New Years Resolutions for 2014

Happy 2014 Everyone!!

I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating last night and that the stress of finding the perfect party or thing to do didn't make you forget that every night is special, not just New Years' Eve. I hope not too many of you are bloated from overeating or hungover from to much champagne and you can start off 2014 on the right foot.

I do have a habit of making resolutions every new year, but then, I also make resolutions every week so that's not much of a surprise. I like to keep any promises to myself on an improvement basis instead of a "change this horrible aspect of myself or habit" basis mostly because, let's face it, I'm already pretty great -wink, wink- and tiny improvements are easier to achieve, and less messy than turning a whole set tea table of a personality upside down because of some arbitrary and partially inaccurate mathematical calculation which is roughly associated with astrology. Talking trash about the Gregorian calendar again Jess? Yes, it's a late-December tradition around these parts.

Let's get to it:

1) get back to meditating EVERY day. With our recent trip to Montreal, jet lag, seasonal flu, laryngitis, travelling to Taranto and then the Christmas festivities I lost my meditation momentum and I've really felt the effects. Maybe some people can keep their balance, grace and direction without taking those 20 minutes a day off from thinking, but I'm not one of them.

2) work consistently on completing my short film Hick! ... For the past three years this resolution read 'finish Hick!' But this year I finally understood that it's not so easy and there's some weird developmental and dharma issues surrounding this film project for me and that I have to be careful not to put pressure on myself about it or I become like a deer caught in the headlights and freeze up, stopping work altogether. In the times when I just relax and work a bit at a time I really gain momentum and the film seems to just create itself. Being an artist is annoying don't you think?

3) surround myself with positive people I admire.

4) Continue my Project Life binder and keep organising all photos on a monthly basis. It's so important to have a family record and photos are a great way to do it, but they're not much use sitting on a hard drive somewhere...

5) Compile and edit all home videos.  This one is going to be tough... It involves hours and hours at the computer sifting and searching, but will probably be quite fun too.

6) Improve this blog and get more readers.  I love knowing that there are those few of you out there who are following the blog. I started this project mostly for me, but am happy that some of you have reached out and told me that in some way it's also been something that you've enjoyed. I hope to be posting frequently in 2014 will lots of exciting new projects, ideas, recipes and more!

7) Finish Sera's memory quilt project. I'd like to get this done before we think about moving into a new house because then I'll be needing a new bed for her as well and I'd like to design the room around the quilt.  Luckily, our new house project seems to be dragging its feet and there's not much news on that front, but I'll keep you posted!

8) Spend more quality time with Sera and Fabri.  Specifically find new, age specific ways, of spending quality time with Sera every day and make more date-nights with Fabri... maybe finding a trusted babysitter?

9)De-clutter the entire house and remove anything I don't need or love. There's so much stuff floating around here and I realise that its taking its toll on my energy and creativity... Time to wipe the slate clean and give all this stuff to someone who really wants it! I'll be tackling this project a drawer or cupboard at a time and going slow, but it's something I'm determined to get to.  It also means that I'm going to be more careful about what I buy and let into the house. I like these two blogs for de-cluttering inspiration MPMK and Unclutterer.

10) Keep to my new diet and healthy way of living. I have had such wonderful results from removing grains, dairy and nightshades that I think I'll probably never go back to a diet where I just eat anything I see. I do miss nightshades (more so than grains or dairy believe it or not) but not having fatigue or swollen hands is a huge incentive for keeping it up.

I think 10 is enough for the moment. If I have everything on the list accomplished by September I can always make new resolutions at Rosh Hashana, Jewish New Years'.  Also I think it's best not to bite off more than I can chew and I'm already feeling that my mouth is pretty full.

Have a lovely January 1st everyone! I wish you love, joy, prosperity, freedom and grace in 2014!

Loving ProjectLife

A layout from July 2013

A few months back I got started up with ProjectLife, a form of easy scrap booking, photo and memory archiving and I thought I'd give you the update. Firstly, I love, love, love that I'm finally printing out and getting hard copies of Sera as she's growing up. She's so beautiful and amazing that it's really a shame that most of her pictures are digital. With ProjectLife all that has changed!


Here's how I approach the job:

• Towards the end of each month I download all the photos taken in that month from our various cameras and devices onto the computer and put them in a folder for the month. Named, for example 13_10_October. I put the year and month in number format first so that when all my folders are lined up in their parent folder they're in order. I make sure to name the single digit months with two numbers as well. 02=February
• I then go through that folder choosing my favourite photos and place them in a new folder for printing, cropping and resizing and digital embellishing as necessary.
• Every month on the 27th we take a family photo in a photobooth around town. It's a tradition we've had since Sera was born. I make sure to scan this photo and re size it to 4x6inches so it will fit in a vertical ProjectLife photo sleeve.
• I also go back to older photos and make sure to cover at least one or two 'archive' months. These are the months before I started ProjectLife. The ones we never printed any photos from... they span back to the beginning of time (or at least the beginning of my marriage!)
• I order the photos on line for printing and wait.
• When the photos arrive I check them against the 'toprint' photos to remind myself which months they belong to and I start my layouts.  I fill the photo pages with the photos and put in journalling cards int he spaces that are left over. Then I write my memories about those months on the cards.
• If I feel that a layout needs more photos I go back to my folder from that month and set up a photo for printing in the next batch.

A layout from May 2013

I am loving how the project is coming along and love the journalling cards and what they add to the design of the layouts. It's really a fun project and it will be a treasure for our family for years to come.  At the moment I'm only doing a few pages per month but i can really see how someone could become obsessed and start documenting EVERYTHING!

I totally recommend this kind of scrap booking for a digital time.

Project Life!

How did I only find out about Becky Higgins' Project Life line of scrap booking products today? I'm so excited!

I'm not a scrapbooker (I know, hard to believe cause there are very few crafts I don't dabble in) but I'm about to become a lazy scrapbooker thanks to Project Life. Here's what it's all about (copied and pasted from their about page):

Project Life^® is a solution-based approach to scrapbooking that was created to simplify the process in order to allow you more time to enjoy life! It requires no glue, no scissors, no tools, and no skills of any kind. The design of our products takes the guess work out of layout design so that you can focus on recording your everyday moments through your photos and journaling. The simple design is stylish and makes it possible for you to complete more pages in less time.

What it consists of is a binder and photo sleeves, just like an old photo album (remember those, before photos were no longer something you could touch?) and a kit of pre-printed and themed or coordinated card stock cards which you can place in with your photos and scraps mixing and matching.  When I saw this post about setting up for photographing Project Life albums I fell in love with the concept.  It will also fulfil my need to do something about the guilt I feel for not having printed a single photo or album for Sera since she was 4 months old (too much knitting, quilting, animating and other pressing responsibilities).

I ordered the kit you see above (Honey Edition) as well as a black chevron binder (cause we all know I still love chevrons) and 60 sleeves. From what I can tell most people do a spread per week, but that's pretty unrealistic in terms of my time so I'm going to aim for one per month if not one per season.

I'm hoping to be able to share my progress with all of you.