Hello Week in the Life™ 2017!

Excited to be joining in with Ali Edwards in documenting a regular week in our life again this year.

The "official" week is April 17-23, 2017. But you can do this project whenever works best for you. 

I thought it would be fun to share a peek at what I'm doing to prepare this year, so I put together a video. The kit is from Ali Edwards, and I'm using the grey striped album. You can find that here.

I'm excited to get documenting and creating this year. And no, I haven't finished 2016 yet. It's in process and I have a video to share soon walking through where I am with that project too. 

A few thoughts about this year:

• For me, it's okay if I haven't finished last year's project. Memory keeping for me is about living in the moment and embracing that I rarely finish when "everyone else" does helps me continue to find joy in my hobby and goal to notice the goodness in my everyday life. 
• I really like that Ali has these kits. It makes it so much easier as my life just seems to get busier. I also like that Ali's designs are simple enough they can be used in different years and it all works out beautifully. Again, check out the 2017 Week in the Life™ supplies from Ali Edwards here.
• I really want a new camera lens. And a new camera. But it's likely not going to happen. I may try to rent a wide angle again. For me, playing with the photography is a joy. But it can also get overwhelming as I play with a new lens and take way more photos than I need for this project. So, I think I'm just going to use what I have. Currently I have my very old Canon Rebel T1i and primarily I use a Canon 24mm 2.8 "pancake" lens. It's super light and small so I can take this with me just about anywhere. I will also be using my iPhone 6plus and my Instax camera. 
• I really love Ali's preparation post here. I particularly like her ideas of focusing on something each day. I may go back and do something similar. One year I focused each main photo on a particular time of day, so my goal for capturing at least one "big photo" was made easier because I had a time to focus on it. Instead of feeling like I needed my big camera out taking photos of everything all the time. Feeling that something like this makes sense to me again this year. 
• I really hope I can get my office cleaned up a bit before this project. It's a hot hot mess right now! 
• I won't be sharing on Instagram or Facebook this year as I'm doing "100 Days of Living Hands Free" for my 100 Day Project. But my goal is that by doing this I might actually keep feeling inspired to blog and might actually finish? who knows! But so far I'm really liking this project and the fact that I wiped the dust off the blog and posted today. Find our more about the 100 Day Project here.
• I'm excited to explore what life looks like in our new home and city this year. I think capturing that will be a focus of mine. And maybe inspire us to get out and explore our town too.
• In the video I share that the white numbers are from the "Numbers" Story Kit™, which was a theme for a monthly kit of story-crafting supplies from Ali Edwards. You can find information about Ali's Story Kits™ here. 
• In the video I also share what I'm hoping to use for tracking my Week in the Life™ by using the Pocket Page Notebook. You can find information about this innovative new notebook here. I'll share more about it as I get using it. Very excited about this tool.
• Excited to get capturing and crafting our everyday life! Enjoy your WITL!

**edited to update this important thought about my WITL plans: I am definitely making plans to use Persnickety Prints for all my printing. Planning to do a post about this soon. Suffice to say, looking back at my past projects has helped me gain some clarity regarding the print at home versus sending out to print dilemma. And yes, so far Persnickety Prints is the clear winner. Find out more about them here.

**edited to also add I am pretty sure I'm going to focus on "A Week in the Life of Me" after reading Ali's post and having a change in our family's plans. Instead of skipping it, I'm going to embrace having a few days to myself and see what my life looks like right now. I'm excited!

To find out more about Week in the Life™ please check out Ali Edwards here.

Currently I do not have any affiliate links in this post. Just sharing things I love and what I'm currently using / wanting right now. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about the products I'm using.

Finish Strong | Week in the Life 2015 Edition | The Giveaway

I love a good project. I really do. 

Week in the Life™? I'm in.

December Daily™? Bring it on.

Project Life®? I couldn't sign up fast enough.

Add in countless numbers of other mini books and albums in progress and I will tell you easily that I have more unfinished than finished projects.

But does this make me a terrible memory keeper? Definitely not.

Does this mean I should pack up my room and put it all in the garage because I'll never be able to keep up, so why start or keep going? For me the answer to this is no, but that's okay if for you it is a yes. 

Does this mean I sometimes need to re-think or re-work a project? yes and yes. 

And finally, does it mean that sometimes I get frustrated and just really want to finish a project even though I don't have the time to finish? most definitely yes.

Most recently, I participated in Week in the Life™ again. If you are unfamiliar, it is a weekly documentary project created by Ali Edwards. Click here for more information. I love this project! In fact, looking back through my finished and partially finished albums brings me such gratitude for even my attempts at documenting our life. I really do love this project. (you can check out my preparations for this year here)

And yes, once again, my album is on the brink of being in the unfinished pile. 

And if that happens? It is okay! Repeat to myself 10 times! I have it prepped, I have my notes and my photos backed up. So I'm fairly confident I can finish given the time and motivation.

But I really do want to finish it and I've made more progress this year than in past years. Ideally I'd love to finish before getting started on December Daily®. But more than likely I will start working on that while trying to finish this one up. What's December Daily you ask?

Well, it's another favorite project created by Ali Edwards, where you document the month of December (or at least days 1-25 for many people) with one story per day. I've been doing it since 2010 and have finished two of these. The rest are in progress.

And it's another project where it really helps to pre-plan your pages. Years where I have finished, I had pages ready to go for the most part and I found it helpful. 

 So one of my goals right now is to finish up my Week in the Life™ project or find peace with it being in the "in progress" pile. 

And here's where the fun begins. (hint this includes a giveaway so keep reading!!)

Last year I was a co-teacher for a class at Big Picture Classes called "Catch Up with Project Life." And even though I had joked for years that someone needed to teach a class on finishing old projects, I never thought that one of those people would be me! 

It wasn't easy. I won't lie. I had to face my own piles of unfinished projects and realize just how many I had. 

But the amazing thing? For the most part I became overwhelmed with gratitude for each one. For even the attempt at creating these projects. Because life is busy and it passes so fast!! The cool thing I realized is that I have something to show for our life at the time as well as my own growth and creativity. 

I fell in love with these projects and even more in love with those that I gave a little love to.  I re-worked some projects which made them more enjoyable to view and look through and even finished some pages I would definitely not have done otherwise. 

And it was awesome to hear others having a similar experience. Gratitude for what they have accomplished and fresh enthusiasm to keep at it and finish strong. 

As part of the class, I created three different mottos:

1. Just Start
2. Keep Going
3. Finish Strong

Each week was centered around one of the mottos and I tried to create handouts and motivation to get started, keep going and finish strong. 

I realized I am just a memory keeper with lots of ideas and I like to explore those ideas. And it's okay if some live in the "in progress" pile or re-worked or even let go.

So very long backstory, but apparently I have a lot to say about this!

And here's the thing. I realized that community and accountability really helped me to get motivated and finish up more that I would otherwise.

So this year I decided to hold myself a bit more accountable with finishing my Week in the Life™ and tried to create a community on Instagram where we could encourage each other. 

A big Thank You to everyone who has posted, shared and encouraged one another. 

Finish Strong | Week in the Life 2015 Giveaway

To give us more incentive to participate and finish strong, I decided to purchase a Week in the Life™ kit to give away and created a hashtag on Instagram to share our progress: #finishstrongWITL. It has been awesome to see our progress there!

In addition, a few of my friends have joined in for the giveaway as well. So there will be three items to give away (three winners total, one for each item)

1. Ali Edwards Week in the Life™ Kit (grey album version)

2. Tracy Larsen Simply White Collection + Simply White Life Pages package

3. $25 gift certificate from Persnickety Prints

Ali Edwards Week in the Life™ Kit (grey album version)

This is the grey Stories album 2015 kit from Ali Edwards. It's an awesome kit!

2. Tracy Larsen Simply White Collection + Simply White Life Pages package

This awesome package from my dear friend Tracy Larsen includes the full Simply White Collection (versions 1 - 7) + her 12x12 Simple White Life Pages tempts (versions 1-9).

Hello, how awesome is this?! If you aren't familiar with Tracy, I highly encourage you to check out her inspiring projects and products here and on Instagram here.

3.  $25 gift certificate for prints at my favorite photo printer: Persnickety Prints!

Persnickety Prints is known for their quality and attention to details. They have a huge variety of sizes, including 6x8 if you are using the 6x8 album. It's also where I go to get my Collect App prints printed or my Project Life App pages printed. 

Please go say hi to our wonderful sponsors!! 

To enter: 

All I ask is that you share your progress of finishing strong. You can share in-progress photos and finished albums using the hashtag #finishstrongWITL on Instagram. You can also share your progress in the comments below if you do not use Instagram. 

The hope is that we can get motivated and encourage one another to finish strong. 

Originally I had decided to give us until the end of October but life got super busy for me and I'm just now getting to write the post! So I think I will give us until the end of November. I realize that will overlap with December Daily preparations, but hopefully that will give us time. And it will make a fun present for the winner!

So the deadline will be November 30th with the winner announced on December 1, 2015.

(Giveaway is not sponsored or affiliated with Ali Edwards or Instagram. Open to international entries.)

Looking forward to seeing what you guys create and here's to Finishing Strong!!