{Week in the Life - Why I Participate}

I posted my photos first thing this morning, but I wanted you to see Ali's blog today, which includes a link to her Thursday post from the 2010 project. I just love her perspective on things.

Love this quote!
"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return." - Mary Jean Iron

I know some people who are reading have no idea who Ali Edwards is or why I do this Week in the Life project. That quote is the best way I could possibly describe it.

Scrapbookers and photographers often capture the big events, but what about all the little things that make up life? My first two memories are of playing with Legos with my dad and my puppy when I was less then 4 (I only know that because we were in a different house back then), and "helping" my grandma do dishes the week my parents brought my brother home from the hospital (so I was almost 3). I'm 99.9% sure that pictures of those two things don't exist (if they do, I haven't found them yet). 25+ years ago, not very many people took pictures of ordinary, every day things.

25 years from now, I want to remember what my life was like every day. Not just the birthdays, holidays and important events. Not just when there's friends over or family gatherings. Not just my adorable puppies.

All of those things are important, but the little, ordinary moments are pretty important too.

{Week in the Life - Thursday}

Happy Friday!

And so it continues. The project is officially half done now, and apparently, yesterday was where I hit my wall. I only took a few pictures (and a few screen shots of things on my phone and computer). But, that's typical for me. Some days are interesting, others are not. Yesterday just was one of those days where I went through the motions and didn't think a whole lot.

Here's what I came up with (not including Mike's pictures that he hasn't sent me yet):

There's a few other screen shots of text conversations that I captured, but this is the bulk of it. I think it's okay to have a slower day of photos, and with the way I'm doing my layouts, it really won't make much of a difference.

The good news for this morning is that I'm pretty sure I've already taken more pictures before 8am than I did all day yesterday. The "day off" I took yesterday has recharged me and will help me finish up the last 3 days.

Short post today, but I'll be back with more at some point this weekend for today's photos, and probably do the weekend photos on Monday (we'll see what the weekend looks like).

Have a great one!

{Week in the Life - Wednesday}

Good morning all!

I'll get to my pictures for Wednesday's Week in the Life in a minute, but I think I figured out how I'm going to do my layouts for this project next week and I wanted to share. Originally when I started, I thought I'd do a collage a day or something just to give a snapshot, but there are times when I've been able to take more pictures and times when I forget or haven't been able to. I was thinking it might be better to do snapshots of times during the day and include pictures from that time over the course of the week.

So, maybe one time will be morning routines, one will be the commute to work, one will be work, and one will be evenings. I don't know if I'll use those for sure, but just to give you an idea. Then I can include all the pictures I've taken in the mornings and journal about my typical mornings from the time I get up until I leave for work.

My days are filled with a lot of routine. I rarely do the same things throughout the day, but I can pretty safely say my schedule is as follows:
4:30am -5:45am - get ready for work
5:45ish am - 7:00am - driving to work
7am-4pm - working
4pm - 6ishpm - driving home/running whatever errands need to be run in Omaha
6ish pm - 9pm - evening chores/crafting/spending time with Mike & the dogs/dinner/etc.
9pm - bedtime

Now that that's established, there isn't a whole lot more to say on the subject of what I do all day. I'd much rather show shap shots of those blocks of time all at once to give a much better picture of what that routine looks like.

I'm still planning on including this in my Project Life album. I know a lot of people are making separate albums for this project, but I really think it will compliment my Project Life well, and I want the two things to be linked together going forward. I'll probably do a 12x12 spread for each of the time periods, along with journaling cards. I know I have extra page protectors that came with the Project Life kit, so I might just use those, or I may figure out something else entirely to give the Week in the Life project some uniqueness within the album. I'll probably decide when I'm assembling everything next week to see what works best.

Alright, enough of my rambling...here are the photos from yesterday:

First - I took less pictures than normal yesterday. My phone battery was dying and I'd forgotten my charger at home, so I was pretty conservative while I was at work. (I also feel like I have enough pictures of work, except for some things like the outside of the building).
Second - Mike's still doing a great job with taking his pictures (I asked him to take 2 per day). Yesterday, he sent me one of his office and one of his drive to work since it was foggy and raining.
Third - I took a few more "at home" pictures last night, until my phone died completely. For whatever reason, I've haven't been motivated to do much around the house this week, and I've basically been sitting on the couch, watching DVDs, looking at recipes, brainstorming ideas, and above all else, avoiding the ridiculous heat. I think I may be able to focus more on the home stuff tomorrow evening when Mike doesn't work late and this weekend (at least I hope so, or those days are going to be pretty empty!)

If you haven't had a chance yet, sign up for the (free) Big Picture Classes class on Week in the Life. I've been loving connecting with the ladies on the message boards and looking at the gallery for inspiration every day. Everyone has come up with such great ideas, I can't wait to see the finished product!

Have a happy Thursday everyone!

{Week in the Life - Tuesday}

Hi kids,

Day 2 in Week in the Life was about the same as Day 1. I took a reasonable amount of pictures, and remembered to take a few after I got home from work. That's been the biggest challenge for me, taking pictures around home. Which is backwards from most people, I think, but I just get caught up in what I'm doing and forget to take a picture. I also don't carry my iPhone with me at home like I do at work, so that might be part of it.

Here's the majority of the pictures from yesterday (a few won't upload, for some reason):

Things I want to remember:

When I was taking pictures first thing in the morning, my iPhone suddenly went black and wouldn't turn on. I was in major panic mode, thinking I'd lost all my notes and pictures on the phone. I figured it out once I got to work, but it's very clear how dependent I've become on the technology in my life.

A couple of the pictures were taken accidentally, but I included them, because why not?

I made stroganoff for dinner, which is one of Mike's favorite dinners, because it's too freaking hot to grill out right now (as we normally do during summer months). It was weird to stand in the kitchen and cook something I normally consider a "winter meal" but Mike was happy he didn't have to wait until the weather cooled off to have it.

My brother and I were texting about my nephew's school supply list, and I realized how quickly he is growing up. Michael is 5 years old and about to start kindergarten. I cannot believe it.

I have a to do list around the house and with crafty things that is easily longer than my arm, and yet I did nothing last night but watch Gilmore Girls DVDs and cuddle with Molly. I needed the night off, so I took it.

I hope everyone's WITL is going well! Thanks for the sweet comments yesterday, especially about Mike's participation in this project. He is extremely supportive of whatever I do, and this project is no different. There may be a little grumbling, but I love to see things from his point of view.

Happy Wednesday!

{Week in the Life - Monday}

Hi folks,

This week is the Week in the Life project I've been talking about! If you're a friend of mine on Facebook, you've seen most of the pictures I'm posting already. Uploading them to an album in Facebook has done a couple of things for me: 1) it's keeping me on top of getting the photos off my camera (in this case, my iPhone), and 2) it's helping me see the big picture. I love looking at the album as I upload and seeing all the pieces of my day come together like that. I've been writing little notes along with the photos, but not really telling the whole story. I'll probably use my blog for that, and journal as I go along.

So, here we go :)

This was my view on the way to work on Monday. Normally, I'm asleep in the passenger seat on the way to work (because we carpool), but the husband has been working a lot of overtime lately and we've been driving separately.

My first stop when I get into the building at work. Must have my morning caffeine. And apparently, I'm too lazy to put soda in the fridge at home and just take one from there.

First things first in the office...Dr. Pepper and my name tag. I have 3 name tags, and I rarely remember to wear them, but the State of Nebraska is in our building this week, so I'm being extra careful about following the rules.

My heap of a desk when I walked in this morning. This is exactly how it was left on Friday afternoon, and is pretty typical of Monday mornings. I can't wait to leave on Fridays, especially when I work late (like I did last Friday).

I saw this quote on the Big Picture Classes website and thought it was so perfect that it would be the quote on the day I started this project. So, of course, I took a picture of it!

I decided I would try to find a different way to show the date on each day of this project (just for something challenging). This is my date stamp for received invoices, set to yesterday's date.

The WITL message board on the Big Picture Classes website. If you're doing WITL and haven't checked this out, I highly recommend it! I spent quite a bit of time on the message board yesterday looking for ideas and inspiration and connecting with others doing this project.

Here's a screenshot from my flight confirmation for a trip in August. We've only been taking about one flight a year since we got married (which is less for me and more for Mike), so I'm excited to be making reservations! I also thought it was funny that it tells me how much I saved at the bottom since I'm into saving money lately.

Mondays usually = headaches for me. I also have issues with photographing paperwork, but I managed to when I dumped my Aleve out on the desk. I spent most of my work day yesterday figuring out logistics for an upcoming event.

This is huge news in our family since we love football, and because an upcoming vacation will involve an NFL game. Another funny thing...when we were younger, my cousin and I used to laugh so hard at our grandma for taking pictures of things happening on TV. And here I am, taking pictures of a computer screen. I guess I've come full circle.

I asked Mike to take at least 2 pictures a day of his version of our life. I would have loved to see photos from my dad's point of view or Grandpa's growing up. Memory keeping seems to be a one-sided thing a lot of the time. But, Mike jumped on board and sent me this picture of him in his headset at work.

I have almost no words for walking into Hobby Lobby and seeing Christmas decorations.

The more I think about it though...this is how my world works, looking forward about 6 months. At work, I'm planning events for the fall already. With my craft projects, I'm planning for this in October and November, and brainstorming projects for Christmas gifts. I guess it's not that outrageous.

Traffic as I was running errands through Omaha after work. This isn't something I'm used to seeing, even on the way home from work normally.

Home. After such a long drive home, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see this sign because I know I'm almost there. I also laugh a little to myself, because it's such a small town...my high school class was bigger than our population.

One of my favorite parts of the day is checking the mail. If Mike is with me, we try to anticipate what we'll have (anything but bills, hopefully), and I usually ask, "What do you think I got for free today?" because I've ordered coupons and samples that I don't even remember.

A blurry picture of Miss Molly, begging for attention (as usual). I love seeing her at the end of my day...so full of wiggles.

And the Abby, before I let her out of her "box." Poor poochie whines the second I walk in the door until I let her out. It's kind of cute.

Politely waiting to go outside and play. She wants out the second I get home. Molly is content to cuddle with me for awhile (especially since we started keeping her on a leash to keep her from visiting the neighbors. A mile away.)

Here's another one of Mike's pictures, from doing chores with the cows. I don't know what the dogs were doing when they were "helping" him, but they came back in the house smelling like cattle too. Gross.

That's that for Monday. One of the things I want to remember being thankful for is the technology that's part of my life. I think about how much harder this project would be if I didn't have access to an iPhone that uploaded the photos I take automatically, and well...I don't ever want to go back to that :) So many of the pictures I take stay on my camera and then get uploaded to my computer and forgotten about. It seems like such a waste to not really enjoy them.

You'll notice the difference in the looks of the pictures...I'm shooting mostly with the Instagram app for iPhone...they have a ton of great filter options that I love using. I'll probably stick with it going forward for the week, because it makes the process fun, which keeps me going.

One last note: seeing all these pictures together, here on my blog, or in my Facebook album makes me realize that I lead a very busy and full life. Sometimes it's easy to get discouraged in the scrapbooking world because we don't have kids yet - so many projects, albums, and layouts center around children and family (and that's great!) But, it makes me wonder from time to time why I would even really want to focus on memory keeping until we have them. And then I think about how I'd like to know what my parents' life was like before my brother and I invaded it. Or what my grandparents' lives were like before they had kids. It would be so interesting to read about that since most of the stories I've heard are about life after kids. I hope someday that my children and grandchildren will want to look and photos and read stories about Mike & me and our lives.

I hope you're enjoying this project if you're doing it. If you aren't doing it, it's not too late to start, or to pick a week in the future to do this project!