Project 365

As you all know I am an avid scrapbooker who, like many other scrapbookers out there, just doesn’t have enough time in my life right now to do as much scrapbooking as I’d like to. I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with Project 365. Just in case you’ve been hiding out in a cave-driven there by our current state of affairs-basically it’s Becky Higgins’ new perspective on documenting and preserving her family’s daily life. What you do is take a photo, journal a note, collect a piece of memorabilia, or whatever you want to do, for every day of the week, every month of the year, for an entire year. As you go along you take what you’ve gathered and arrange it in an album or book, and it becomes your family’s documented record of life for that given year. The concept is for EVERYONE to put to use: scrapbookers and non-scrapbookers alike.

I’m very excited about this and have not jumped on the bandwagon yet myself for a reason. I tried to convince myself on New Year’s Day that I was going to take at least one photo every single day from that day on until Dec. 31st. About 4 or 5 days later, I miserably failed to keep up. (Which is why I say every year that I’m NOT going to make any resolutions for that year, b/c I can NEVER keep them up past the first week!) In reading more about Project 365, I realized that I could start at any time of the week, month or year. How cool is that??

2 years ago, I was a lucky winner of a birthday contest that Lisa Bearnson was doing on her blog. One of my prizes (out of the big box of goodies that she sent) was the All About Me album that she had previously sold on QVC that I wasn’t able to afford to purchase at that time.I couldn’t wait to get it all put together and fill it out. 2 years later, I still have yet to put any pics, or journaling in it. At that time I was planning to use it as an album about my life at age 30 (seeing as how turning 30 is a major milestone in a woman’s life). Life on the other hand had other plans for my time. I was pregnant with Little Man and really tired those first 3 months, we had a LOT going on with our house making repairs, replacements, and upgrades, AND to top the year off, my DH made CPO (which put me in early labor & delivery). I never got around to completing that album. Now, when I look at it sitting on top of my album cube knowing it’s STILL empty, I don’t really like the way it makes me feel. I beat myself up inside for not being more organized with my time management over the last 2 years to not have it done. I SHOULD have already had it done by now. IT SHOULD’VE BEEN DONE ALREADY! I could probably try to go back and remember to the best of my ability (after having prego brain) and do it for that year, OR I could just jump right in where I am. (Something I’m learning from FlyLady.) So, here is my Project 365 plan:

Since my birthday is coming up in a few days, for me it’s the start of a brand new year, and technically it is. It’s the start of a new year of another age in my life. I plan to finally use that wonderful album from LB for my Project 365 and call it: “All About Me at 30+2”. I plan to have it stuffed to the max with as many notes, memorabilia, and pics, which by the way I will also start over with taking at least one pic a day as of Day 1-Saturday, the day after my birthday-all the way through January 30th of 2010. I’m very excited to be able to myself another chance to not only put that album to good use, but to also commit myself once again to daily photography & documentation. Most importantly, I’m excited to be able to give myself the wonderful gift of loving myself again by not beating myself up over what should’ve been. 2 years is way too long for an emotional self-beating, and it stops here this weekend!! As far as finding the time to work on my P365, I will also be scheduling it into my day as an important appointment that I must keep with myself, just like all of those other appointments we busy moms flit & flutter to on a daily basis.

I’m also expecting you wonderful people who read this blog to hold me accountable for keeping you updated on how my P365 is going by posting here more frequently than I have been in the past, & sharing some of those pics that will make it into my album. I also encourage you to consider starting your own P365. You can find more details about it this month on Becky Higgins’ blog (see the link on the right under “Friends & Faves”). Becky has also created a fabulous kit just for this specific purpose, as seen above, and unfortunately, it SOLD OUT, but you don’t have to necessarily use that specific kit to do your own. You can find some fabulous tips on Becky’s blog that some of her readers have provided (mostly in the comments section) on how they’ve created their own albums. Again, you can start at ANY time of the month or year, and you don’t even have to be a scrapbooker! We ALL take pictures, and now it’s time to actually do something with them. For those of you who don’t scrapbook, you too can do Project 365! Personally, I feel that it’s very important to leave a part of our legacy to our future generations and this is the absolute PERFECT way to do it.

Have a blessed day! :)