And here’s the spread for week five. Tried to keep it simple this week, too:
so here’s the left side:
three stories on this page. The first is David and I finally finishing our first book of 2012. The Mysterious Benedict Society. Nathaniel and David’s new passports in preparation for our trip in the summer, and my new personal trainer journey.
And here’s the right side:
I rarely talk about work here but the first week of February was branch day and I am responsible for this new branch so I thought it would be great to look back and remember. I printed out the email I sent to the team and tugged it into a little pocket I sewed up. And the last story is Nathaniel and the batman computer and how he cheers every time he gets the answer right.
As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo along the bottom. I put an extra one from tickle time this time.
So there we go. That’s week five. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.
Happy Savoring.
The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.
And here’s the spread for week four. Tried to keep it simple this week:
so here’s the left side:
two stories on this page. The first is nathaniel sharing his drawing with me and asking me to take a picture of it. The second one is how the kids are sitting head to head and looking at the catalog together. I love it so much.
And here’s the right side:
Three stories here. The first is of David reading to his teddy bear. Then Nathaniel playing peek-a-boo with my parents over Skype. And then the last story is CHA. I worked in the Maya Road booth so I put my badge, my booth sticker and the little make-and-take we made all into the flap with some of my thoughts from the weekend.
As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo along the bottom.
So there we go. That’s week four. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.
Happy Savoring.
The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.
And here’s the spread for week three. I had too many stories this week so I added an extra page and then cut off half of it. This gave me a place to put two more stories and I also restricted some stories to one 4×6 pocket while spreading others over two like usual:
and here it is with the middle flap on the other side.
here’s the little extra page I added:
so here’s the left side:
two stories on this page. The first is nathaniel working on his letters book and then the next is about how the kids are having fun together doing science projects.
then the right side of the middle addition:
this has a little story about Nathaniel and daddy and then one on my new bracelets. I made it so the flap of the card that came with the bracelets sticks out:
back of the flap:
two stories here, too. One on David working on his Book of Good Memories and one on Nathaniel learning to read letters.
And finally, here’s the right side:
Three stories here. One on my book club night and what book we discussed (The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet) and then one on the Michael Jackson Cirque de Soleil I went to (those tickets stick out of the patch too.) And then one on David’s play date with his best friend. (Blurred his friend for the post just in case.)
As usual, the bottom has my art and our weekly family photo along the bottom. Even if the art is sideways, it doesn’t bother me. I like having a record of it.
So there we go. That’s week three. So far, so good. Loving getting to savor these memories again and again.
Happy Savoring.
The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.
And here’s the spread for week two:
These full spread photos are hard for me to take because my lens is not wide-angle enough but I am trying my very best.
Let’s get into a bit more detail. Here’s the left side:
The left side is about how Nathaniel’s always happy and finds a way to occupy himself when I have to work and David’s at school. The other story is about how much I love watching the kids play together. I can see telling this story again and again and again. I will never get enough of it.
Here’s the right side:
The first story is about how David and some of my current thoughts of the boy he’s growing up to be and how much I love him. The second on is our family photo for the week and how much I adore these photo sessions. This, too, I can totally see telling again and again.
As usual, the bottom has my art along the bottom. Even if the art is sideways, it doesn’t bother me. I like having a record of it.
So there we go. That’s week two.
Happy Savoring.
The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.
Ok here we go. Try two. This the real week one of the project since it’s based on the first week of the new year. Life I did with the November Book I picked some photos from the week that had stories I wanted to tell. I printed them on my little polaroid printer (see link all the way in the bottom for details on my printer.) and then I made my four pages.
Let me show you the spread and then I’ll explain the setup:
This old PL album I have is setup so it has 4 4×6 pockets on each side and 4 3×4 pockets along the bottom on each side. I set things up so that I created my “page” on a 6×8 setup and cut it in the middle to create two 4×6’s and put them in the album as if they are 2ups. So there are two stories on each side of the binder. So the full spread has the four stories I hope to capture each week.
And along the bottom I print 3×4 photos of my art from that week. The sketches, art journal pages, collage pages, etc.
Let’s get into a bit more detail. Here’s the left side:
The first story all the way on the left is about how creative David is with his legos and how he takes ideas from other places and incorporates them into his creations. The one next to it is from our little venture out on New Year’s Day where we went to watch the ducks and birds and planes. Along the bottom you see some of my sketches and an art journal page. I know the art journal page is actually vertical and so, put sideways but I am ok with that.
Here’s the right side:
The first story is about how Nathaniel, David and I spent time playing with markers and stamps and how much fun it was to create alongside them. The second one is about Nathaniel and how mischievous he is when he knows I am trying to take his photo and how much he exudes joy no matter what.
And along the bottom are more art journaling pages and sketches from that week.
So there we go. I love the fact that this book will end up holding not just all of our wonderful stories from the year but also a collection of the art I create throughout the year.
Since this project is story-based and not time specific, there might be some weeks where I have more than 4 stories and other weeks where I have less. I am totally ok with that. I plan to flow with it. Some stories might spill to the following week and some spreads might wait until I have more stories. I am not too worried either since there are so many stories to tell all the time.
For me, the biggest loss in using this format is the flipping and extra layers I was able to add to the book. So I might experiment with that throughout the year. I might have some stories that take up the whole 4 4x6s and some that are just single (instead of the 2-up) but overall I think the 2up is the most consistent setup I will use since it seems to be the most flexible one for me. Let’s see how it works out.
On the upside, not only will this binder accomodate the full year of stories and allow me to also put my art in there but it also means everything is in a page protector so the kids can look through it without worrying about anything falling apart. Which is a big bonus.
There we go. I hope you like my new setup as much as I do and I hope hope hope it continues to work for me.
Happy Savoring.
The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.
I am taking two year-long classes at Big Picture Classes this year. I am pretty sure you must have heard of both. Even though these are not amazing, I still thought it would be fun to post my progress each month. If for no other reason than to record things.
One is One Little Word with Ali Edwards. I took this class last year, too. But even though I watched all the videos and kept up with the class, I didn’t do any of the work (well I did the first month only.) As it worked out, I got the Pink Paislee binder she used last year so I decided I would do the assignments as well this year. (Of course, she’s changed format since then but I am still doing them in my Pink Paislee binder anyway.)
Here are my OLW pages so far:
the opening page:
and a photo of me on the back. this was the only photo I had that had just me so I decided to go with it:
and here’s the assignment for january:
and there we go. If you’re not taking this class but do pick a word for the year, I highly recommend the class. It’s a wonderful way to keep your word close to your soul and mind all year long.
The second class I am taking is Cathy’s Move More Eat Well. For me, this class is to do the most important part of the health work I started last year: maintaining. It’s hard to lose weight and eat well, true, but it’s much much harder to maintain it for the rest of your life. And I hope to never have to gain my weight back or lose the exercise routine or start eating badly again. But I know it can all happen if I don’t pay attention. So the class is here to make sure I continue to pay attention.
Here are my assignments so far.
Opening page:
back of opening page. all this was hard work for me, for some reason. and, yes, I used the same photo.
and here’s the page for January:
And here we go. That’s where we are now. I will post a February update once we get there.
Are you taking either of these classes? Do you like them?
As promised, here I am to tell you my new setup for The Savor Project. The first thing I want to do is repost the paragraph that talks about the thinking behind this project:
The idea is to create something that’s sort of an amalgamation of Project Life and December Daily. I did Project Life a few years ago and really struggled to keep up with it. Because I already process and post photos here weekly, it felt uneventful and like a chore to have to print them all out and do it again each week for my book. However, I liked the idea of keeping the odds and ends of ephemera that come into our life. I wanted something more creative and the setup I use for December Daily seemed ideal to me. My plan is to create a minimum of four pages a week with photos, stories, ephemera from that week. If I do more, great. But there’s no pressure. For now I am using my Polaroid Printer for all the photos. It’s crappy but quick and convenient. And quality is not my number one concern for this book.
The reason this is called The Savor Project is because I choose to write longer stories about little moments in my day where I am filled with gratitude. I think savoring life is all about paying attention to those moments more and more. The greatest thing about this project is that I appreciate my daily life, my simple moments, the “ordinariness” of my life that much more. I cherish these moments more. I am more thankful and aware of everything I have. I get to appreciate my kids, our life, right now. It’s like getting to look back up on the “good old days” while they are still happening. It increases awareness, gratitude, and joy.
Since I process my photos daily, I get to savor the moments as they happen, once again as I process the photos and then a third time when I am putting them in my book. That’s a lot of gratitude!
All of the above is still true. However, the more I thought about how to scale this project to create one book to hold my year and the more I saw all the Project Life posts around the net, I thought maybe I could combine my two ideas and find a way to make it work. I struggled over this decision (obsessed even) for a few days. And then finally I decided to try it to see if it would work. (and it did! more on that next week.)
Four years ago, when Project Life was originally introduced as a Kit-of-the-Month club from Lisa Bearnson (it was called Project 365 then and was originated and designed by Becky Higgins, just sold through the KotM), I had bought two of them. I have no idea why I did that since I don’t tend to buy in multiples usually. Anyhow. I use the one back in 2009 and, as I explained above, I wasn’t super happy with the process. I then put the other one in a closet and there it stayed.
Until this week.
I told myself that if i was going to try this out, I wouldn’t buy anything new. I was using the kit I had even if it wasn’t as pretty or “nice” or flexible as some of the newer options. Often times we get carried away in all the possibilities and end up spending more time setting things up “just right” than just doing it. So I dug out my kit, put aside all the stuff that came with it, except for the page protectors. And came up with a system that would make my Savor Project work within the confines of the Project Life system.
And I love it. There are limits that the notebook didn’t have but in general, this system will scale and still allows me to create the concept I wanted. And if it doesn’t continue to work, I reserve the right to change things up yet again! (But I really do hope this will stick.)
So I will start sharing my pages next week but I wanted to show you what I did to my cover and intro page. The original project 365 came with a binder but it has some print on the cover that I didn’t like, so I covered mine with textured fabric paper, velvet, and some sequins. Here’s how it looks:
I covered the back with similar fabric, too, but it’s just plain. And then for the first page, I took all the photos we took as a family last year and made a big collage. That’s 64 photos. And then on the bottom, I added the word Savor since it’s the Savor project and the year. Here it is:
And there we go. So now this is truly an amalgamation of Project Life and December Daily because I will be telling longer stories of small moments throughout the year using the Project Life setup. More specifics next week.
I am more comfortable with this setup as I can see it scaling and working for the whole year. Let’s hope it does!!
One of the reasons I start my yearly projects early is to get a chance to test them out and make sure I have the process part down and make sure that I am going to actually enjoy working on the project. While I always reserve the right to change my mind, alter the project throughout, or even stop it, I tend to prefer to stick with it so I like to give each of them a test run before the year starts.
Such was the case with The Savor Project. I talked about it at length on this post and talked about my plans. I made pages all throughout November and then took a break for December since I was doing the December Daily album then.
When I came back to it to finish my last two November pages, my book looked like this:
It didn’t take long for me to realize that this system wasn’t going to scale. If my book was already this fat in one month, how would I fit 12 more months in it? How many books was I going to need? As much as I liked the idea of having this book and this specific format, I knew it wasn’t going to work for me. So for a few days I completely obsessed over it. And finally found a new format that was a little less ideal than I’d like but will scale to hold the whole year. I will do another post to talk about that project in my next post on Wednesday. For today I wanted to show you the full November album. I changed the cover slightly to reflect the changes and decided to declare this album the Savor November Album. And there we go.
So here’s the new cover:
I just changed the year to 2011 and added a little “nov” and that was done.
Here’s a quick look at the first pages I’d already shared with you with the text explaining them:
That page of journaling comes out and you can read more:
Here’s one from November 7:
And here’s one from November 8:
This one is quite involved as the left page flaps down to tell one more story:
And the right side has a top flap and a tag that comes out from the side and the heart is a journaling tag that also comes out:
this is an extreme example and most of my pages are simpler but it does show how far a spread can be taken:
and here’s an example with ephemera. My jury duty papers:
and our safeway (grocery) receipt from that week:
this is November 10 and 11. On the left is the kids playing together and David’s new desk which we spent all night putting together and he’s already lined up his legos on. I also added the box for the Robitussin because I was sick that week and absolutely hated taking this medicine.
this page has the back of the medicine and then a printout of a bug that caused me to work on a day I was officially off work. I took the 11th as a vacation day but then we had a compatibility issue and I ended up chasing it down all day so it wasn’t really a day off. I printed the public bug report out and put it in the pocket to remind myself.
Behind the printout, I put a photo of Nathaniel surrounded by diapers. This is to remind me that he finds ways to self-entertain when I am busy with work or being sick. And it ends up okay. It might be a mess but he’s happy.
The next spread is just a photo of the kids playing on the left. I was still sick and Jake was out of town. The kids were just sweet as can be. Played quietly and happily. I just feel indescribably lucky. The right page is about when Jake gets home from his trip and the kids are so happy to see him and hang out with him.
And finally the last spread. The one on the left is my performance evaluation. Just wanted to be able to come back and look at them. The right side is both the kids writing at different times of the day and how much joy it brings me to see them at the table and how much they enjoy writing.
and here are the rest of November pages:
November 17. On the left it’s about David and my reading project and the book we were reading then: The Westing Game. The right side talks about Nathaniel looking at all the catalogs we’ve been getting for the holidays and telling me all the toys he wants. And then on the bottom of that page is the first book in my new book club.
left side of this spread is Nathaniel’s sharing day at his school and how fun it was to watch him. The right side is about going to see the fourth Twilight movie with the same friends I’ve seen the last three.
And this page is November 20 – 22. Left side is David feeding Nathaniel and how much I love seeing them help each other. And the right side is about how silly they like to be together and how they always make me laugh.
November 23. I love how Nathaniel loves to go through my notebooks and look at my sketches and my art. So I have a photo of him doing that and some words on how it makes me feel. The right side is a surprise I got in the mail. Even though I had sent an email to Christine, I’d completely forgotten about it so I was very surprised when I got her card in the mail.
so I put the card in a pocket on the right side with the envelope it came in. I love the whole thing. Thank you, Christine.
The next spread is on Thanksgiving Day. On the left is actual Thanksgiving dinner and then on the right it’s all about setting up our tree and getting ready for Christmas.
And here’s the last spread of the month. On the left side is some of the happy mail I got that wasn’t actually Christmas related. A pair of heels from my mom all the way from Turkey and some wonderful prints I’d bought from Kal Barteski. And the right side is photos from the day of art and fun and rest we had during our Thanksgiving weekend.
And that’s the end of this little book. I still have some empty pages in there which I will likely take out and use for other art projects. I love how this little book turned out. I loved working on it and I am very grateful for it. Here’s to hoping my new setup makes me just as happy.
More on Wednesday.
The Savor Project is a weekly project for 2012. I tested it out for November of 2011 and this is the result of my test. You can read more about this particular book here.
The Savor Project is sort of a combination between Project Life and December Daily. Something I created for myself so that I could savor the little moments of our life and preserve our stories. You can read a lot more about it in this post.
Since I started this project in November, the first few weeks I share will be from November. I then took a break for December since I worked on my December Daily album then and I am going back to it for January. So here we are with some pages from November:
this is November 10 and 11. On the left is the kids playing together and David’s new desk which we spent all night putting together and he’s already lined up his legos on. I also added the box for the Robitussin because I was sick that week and absolutely hated taking this medicine.
this page has the back of the medicine and then a printout of a bug that caused me to work on a day I was officially off work. I took the 11th as a vacation day but then we had a compatibility issue and I ended up chasing it down all day so it wasn’t really a day off. I printed the public bug report out and put it in the pocket to remind myself.
Behind the printout, I put a photo of Nathaniel surrounded by diapers. This is to remind me that he finds ways to self-entertain when I am busy with work or being sick. And it ends up okay. It might be a mess but he’s happy.
The next spread is just a photo of the kids playing on the left. I was still sick and Jake was out of town. The kids were just sweet as can be. Played quietly and happily. I just feel indescribably lucky. The right page is about when Jake gets home from his trip and the kids are so happy to see him and hang out with him.
And finally the last spread. The one on the left is my performance evaluation. Just wanted to be able to come back and look at them. The right side is both the kids writing at different times of the day and how much joy it brings me to see them at the table and how much they enjoy writing.
That’s it for this week. More next week.
The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read more this album here. But then I changed setup and here is my new setup.
Well, it’s almost the end of 2011. Another year gone. I remember thinking at the end of 2010 that it had been a great year for me and that I couldn’t possibly do better in 2011. But I was ok with that. 2010 was great and it gave me the support I needed to tackle some newer, more ambitious goals for the following year. If I didn’t do as well, well that was okay, too. It didn’t have to get better.
But it did.
It got so much better. I feel like 2011 was significantly better than 2010 (which is saying a lot considering how I felt about 2010), in just about every way. And I am deeply, deeply grateful.
Projects
Like last year, I want to start by reviewing my projects (the title of each section links to the original post I made in December 2010 about the project I was undertaking):
Daily Diary:
I wanted to do a random photo, daily family photos, 3 gratitudes for me and 3 for david each day. I did this daily all the way up to a few months ago when I switched to posting weekly. The change was very conscious with the intention of creating the space for myself so that I could post more of the “thoughts” posts I used to do in the past. When I look back on the years of my blog, these “thoughts” posts are some of my favorites and I wanted to get back to capturing them more. Having the daily posts made it harder for me to do that. The weekly setup is working well for me and I plan to continue it in 2012.
A Book a Week:
As usual, this wasn’t a big problem. I love reading and do it as often as I can. With two book clubs, I have a lot of external motivation to read literary and interesting books. I have spent a lot of time reading Young Adult novels this week as there seem to be many good ones and I’ve given up reading anything that I consider unnecessarily sad. I am not sure how much longer this Young Adult novel kick will continue but I am ok with it so far. Whatever gives me joy is the motto I’m sticking to. I’m not reading so others can approve. I am reading for me. As it turned out I’ve actually read over 70 books in 2011.
Weekly Art Journal:
Well this has been a success if I say so. I had no idea how this project was going to go. I’d been scared of and interested in Art Journaling for so so long. I had no reason to believe this year was going to work any better than the past, but it did. It did! I’ve made over 200 art journal pages this year. I’ve art journaled consistently since February. I’ve created things I hated and things I loved and everything in between. I’ve taken many classes and experienced with so many mediums. And I’ve found my voice. At least one kind. I’m still playing with this but I feel so much better. I feel like this year has been a tangible step forward in art journaling for me.
Six Portraits a Week -> Daily Sketching:
Well this project morphed. It started with me wanting to learn how to draw faces, which I tried. I took classes, I practiced and I had mixed results. And then I got bored. I secretly wanted to learn to sketch so I changed this project to sketching. Which I did regularly since April. I’ve created over 250 sketches this year. I’ve used graphite, colored pencils, pastels, acrylic, and watercolors. I’ve drawn realistic, whimsical, landscape, portraits, and everything in between. I’ve created a practice. I still have a very long way to go here but I love love love sketching and I am deeply grateful to have picked it up. This is the area I hope to make a lot of headway in next year.
A Book a Week with David:
David and I read 52 books this year. Here’s our list. I am deeply grateful for this project. We read so many incredible books. We laughed. We shared so many moments. He loved so many of them and he is an avid reader on his own, too. For me, it’s some of the most precious moments David and I shared this year.
Healthy for Life:
Another huge success. I lost more than 20% of my body weight this year. I went from being on the top the normal weight range to the very bottom. I went down about 6-8 dress sizes. I started eating almost exclusively whole foods. And, most significantly, I exercised every single day this year. Every day. I am amazed to even write that sentence. I have never ever exercised for more than a week or two in my whole life. This was a huge change in my life. I am deeply grateful for it and very conscious of the effort it will take to keep it up. I’m fully committed to being healthier now and I will not destroy all the hard-work I’ve done in this space. Hands-down the biggest personal accomplishment I’ve achieved in a long, long time.
Us Right Now:
The biggest goal of this project was to make sure I was in more photos with my family. I wanted photos with me in them. And now I have hundreds of them. This project brought all of us so much joy despite the bickering and even yelling during the shoots. We tickled and laughed and made jokes. I love looking at these photos. I love their ordinariness. I love their imperfection. Most of all, I love that I am in them!! I cannot recommend this project enough to everyone.
That’s it for the projects I’d selected for 2011. I did relatively well with all of them and I am happy with how they turned out. I’ve printed all the cards and put them in their albums, too. All set to say good-bye to some and welcome new ones. A sign of a project that really works for me is that I choose to continue doing it. Like I did last year for the gratitude project. I carried the gratitude practice from 2010 to 2011 and will do so to 2012. I am carrying over almost every single project from this year to 2012. This, to me, is a sign that I chose well and have received a lot of joy from doing these projects. Let’s see how they turn out for 2012.
Goals for Each Priority
I had some other goals for 2011, too. Here’s a quick summary on some that are not mentioned and how I think they turned out:
- Start a family night where we all play games or watch movies. This worked out good for the most part. We did it almost regularly and I loved each of them. We will continue this for 2012.
- Take a class with Nathaniel We never did this one. Well, I tried one class but barely went which is rare for me. I disliked it quite a bit. We set a special mommy-and-me project for 2012 so I hope that will work well.
- Schedule minimum bimonthly date nights with Jake We did quite a few of these. Most of them were to the movies. I’d like more variety for 2012.
- Exercise & Food goals I had some goals around running a 10k, which I never did. I decided this is not a goal for me. I don’t really care to race. I just want to exercise. I also wanted to do more strength exercises which I still want to do. I need to focus on this one more. I did ok on vegetables and protein but could do significantly better. But I did finally manage to quit the coffee and graham crackers. (though in the last month, I’ve been drinking one latte a day but I plan to quit that before 2012.)
- Monthly photo excursion I totally did not do this one. I am not sure why honestly. Most of the non-family photos I took this year were of flowers. I like flowers okay but they are not my favorite subject. They were just the most convenient one. I’m going to have to think about this one a bit more and see what I want for 2012.
- Write weekly extended photo articles on my blog I’ll be honest. This is not something I want to do. I sometimes go through these phases where I think of things I “should” do on my blog to get more readers or links, whatever. But then I remember that this blog is mine. It’s my fun, my personal space and for me. It’s not really to make money or draw interest by doing something that feels painful to me. And, so I don’t plan to do this unless I can find a way that makes it fun for me.
- Figure out for once an all if I want an etsy shop and what will go in it Another controversial area for me. Something I felt like I should do but not something I want to do. So, unless some amazing idea comes to me when I am not looking for it, this one is shelved permanently.
- Scrapbooking After the tangible progress in 2010, I felt like 2011 was a quieter year for me and scrapping. I still scrapped quite a bit between all the assignments I had and goals I made for myself. But I certainly didn’t do it as much as last year and I haven’t been feeling the motivation to do so as much. But when I do sit to scrap, I find that it still gives me all the joy it’s always given me. I don’t know how this will evolve in 2012. I am leaving it be for now. I will be scrapping a lot in a different way for the savor project and i will have design team assignments. I am guessing those will keep me busy for a while until I sort out where I want the scrapbooking to go.
- Writing This is an area where I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped in 2011. I did start writing more thought-oriented posts and I loved doing those and I did my newsletters which also made me happy. Most significantly, I started journaling again and it’s had an incredible impact on my happiness. However, I didn’t write a new class, downloadable, or a novel. I don’t want to do any of these things. I think that if I don’t feel ultra-motivated to do it, I shouldn’t do it. Time is precious and I don’t want to waste mine.
- Learning I took a lot more classes than I’d intended. I loved most of them. I didn’t write an ipad app. I didn’t code much at all. I also didn’t make the stop-motion movie. I still hope to do that one. I have some audacious learning goals for 2012. I am scared of them. But that’s the idea.
- Community In the end, I did okay on this one. Not excellent but better than I was. I made some new friends. We had many guests over. This area is challenging for me and I hope to grow more in 2012.
Free
My word for 2011 was Free. I wanted to let go of the past and feel free to do anything I want for my future. I wanted to be lighter by letting go of the load I’ve been carrying around all these years and be free to do, be, feel anything.
Of all the words I’ve had so far, this one seems to have had the most impact on me. I truly feel freer than I’ve been. I’ve spent a lot of time and work on letting go. This area will always be something I need to work at but I’ve made leaps and bounds of progress here. More than I’ve made in 20 years. And I’ve made some huge leaps in moving forward too. Sketching, art journaling, trying new things. These are major leaps for me. Not telling myself that I can’t. Or that I have no talent.
Most significantly, I feel like I’ve become a lot more aware this year. I notice things I do. The ways in which I am not kind to myself. The actions I take as a result of some past history. I’ve been able to course-correct so much more often. I’ve been able to come up with coping strategies. I’ve been able to fix things, let go of things, and embrace things.
And the greatest gift of this year has been an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Somewhere along the line I realized how incredibly lucky I am. How much I have in my life. And since that moment I’ve been feeling a deep sense of gratitude. I can’t even put it into words properly. It’s not just words. It’s a very powerful feeling that washes over me several times a day now. It often stops me in my tracks. It’s fragile and tender and truly wonderful. It allows me to let go of everything because the sensation of gratitude is so wide and so deep. It’s easily been the best gift of this year. I hope to hang on to it for the rest of my life.
And there we go. Another year gone.
Here’s to an even better 2012. May I savor every moment of it.
Like last year, after I thought about my word and my plans for 2012, I began to think more and more about what the word and the priorities meant. Since I tend to be self-reflective during this time of year, this is very long and mostly for my benefit (I like having a record of my plans and my thoughts) so feel free to skip. I won’t be offended.
By the way, this is influenced by Chris’s annual review article. I’ve read this before and have always liked the idea. I’m a technical person at heart and all these specific goals, measurable steps, etc. are right up my alley. Since I have my list of 9 priorities this year, I thought it would be a good exercise to see if I could come up with 3-5 goals for each.
So here we go:
Goals for Each Priority
Family
1. Read to David daily with a focus on longer, more involved books. (We will incorporate these into David’s Book of Good Memories)
2. Take photo of full-family and write updates weekly (Project Weekly Diary).
3. Write a weekly diary of us and daily gratitudes for me and David (Project Weekly Diary) and the gratitudes are on the left column of the blog.
4. Continue our family night where we all play games or watch movies together (Scheduled for Sunday nights)
5. Create letter-focused spreads and art with Nathaniel each week (Project Letters with Nathaniel)
6. Create at least one crafty spread a week with David about things that made him happy that week (Project David’s Book of Good Memories.)
7. Volunteer in both David and Nathaniel’s schools at least twice each semester. (I know this doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s the minimum I hope to do.)
8. Schedule minimum bimonthly date nights with Jake
Health (Project Healthy For Life)
1. Continue running daily, work your way up to 5K a day
2. Find a trainer so I can add basic weight-training and strength exercises weekly
3. Track the food I eat each day. (not fun!)
4. Continue using the fitbit daily with a goal of 10,000 steps a day
5. Get minimum 7hours of sleep every night and 8 on the weekends
6. Eat at least one serving of vegetables and protein daily
7. Start a meditation practice
Work
I don’t share much about work on my blog and I won’t here either but I promise you I have 5 specific goals for work for 2012.
Art
1. Sketch minimum four times a week (Project Weekly Sketching)
2. Art journal weekly using hand-lettering at least half the time (Project Weekly Art Journal)
3. Take at least three art classes
4. Experiment with at least three mediums
5. Try sketching using different sizes. (Really big+really small)
6. Focus on and hone one specific sketch style. (or two or three!)
7. Experiment with collage once a week (Project Journey into Collage)
Storytelling
1. Continue to create for my design teams (Maya Road, My Mind’s Eye, Write.Click.Scrapbook)
2. Create at least four pages (2-spreads) in my book (The Savor Project)
3. Design a class around different ways of storytelling
4. Aim to do 1-2 guest design spots or classes (that I teach) this year
Reading
1. Read a book a week (Project A Book a Week)
2. Read daily to David (longer, more involved books) (Project Reading with David)
3. Regularly attend both book clubs
Self-Reflection
1. Write at least three long thought/idea oriented blog posts a week
2. Journal five days a week
3. Take at least two self-reflection-focused classes this year (already signed up for Body Restoration)
4. Do the exercises in A Minute for Me, daily
Learning
1. Take two classes locally
2. Take four online classes this year
3. Learn to drive on the freeway
4. Learn to ride a bike
5. Learn to collage
Community (This is a particularly hard one for me.)
1. Go out to breakfast/lunch once a week
2. Invite guests over for dinner at least once a month
3. Extend an invitation to someone new once a week
4. Leave comments on blogs I read once a week
5. Respond to comments on my blog + return emails within 48 hours
There we go. As more creep up over the year, I will likely come here and add/alter as needed.
Schedule for Blog
I’ve also come up with a tentative schedule for my blog for 2012:
Mondays – Weekly Layout
Tuesdays – Weekly Sketching
Wednesdays – A Book a Week + The Savor Project
Thursdays – Weekly Art Journal
Fridays – Journey into Collage
Saturdays – Weekly Diary
Sundays – David’s Book of Good Memories(including Reading with David) and Letters with Nathaniel (we will alternate this each week)
I will also aim to post self-reflection/thought posts four nights a week. Likely Monday through Thursday.
And I haven’t decided whether I will continue the monthly newsletter or not just yet.
Thoughts to Cultivate
Last year, I created major focus areas I wanted to have throughout the year. Things that I want to come back to again and again. Some of these I will repeat for this year since I still would like to keep them forefront on my mind. And others are new for this year. These will likely show up in my art journals + self-reflection but I also want to have them here for reference.
1. Let go of worry This is definitely the biggest issue for me. I worry constantly and I worry about the smallest things as well as the big ones. Even though I know worry is a wasted emotion I still can’t help myself. I want to continue work on this very actively during 2012. I didn’t keep a god box last year but I plan to start on it this year. I also want to create worry lists from week to week (I mention the idea in number seven of this post.). I want to be very mindful about what and who makes me worry more and create tangible solutions to each.
2. Slow down and be aware I tend to be an over-achiever which is great but because I am so task-oriented and accomplishment-focused, I often rush through things. I am focused on the end and I don’t enjoy the journey. I don’t slow down. I don’t take my time, explore, learn, grow as much as I could. So my plan this year is to slow down considerably. Take my time drawing. Take my time reading and thinking. If some things don’t get done, that’s ok. I think that much more growth happens when we slow down and approach things mindfully. Since my word for this year is savor, this is something I plan to pay extra-attention to. One change I made from last year was to aim to reduce some of my daily tasks. My goal is to do 4 sketches a week and 4 art journal pages a week instead of doing 7 of each. This way I get a few days off and if I want to I can complete a sketch over two days.
3. Do not yell This one is self-explanatory. I absolutely hate hearing other people yell. And yet I do it more often than I’d like. This year, it’s a non-negotiable. It will not happen. It’s not a 5-10% thing. It’s all or nothing and the goal is nothing. People I love deserve my respect. (This is word for word from last year. I wish I could say I adhered to it. But, no. So for 2012, I want to be more resolute. Stronger. Kinder. Quieter.)
4. Be patient This one sort of goes along with 2 and 3. I need to practice more patience. I don’t need to rush through everything. I have young children. They are good good children. They are kind and generous and sweet. They deserve my patience. So does my husband. And me, too, I deserve being patient with myself. This, too, aligns perfectly with the savor theme.
5. Embrace joy I wrote about choosing joy before. Savoring is all about seeking the marrow of life. I want to seek joy. I want to quit worrying and embrace life and joy and bring forth good things in my life. Joy again and again. This would be so magical if I could do this. Just the idea makes me feel good.
7. Reach out I want to focus on building community more this year. Not necessarily a big one but one that makes me feel more a part of something bigger. I want my kids to grow and cultivate friendships and I want to set an example by doing the same. I am often too lazy or scared to do it. Time to let that go. This also means taking more trips, traveling, and in general getting out of the house more.
8. Be brave and self-compassionate I want to be braver this year. Try new things. Take chances. In all areas of my life. With art, with reaching out, with work, with daily life. And I can only do that if I practice more self-compassion. I want to be an example to my kids that we practice courage regularly. It’s not inherent. I want to show that sometimes we fail but we get up and try again. I want to move away completely from anything that encourages shame-words. I want to practice kindness and patience with myself. I want to show that failure is a part of life and so is showing compassion to oneself.
And there we are. I am sure more will come up. But these are some of what’s on my mind.
Here’s to hoping 2012 is fantastic for all of us!
Last year, I decided I wanted to art journal more. I’d been watching Donna’s Inspiration Wednesday videos and loving them. I had said, “I want to make this more of a regular practice in my life. I think it will go a long way in helping me expand my art.”
Here are few things I wanted to use art journaling for:
– explore new techniques
– try different mediums
– practice drawing
– play around with different color combinations
Well, as it worked out, I did A LOT of art journaling in 2011. I started with weeklong art journal pages inspired by Julie. I started that project on February 1 and created weeklong pages until October 31. Here are the three sets of images with the pages I created for that journal:
There is a lot of variety in the pages:
And a few vertical ones:
A few weeks after I started that journal, I grabbed a Moleskine sketchbook I had on hand and started to do more pages. Here are the two sets from that journal:
This was all about playing with different mediums and colors.
Then I bought a Strathmore Visual Journal and played with that. This journal was special to me because it’s when I started to find my own unique voice and started adding stitching.
Then I grabbed the Fabriano Roma papers that had been under my desk for almost three years and finally put them to use.
I love these pages because of their size and texture.
Knowing I preferred loose pages and not having to bind, I bought a Komtrak journal which allowed you to take the papers off and put them back on.
With this set I also tried to draw more, be more creative.
I also had some Fabriano Artistico papers that had been in my stash from last year so I also put those into good use.
I like the different size I cut these papers into. More playing with color and texture and stencils with this set.
And then I tried the last paper I had at home which was Canvas Paper. Not a huge fan of this texture but that’s ok. It was still worth a try.
I then decided to go back to the Roma paper which I loved (despite it’s terrible cost! ouch!) and decided to add my journal pages to my daily notebooks so for now the size is a bit restricted by the Moleskine but I am loving the regular art journal practice.
I’ve also started attempting to use handlettering on my pages since it’s something I want to work on and eventually plan to incorporate the sketching and drawing practice into the journals as well.
As you can see, this project was quite successful in 2011 and I have no doubt that I want to continue it for 2012. I now have six or seven art journal-specific boards in my pinterest and will continue to pin ideas I like.
I might also start doing different, bigger pieces again. But for now, I will just try to stick to whatever I feel like doing without stressing myself too much about branching out. I am sure things will evolve and change in 2012 as I keep creating pages and trying new mediums and incorporating lettering.
My goal is to make at least four pages a week. Three cheers for art journaling in 2012!
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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