As part of the 20 in 20 class where we are making 20 projects in 2020… I have several projects that are going to span the entire year… some of these honestly, keep falling through the cracks… others I have been more successful in keeping up with!

-Book about me: This is a project that Stacy introduced the class to early in the year (January?) to make an album all about me… well I found a small book to use and printed some photos … but I have not yet gone in and written anything… we’ll see this is one project that continually stays on the “in process” list.

-LightRoom Catalog Cleanup: Rocked Days 1-58 in the 100 day project to clean up the 2000+ photos in my downloads folder in Lr. Suuuuper happy about that… now I’m working on consolidating the misc. photos scattered around the desktop of my computer, they are now all in Lightroom, just need to get them to their folder-homes. Then… tackling the big big photo projects from 2019 The girls last Sports Banquet / Sr Prom / HS Graduation / Grad Party and our GradPresent trip to Alaska. Yeah, lots of photos… good thing I have a business as a Professional Photo Organizer.

-One Little Word: AE project I have been super good this year about keeping up with the monthly prompt and I am very happy about that! Most months it takes less than 2-3 hours to watch the video/read the handout and complete the prompt…usually not on the same day! I don’t know if I’m going to officially participate in 2021 but glad about the project this year. I have posts from January and March up on the blog here.

-Storykit Project: I have been working this idea I have about how to work through the backlog of Ali Edwards StoryKits, you can see more info on them HERE. In addition to the content/themed prompts, the subscription included a small kit of supplies and I also opted to purchase the accompanying stamp set, in the hopes I’d stamp more (cue uproarious laughter). I thought I had written about the whole approach so maybe that should be a separate post… needless to say with 31 kits staring me in the face, there is a lot of content to work on… slow going.

-18/19/20 Project: I have to say with some chagrin that my documenting of 2018, 2019 and 2020 has been not as extensive as I would have liked. I have a framework set now for each year but honestly, it’s been a bit overwhelming of a project. My initial plan was to go monthly and complete a month in each year at a go… but even breaking it down that much seems super overwhelming so I am going back to the drawing board and I’m going to project manage this one out to 15 minute increments…we’ll see how it goes.

I summation…I’m hopeful I can finish out with OneLittleWord and probably get some writing done in the Book About Me, we’ll see how far I get with the other projects! I’ll keep you posted.

Are you working on any year-long projects? As we pass the mid-point of 2020, how are yours going?

Oh poor neglected blog…let’s see if I can blog more than twice in a year for 2020? That would be a good goal….

I have discovered over the course of the last year that I am really not good at tracking…I think I start out strong and quickly lose interest because it’s usually too annoying or time consuming or frustrating. There are a few things however I do manage to keep a bit of a handle on because they are easy. Keeping track of my reading has been made infinitely easier with the Goodreads app on my phone and iPad. My preferred way to read is with an actual paper book in my hands but I have been reading on my iPad more and more especially when I travel and it’s so easy to pop over to the Goodreads app and update when I’ve read a book. I’ve also participated in their Reading Challenge for the last few years and this year is the most books yet at 44 when my goal was 30. I will also add that while I am a huge podcast listener, I do not listen to audio books so all of my books are read not listened to.

I think stats like this are kind of fun (yes, channeling inner geek)…

So many good books this year! I had several favorites… Stories for my Sister by my friend Elizabeth DuVivier is a must read!! I’ve linked her website so you can go and buy the book directly from the author (gasp! imagine that not buying a book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble!)

My other fiction faves for the year were: The End we Start from (haunting but good) Verity (thriller!) Daisy Jones and the Six (rock and roll) Where the Crawdads Sing (such beautiful imagery) The Testaments (Love Love anything by M. Atwood) and rounded out the year with Christmas Shopaholic (because..who does not love Becky Brandon nee Bloomwood?)

As far as Non-Fiction I’d say my faves were Outer Order Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin (you should definitely check out her podcast with her sister) and Slow by Brooke McAlary (who also has the Slow Home podcast also very good).

So there you have it! 44 books in 52 weeks… Come and follow me on Goodreads to see how 2020 progresses. I’ve made the same goal of 30 books this year and hoping to read even more than that!

What were your favorite reads of 2019?

December has not started out on an overly holiday-ish note.  Real life has, as we say, reared it’s ugly head.  After several years of slow decline and a few months of very rapid decline, dad passed away at the beginning of the month.  Even when you have time to “get used to” the idea, it is still a jolt and the crashing into the wall realization that things will truly never be the same.  And, yes, I am including this story in the album this year because this is real life and this is our story and so it goes.  As dad said once while the was examining one of my earlier December Daily albums… “good lord, you documented everything!”  Yes dad, Yes I do.  xo.

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

So … I definitely have some “catching up” to do but here are a few things that are working:

1.  Only having one size canvas… I am liking just doing 6×8 images,  I’ve combined the photo and words onto one canvas just  for posting here.
2.   The continuity of photos on the left and words on the right.  I’m not anticipating running out of photos and I nev.er run out of things to say
3.   Using a limited number of kits:  rather than hunting through everything I own, I put 3 kits plus some random extras into one folder on my hard drive and pull from that.  This year I’m using:  Paislee Press Dec Faves No 6 & No 7 and touches of Farmhouse by Mommyish
4.   Kinda digging the black and white with pops of color !  It’s feeling very editorial.

That’s it for now, hoping to be completely caught up by the end of the year and I’m pondering whether I’ll print at home or send out.

Happy December 20th!