (just sayin')! So, if you want to know something specific, just ask in the comments and I will do my best. 

I also purchased some (digital) Project Life Templates and I'm using them to help myself organize each week.  I hope to be able to share that process at some point, but I'm just figuring it out myself, so it will need to wait!

I ordered a bunch of flair from my favorite place: A Flair for Buttons.  Shelley wrote me a nice little note, so I kept it!

This is the note hidden behind one of her cards and little baggies that flair arrived in!

This week's supplies: Seafoam digital kit (printed out). My badges are from A Flair for Buttons, and I've thrown in a bunch of stickers/labels which are mostly from Elle's Studio.  My alphas this week are mostly Amy Tangerine, and the  "January" calendar card is from Paislee Press (I will probably use one of these in the first spread of each month).  The "hello" stamp is from Target.  I stamped it directly on the calendar card, and then again on something else.  I used my 1 inch circle to cut it out of the second piece of cardstock and then use a foam square to make it pop off the page a bit. When I write on photos I use American Crafts Slick Writers. This week I also used these awesome Hero Arts/Studio Calico stamps and all of the ink is StazOn.  Then, of course, my other addiction besides flair, washi tape. The washi I used this week was Freckled Fawn and Recollections (from Michael's).

Week two is also completed, and week three just needs a few finishing touches.  Will share those soon!

Final  note: I totally thought our lives might be too boring for Project Life.  But during this week we had our window shot at (seriously, it was just a pellet gun, but this is another indicator that we need to move), we had visitors, I got tons of happy mail, we celebrated a birthday and visited old friends.  Whew!  Guess we aren't as boring as I thought!

Peace, love and understanding to ya!
:-) o.g.

Confused about Project Life?  Check this out from Becky Higgins.

~ december daily one of two ~

Saying goodbye to 2012 is AWESOME!  I am ready to say hello to a new year and new projects.

I loved December Daily so much, that I'm going to attempt Project Life.  Wish me luck.  I've decided not to share all my DD pages here because I don't think anyone wants to see all of them!  So, I will post a few here, and all of them can eventually be found here on flickr for those that are interested (days 1-15 are there now, I still have a couple of journaling spaces to finish and then I will share the rest on flickr)!

I was thinking it might be easier to share my book and process in a video.  I have things that I want to share, but I just think it would be easier in a video!  I've been going back and forth for a week or two about if it's worth it to create a video that maybe no one will watch.  :-)

Moving on...

I am excited for OLW again!  I'll share more about my word, why I chose it, and my first layout in the next couple weeks.  I'm excited that my oldest daughter will also be participating this year!  It is going to be so much fun to do this with her!


We have been super busy around here -- PLAYING (mostly building things).  It has been wonderful to be able to experience Christmas with my three year old.  It was truly magical for her, and for that I am thankful.

I wish you all a wonderful 2013!

Coming soon ::  December Daily post #2 and Project Life post #1!  (I'm not sure if I will share every week, but I would love to share my process as I begin this project for the first time).