Weekly Diary – December 28 2013

Here the last photos from this year:

We cleaned up the board game closet this week so the boys played all the games.

then we drove around the neighborhood for some Christmas spirit and lights. This one was a favorite.

then it was Christmas eve, so the boys got to open one present as it’s our tradition. This year, I’d preselected the one they got to open. (That’s why it has different wrapping paper pattern.)

the reason i picked it was because they each got rainbows for their room, which only worked at night so it was a perfect Christmas eve present.

i was worried they wouldn’t work, but they were quite neat.

Christmas day the boys were awake at 6am so I set the table and made some cinnamon rolls and chocolate chip waffles. some fruit, marshmallows, chocolate chips and hot chocolate completed the breakfast.

and, of course, the tulips. i get tulips each year.

we took a photo but there was literally no light at all. it was still dark outside.

then it was time to open the stockings.

and, finally, the presents.

Nathaniel got to go first.

then David.

he kept trying to guess what it was.

and here’s his “thank you so much” face.

he was just as interested in Nathaniel’s presents, of course.

Nathaniel made us some awesome cards at school and here he is presenting his gift.

playing with all the toys is the best part of Christmas.

reading the lego book.

Nathaniel “reading.”

David finally got a microscope after asking for it for years. He was quite thrilled.

then we took some family photos.

the kids just wanted to play, of course, so they are looking at their presents instead of the camera.

and then we screamed Merry Christmas!

and here we go. so grateful for my life. i hope your week was lovely, too. here’s to a lovely 2014!


Weekly Diary is a project for 2013. You can read more about it here.

Looking Back – Favorite 2013 Thoughts Posts

Even though I didn’t write nearly as many as I would have liked, I wrote around ninety of them this year. Not terrible, especially considering how little I wrote in the last few months. I wanted to share some of my favorites from the year. These are my favorite part of my blog and I always wish I would take the time to write more. It’s how I grow, reflect and learn.

And if you haven’t already seen it, This is Water by David Foster Wallace was, by far, my favorite video all year. I re-watch it regularly:

Bodrum 2013

Before this year ends, I wanted to make sure to share with you my Smash! album I made for our trip home this past summer. I bought the album with the intention to do it while I was there. I bought one for me and one for David. I figured we could journal and collect ephemera while there and do the photos when we got back.

Alas, I didn’t really touch mine. (David didn’t either.)

So when I got back, I decided to sit and do it all. And it took much much longer than I’d anticipated. As it dragged on, I got alarmed that the Smash book had so many more pages than I was going to be able to use. After months of being really sad about this, I was finally able to get over it by removing the last few pages that I knew would be blank. Ta-da! Now I feel good.

So here are the pages:

I bought the doodle one as it was the one I’d wanted to have all along.

i don’t know why this photo is so blue but nonetheless, i covered it with some washi tape to make me happy.

the first few pages is about los angeles where we spent two nights before flying home.

another page about la.

our tickets, about the trip, and the yummy hazelnuts they give on turkish airlines.

a lot of journaling about the first few days.

dad’s map of where we are and the places we’d been so far. and some photos.

my parents’ house is in the Gundogan bay.

more photos and a little bit about how we split our time.

my nephews and my favorite things about being with them.

doing the values exercise on my sister and staying up till the wee hours of the morning.

some of my favorite photos.

and ones of my sister, mom and me. i love these so much.

the boys playing in the sand. and waterguns.

just how much they played with my kids. my nephews are awesome.

mom and dad, who made all this possible.

more sand play.

a few final photos I love so much.

some wrappers from our food there. a little photo of bodrum.

and some luggage tags on the way home.

there you go. a little, lovely album to remind me of the magical times at home.

December Daily Twenty-Two through Twenty-Five

And here we are:

I didn’t want to overthink these pages so I cut my page of two 4x6s in half and put one of the boys playing chess.

and a movie on the back.

then a little card i got in the mail.

from big picture classes. so grateful for them.

then it’s christmas eve and the boys opening their one present. little rainbows for their room.

our family photo on christmas day.

love the shiny.

a card nathaniel made for us for Christmas. It’s a cheetah!

and a picture he drew on Christmas day, it’s hot lava and acid!

And our christmas breakfast table.

and finally tulips. I always end with tulips and my word for the next year.

and here we are. so grateful for this project.

Gratitude Journal 2013 – Looking Back

Gratitude journal was a new project for 2013. I wasn’t sure where it was going to go but I loved the idea of writing my and David’s gratitudes daily and I knew it would give me an opportunity to do regular art. Of all my projects for 2013, it was probably the one that felt the easiest and least burdensome even thought I did it daily.

Even though I can’t say I was a huge fan of the actual journal I used, I loved the variety and freedom this format gave me. The watercolor one I used for The Weeklong Journal project was much more fun, paper-wise. I think I am just a fan of watercolor paper. I find it more versatile and I feel it makes the colors much more vibrant.

Putting the paper aside, I loved this project. I loved the freedom it gave me, I loved writing down my gratitudes, and having them all in a book. I loved all the color and joyful pages.

Here are some of my favorite pages:

as you can see i have more than a few:

which is a good indication that this project was a success joy-wise!

As we approach 2014, I decided to take a break on this, however. I might bring it back for 2015 but I like being able to vary things around and I needed something different. Having said that, I believe the daily gratitude practice is too valuable to give up so I think I will make it a part of my Savor Project for next year.

Merry Christmas 2013

May you have a lovely Christmas Day!

A Book a Week – Parallel

Parallel was an impulse read. I saw it and decided I had to read it. So I started and finished in one swoop. I don’t care if it wasn’t high literature.

I loved it.

It was a fun, fast read and if the genre is your style, I highly recommend it.

I find that it’s always good to shake up the reading every now and then so I don’t ever get in any kind of rut. Given the choice, I’d always read amazing books but those are hard to find. So having some fun ones like this in between okay books is always good to have.

December Daily 2013 – Day Twenty-One

Today is a bunch of events from the last day of school. David singing and also reading from his myth at school.

David’s friend surprised us with cookies on our door, so I added the note to our book, too:

and the program from David’s school.

and the inside.

there we go. See you tomorrow. Merry Christmas! 🙂

The Savor Project 2013 – Looking Back

Well Savor Project didn’t go marvelously in 2013.

It started out well enough and I will say that I liked the single-page, 9-pocket option much better than the double 12×12 I used last year. But I noticed that I journaled a lot less, the journaling wasn’t meaningful and it became this project of printing photos. I don’t usually feel a need to print photos so it felt more like a burden than joy. It felt frustrating and chore-ish. I switched to digital about halfway through the year and that was easier but I am not sure it was any more meaningful so I ended the year with mixed feelings.

And they are still with me.

I am still grateful to have done all that I did and I am not ready to give up on the project in any way. But I know that I will be changing it for next year.

Here’s what’s on my mind for now:

  • It will be fully digital
  • This will mean I have to find some solution for ephemera
  • I will journal more, and more meaningfully
  • I will have to figure out what made it burdensome (and not as meaningful) this year so I can not do it.
  • Whatever solution I have will not require that each week be present so there will be no pressure

I will sit on this a bit more and then share with you my plans for 2014. As with 2013, we’ll consider it an experiment and see if it works and adjust and alter accordingly.

If you’re doing Project Life and have some tips or ideas you want to share, I would love that.

December Daily 2013 – Day Twenty

Today is really simple. I had these photos of the boys playing together that I just loved so much. I printed them and then added a bit of journaling and a strip of washi to the bottom of each.

there we go. See you tomorrow.

December Daily 2013 – Day Nineteen

A little behind with my book, just felt like doing other things instead. This day is about being in Nathaniel’s classroom and “cooking” together. We made English muffin faces.

And then a little card from Nathaniel’s big buddy at school.

and the inside.

there we go. See you tomorrow.

Gratitude Postcards 2013 – Looking Back

2013 was my year of gratitude. I did two weekly projects that were to be focused on gratitude. However I will admit that most of these postcards did not end up getting sent. So maybe that can be my 2014 project. Sending them out, reaching out to people for whom I am thankful for and having an excuse to mail them. If there’s a card you’ve loved and you really want, let me know and I can try to mail it to you.

here are a few of my favorites:

I had mixed feelings about these little cards. I loved the idea of watercolor postcards and I loved working on them with David, too. We did actually send all of his.

But the paper was harder to work with than my watercolor Moleskine journals or the Arches paper I usually use for my projects. It was hard to use it with stencils and not have the paint seep under. I ended up using sponges a lot (which I don’t in my other paper).

All in all, I think this was a fun project and I’d recommend it.