Project Life

A few weeks ago, I posted about finishing up Project 365 for 2009 and then starting anew for 2010. Well, guess what arrived via UPS last week?

My brand new, gorgeous, Project Life by Becky Higgins kit! I'm swingin' from the chandeliers!

(It might be a good idea to actually START on the project instead of just ogling it.)

In putting the final touches on my 2009 family album, in which nearly every day has a photo and an accompanying short journaling card, I felt a joy rush coming on. Had I stuck to traditional scrapbooking, making lush two-page layouts for every series of photos I had, I'd be woefully behind and mired in discouragement. Y'all, I homeschool. I have constant laundry. The do-list, it never quite empties. I needed a solution that fit into my actual life.

Here's my title page for 2009:

It was so freeing not just to record the "biggies" in our life, the built-in stories: vacations, birthdays, etc. Now I could tell the tiny stories that make up all the many days in between -- the moments I used to think I'd remember forever ... before my powers of memory liquefied and slipped out through all that breastmilk.

Honestly, some days I'd just photograph what we were having for dinner. I like to think that in the future, my children and grandchildren might find amusing these threads that wove the tapestry of our everyday life.

And it wasn't TOO onerous to write a couple of sentences about each day. But then, I like to write. Babble, even. Perhaps you've noticed.

I love scrapbooking, even this very simplified version, because unlike some other aspects of the mothering life, the rewards are tangible and immediate. And then there's the double kickback of watching my kids leaf through the album and giggle or reminisce (just as they do with my fancier albums). Ian's gotten to the point of asking me periodically, "Mom, don't you need to work on your scrapbooking?"

Sure, honey, could you cook dinner and pay the bills for me?

So I'm stoked, pumped, charged, to start back up again. Here's today's Picture of the Day, as further proof that there's always a story in the details:

This morning's coffee table tableau: Green hairbrush I've owned since high school, issue of Good Housekeeping being culled by girls for collage materials, Family Album 2009, marker, Pokémon cards (o help!), vintage book of games, Star Wars encyclopedia borrowed from the library, guest book, dregs of Rooibos Chai tea, copies of Transform!: How Everyday Things Are Made and Lives of the Presidents: Fame, Shame (and What the Neighbors Thought).

P.S. If you'd like to join me, the kit comes in paper or digital form (see here for details on digital). Of course, you can use any old album you want. I'm just a sucker for all things pretty and organized.