Project Life: Weeks 7 and 8

Posted on March 13, 2013 by elizabeth

The middle of February seems so long ago, but I do love how the pages for Project Life came together rather simply, yet full of color. (I’m also trying to let go of needing to document something from every day, in favor of things that are more fun, like all of the Valentine’s Day stuff this year.)

Valentine’s week! I’m sure other things happened, but our first married Valentine’s Day, featuring flowers, pink pants, a heart painted on my nails, and Jodi’s Valentine’s postcard was much more fun to document. I wanted to include things from the other days, but couldn’t eliminate any of these and decided that was totally okay.

This page is all weekend. I totally swiped that placemat menu from the bar where we had dinner with my sister and her husband and my brother and his girlfriend on Friday night. (I kinda love that my loved ones are now 100% used to me swiping any and all available papergoods whenever we’re out. Sometimes they even spot them; I’m fairly sure my brother asked why I wasn’t going to take this menu home.) We also got to visit some of my college friends and their adorable daughters on Sunday afternoon, which was such a great treat.

Week eight didn’t include too many photos, but I made up for it with some cute paper, washi tape, and the envelope that included some mail at work. (Mail from Europe looks so much more fun than US mail.) It was also our one month anniversary, which seems crazy.

But this page is my favorite. Dan spent the weekend at Dreamation, which is a gaming convention in northern NJ. He loves it, and did a pretty fantastic job of saving me his badge and taking a few pictures for the album. The top two slots are a photo from my Saturday afternoon at work to catch up, and a napkin and business card from my Saturday night out with friends while Dan was in the midst of a 12 hour gaming session.

Currents

Posted on March 7, 2013 by elizabeth

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Can you believe Daylight Savings is this week? I took this photo from the parking deck on Monday as I was leaving work, just to compare with next week’s sun at that time. I am not a creature of winter, and I can’t tell you enough how excited I am to have the sunshine back in just a few days. (Even if it is snowing outside as I type this.)

I have been feeling a little bit lately like I imagined our wedding. Real, everyday life has been so … normal lately, with its normal stresses and our normal weekday routines, and I already don’t notice that it’s weird to be wearing two rings instead of one. (The name thing reminds me, of course.) It was only a little over a month ago, but it seems like ages.

But the awesome thing is that we’re going on a mini honeymoon this weekend, and both Dan and I are very much looking forward to a few days away together. (We are still going on a real honeymoon, but we can’t do that until the middle of June, so this weekend away feels like such a bonus.) So after another hour, I’ll pick up sandwiches and we’ll be on the road, driving away from this weird wintry March weather and toward some history, museums, astronaut ice cream, fresh air, and relaxation. Together.

Project Life: Weeks Four, Five and Six

Posted on March 5, 2013 by elizabeth

The end of January and beginning of February was full of big events and yet almost nothing compared to the first few weeks of 2013. It took me a while to put these pages together, but my method of keeping a notebook with each week’s spread planned, as well as getting the photos printed at home (or at least organized into my week by week folders on my laptop) relatively soon after the week itself, seems to be making it pretty easy to catch up quickly.

Week Four was our first week as a married couple, and it has lots of journaling, which I know I’ll be glad for one day.

I took that picture of Dan in the lobby of the hotel while we were waiting for my family to help us load the car, and it will forever be one of my favorites. His face conveys the blissed-out but completely exhausted feeling of the Day After SO perfectly. I also had to get a shot of our first married dinner of burritos.

The right side featured lots more journaling, of Dan’s sister’s 30th birthday party (an 80s party), dinner with my parents, and more. It was crazy how cold it got, and the frosty windshield picture feels that cold. The quote is a lyric from our first dance song, “Just You & Me”.

Week Five felt a little more normal, a little more routine, even as we still had to get used to living normal lives so soon after such a big day.

I included a few photos I took for my 52 weeks of no color project, and I really like how the black and white balances out the pops of color. Otherwise, a story of Dan’s wedding ring and a busy week at work.

I really loved Ali Edwards’s plan for a Day in the Life once each month in 2013, and jumped on the chance to follow along on the last day of January. I used her 6×12 template to fill in the details of the day. (I think 6×12 inserts might be my favorite ones.)

On the back of the insert, I collaged the photos I took that day with both my phone and my real camera. Notable ones include lunch at the dining hall, the crazy self portrait I took to document how windy it was, and the totally bundled up on the couch shot that Dan took. I set the whole insert up as a 12×12 page in Photoshop Elements, and ordered it from Persnickety Prints. I was so amazed at how quickly the print arrived.

The right side has lots of brightly colored fun bits from a really fun weekend. On Friday night, we went to two back to back laser light shows at the local planetarium, which was AWESOME. Sunday was the Super Bowl, which we watched with Dan’s brother and his girlfriend. And Bluecat and Penny. Who cooperated quite nicely for photos for my book.

Most of what I remember from Week Six was trying to take more photos during the day (hence the top to photos on the left page), and the hullabaloo about this snowstorm that hit our area.

The biggest thing was that some forecasts predicted 20 inches of snow, and others predicted 3-6, and people were going nuts. I was going equally nuts, because we had big events at work during the storm. I’m glad I got the screenshot of the dueling forecasts, for sure. The other big thing was the start of the Name Change Process. It was a big day, and one that had to be documented for posterity. I saved my old license, and love how it looks against the striped paper. (I also have loved that license photo since it was taken when I turned 25, and have been recycling it each time my license renewed since then. I wasn’t allowed to this time, and my new photo is HORRENDOUS.) (See again: why Project Life is so great: a logical and perfectly perfect place to keep my old driver’s license. Because I was keeping it whether I had this scrapbook or not, and I adore the fact that it now has a home.)

Saturday of this week was one of the first lazy, totally free Saturdays we’ve had since last summer. The combination of wedding plans, family stuff, and holidays meant that Dan and I didn’t have one single weekend day that was just for us for months straight. So thanks to the snow (which, okay, we got six inches and it was mostly blown away by the time we were up and about) we stayed in most of the day. Dan played his game (and let me take a photo of him doing so), we got Sonic for dinner, we spotted my dad on TV, I crocheted until I realized how badly I’d messed up… and it was pretty spectacular.

I just adore this project.

Currents

Posted on March 1, 2013 by elizabeth

Happy March, dudes! I love the start of a new month, and let’s just say tearing off 4ft by 3ft calendar page to turn to the new month is pretty emphatic. I took those last two photos of the tree outside our apartment, on the last morning of February and the first morning of March. I know March is supposed to come in like a lion, but the sky has been (mostly) blue, and the weather is (mostly) warmer and after the coldest winter in years, I’ll take all I can get. Bring on spring, bring on daylight savings, bring on sunshine.

Here’s a list of things that have been really awesome in the past few weeks:

how light it is when I leave work
the AMAZING quilt that Eleanor and Liz made for us as a wedding gift. I mean, it’s got tiny old timey baseball dude fabric!
nights when Dan works late and I have living alone flashbacks
the night AFTER Dan’s late nights are over, and I actually get to hang out with him again instead of attempting in vain to stay awake until he gets home at 11:30.
planning and imagining big picture stuff for the next few months

I have been working long(er) hours to tackle an intense project that I haven’t been able to get to since I started this job in September, and it’s really satisfying to be making progress. After a few days of feeling gross, I decided to make some changes in my (awful) eating habits. I make these resolutions every few months and never stick with them, but I’m really tired of feeling this way, so my intention is to mean it this time. My name change is 95% official, which is crazy, and yet each time I sign my new last name, it’s a little easier. We finally made plans for a very-mini-honeymoon next weekend, and we’re both SO excited. I ordered some insanely red sneakers to wear for the days of walking, and Dan’s both horrified by them and sort of resigned to the fact that he did marry the kind of girl who would always choose bright red sneakers with aqua accents over a more standard gray or black.

I’m trying to read more, which was tough there for a little while, because although Cloud Atlas has been on my “to read” list since 2003 when I worked at Borders, and a million people whose opinions I respect LOVED the book, the first two chapters just really didn’t grab me. And when a book doesn’t grab me quickly enough, I just don’t read it. But I don’t pick anything else up, either, because giving up on books is just not something I do lightly. But I stuck it out and am now hooked (but reservedly so; ten years of hype is kind of a lot), so time to read is definitely on my list for the weekend. Also on the list: catching up on Project Life, working on the scarf Dan asked me to make for him (I can’t tell you how much I HATE changing colors when I’m knitting. I know it’s easy but ugh. Or, I should have made the stripes smaller so I could carry the yarn up the side), and hopefully getting to see Dan’s nephew (although I’m realizing that he’s actually our nephew now, isn’t he?).

I leave you with this video of the song I walked down the aisle to, “Specks” by Matt Pond, because his new album came out in early February and I know you mostly tend to love new albums from your favorite band ever ever, but the new album is just SO good. Even if there aren’t any good youtube videos from it yet.