Project Life Week 1: A Book, a Nook, and a Bit of Standard Me

The Project Life experiment continues successfully. I'm hitting it hard with some serious journaling tomorrow. 

Journaling is often the bane of my existence. When I first started scrapbooking, I didn't journal much at all. I thought it would be simple just to remember all of the memories...I didn't need to write them down. Then I came to a couple of realizations...

#1 - It's hard to share my memories with others if they aren't there for them to understand. A picture of someone in the middle of a cornfield won't make a bit of sense without the explanation of why it is important to me. 

#2 - Alright, let's face it, I'm getting older. And I'll be perfectly honest, my memory isn't always stellar. 

I realized that the pictures and the journaling have to be partners. Yes, there are pages that don't necessarily need it - they're just pretty or funny - but the majority of times the memories need to be documented. My LIFE needs to be documented. So...I started writing it down as much as I could. Sometimes it's goofy and sometimes it's not the smoothest, but it's there. 

Maybe one of these days it'll come easy, but for now it's just one of those things I struggle with. All of the thoughts are there, I'm just too lazy to put them on paper. Sometimes it can just be difficult to sift through it all and find the things that are important.

So the journaling has been the biggest challenge of Project Life for me. But I'm persevering. I love this system so much that I'm working hard to keep up with it. Documenting life has become even more important, but vastly easier and a heck of a lot more streamlined.

I mentioned last time that I'm doing a two-page spread for each week of the year. I'm going to share them with you one week at a time. So...here it is...Week 1 (January 1st - January 7th).

I'm kind of learning this system as I go and making changes as I go along. I'm liking the pattern that I've settled into. Each spread has a card with the date and each page at the start of a new month has a section for the name of the month. I know that sounds super awkward, but I can't think of an easier way to say it - just look at the page. You'll know what I'm talking about.

I'm using a hodgepodge of materials to fill my journaling spaces. I'm using the journaling cards provided in the kit, but I'm also using printables I've found from other Project Life users and bits of my own creativity. Yup...occasionally I have those.

The first week of January was the beginning of new resolutions and new journeys. I finished up my bracket for my favorite book of 2011 and decided that it was a project that I really enjoyed in 2011. The excitement increased when I received a Nook as a Mother's Day present from Carole. I'm addicted. I love it. I was reading so much that I upped the ante and decided that the goal for 2012 is 64 books.

Darian decided to join me and made his own goal of 32 books for the year. I'm really impressed with his desire to read so much.

I also managed to pull a standard dumb moment. What would 2012 be without me being an airhead? I went to the post office to mail a package on my lunch break and managed to lose my phone. Twenty panicked minutes late, I located it at the post office. I had dropped it in the parking lot. Crisis averted.

The first week of January was also the start of my journey to get my pain diagnosed. I'd been having random joint and muscle pain since the summer of 2011. During the first week of January, I finally got in to see the rheumatologist. I was in a lot of pain that day and decided to switch vehicles with Collin so that I didn't have to drive the stickshift. I made it home just in time to have Collin call me to say that he didn't have a key to the Ranger. He stubbornly refuses to put the extra key on his key ring. I wound up driving back to his office to give him the key and then made the return trip home. Ridiculous.

So Week 1 ended up being half new starts and half stupid mistakes. All right...quite possibly par for our family.