366 in 2012

It is finished. I LOVE IT! I successfully managed to take a picture every day this past year as well as get them all into a shutterfly book. I just finished it and cannot wait for shutterfly books to go on sale so I can order it. I used Becky Higgins Project Life Turquoise edition for my book. I am loving her designs and the option of digitally making books rather than having to do them with actual scrapbooks. As I was finishing 2012 I was a little sad because I knew it was over, I was sad because I wouldn't have any more layouts to design, or the challenge of taking a picture every day, sooooo I have decided to continue it for at least one more year. I am taking it on a year by year basis, not committing to doing a photo a day book forever (that could get old and I don't want it to be a chore, I want to love the project). Without further ado here is a glimpse of my 2012 book. I can't wait to order it and for it to arrive so I can sit down and slowly page through it. I will probably do one more proof of it before I order it, I would hate to have stickers in the wrong place or have a typo. Either way I am jazzed.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Looking back on the year there are a few things that were important as I made my book:

• The first few weeks seemed like I was always looking for the "big moments" the major things that happened, while yes, there are a few major things that happened last year (like getting engaged) my life is really made of of small moments that leave a big impact - yes, I go to work every day and it isn't always glamorous and sometimes the messy desk is the most appropriate picture for the day
• Shoot lots of photos & shoot often - I don't always know what my photo of the day will be until the day has ended and I am looking over my photos - I shot thousands of photos this past year and in turn had to make a general 2012 album as well (or really a 2012 album is in the works - I will post it when I get it finished)
• My photos come primarily from three different cameras - I always (or 99% of the time) carry my iPhone 4s [which takes pretty good pictures], I often carry my Nikon CoolPix AW100 [which takes great pictures], and sometimes I carry my Nikon D60 [which if it weren't for operator error would always take amazing pictures] and my book is a combination of all three of those cameras 
• Play with your layouts - sometimes certain layouts look better than others 
• Work with it every week - it gets ridiculously overwhelming if you have to remember back and do more than a week at a time - every Sunday night or Monday morning I updated my album
• Go with it - not every picture will be worth a million dollars - but looking back is sooooooo much fun

Anyone else do a photo a day book?
Are you enjoying the project?
How many years have you done it?

20 Chore Tuesday

Talk about a pre-vacation to-do list. I leave on Thursday for vacation and couldn't be more excited, I feel like it has been quite some time since I have been on vacation where the goal is to relax and doesn't have a purpose [going to a wedding, running a half marathon, moving a friend/family, visiting 10,000 family members].

My pre-vacation 20 chore Tuesday includes:

• ensure family faith journey is prepped for someone to fill in my place
• run off weekly handouts for family faith journey
• Camp V meeting at noon
• teach swimming lessons
• call one of my favorite people to wish her a happy birthday
• make my bed [seriously I love crawling into a made bed but hate making my bed every mornign and I massively got out of the habit of making my bed and am now slowly getting back into the habit of making it every day - yes, this seriously makes me sound like I am five and my mother is yelling at me to make my bed - which surprisingly my mother never ever ever cared if our beds were made]
• laundry
• run
• update my project life 366 2012 photobook
• empty sink of dishes that has built up [seriously how does this always happen, why can I not get in the habit of throwing the dishes in the dishwasher as soon as I use them]
• walk the dog
• buy Halloween candy to hand out tomorrow [I am way behind on this one, obviously]
• pull out suitcase to pack in
• start packing
• call cake woman for wedding and tell her we want to go with her [soooo many details for a wedding who knew]
• ball yarn/make sure I have the yarn I want to take on vacation
• update kindle - download a new book for vacation
• return books to library (books are due while I am on vacation and I refuse to get a late fee - small pat on the back - which seriously no one really cares about this - but for as long as I can remember I have never had a library late charge, which is a small miracle given how many books I check out of the library.)
• square away other details at work for while I'll be on vacation
• empty memory cards on my cameras for vacation (seriously who doesn't have a couple cameras that they plan on taking on vacation - oh yeah, most people - I have a dslr camera I plan on taking as well as a point & shoot)

Project 366 in 2012

Every Sunday night I seem to have patterns of things I always do such as:

• I always look ahead at the next week's calendar to get a grasp at what this coming week will look like
• I always make sure my laundry is folded and put away (not certain why I like to start the week with clean laundry and have it put away but for some reason I like not having piles of laundry on Monday morning)
• I always run the dishwasher - living by myself it takes me several days to fill the dishwasher and by Sunday nights it always seems to be packed - I hate waking up Monday morning and not having a clean cereal bowl - yes, I know this is trivial and I could wash a bowl by hand, but I like having clean dishes out of the dishwasher
• I always take Dakota for a good long walk - one last super long walk before the week begins
• I always update my Project 366 shutterfly book.

Last night as I was updating my shutterfly book (meaning I add pictures from the last week, get the layout as I want it, add descriptions, blah blah blah, you are catching on - so that at the end of the year I don't have to attempt (because I am pretty certain it would be nearly impossible to remember which picture went with which day) to put the whole book together) and as I was scrolling through the pages to get to last week's pages I was in awe of how fabulous the year has been. I am loving the every day project. I am loving that I can look and get a glimpse at what was happening in life. I love that I have pictures of piles of dirty laundry, a clean kitchen, construction, unexpected visitors, my sweet puppy, running paraphanalia, and some totally random things that I have seen while out hiking.

I entered into this project for no real reason, other than I wanted to take more pictures, this project has for sure required me to be creative in what I take pictures of, not every day is there something monumental to take photos of. However I have more than realized that life is made up of just as many little moments as big ones. I also enjoy that it is a leap year so we get 366 days in the year. I loved looking back in the album and remembering things that I have already forgotten this year. I love looking and seeing how my sweet puppy has grown over the year and some of the things she has gotten into.

I originally thought this project would be a pain in my butt but I am loving it, every second of it. I think this could be continuing on at least another year. I had no expectation that it would but as long as I am still loving it, the project will go on. I don't ever want it to become a chore - that will mark the end of the project.

Thanks be to God for fun projects!