Project Life March

More March madness ... lots of opportunities to party, go out to eat and enjoy music concerts. Blew the restaurant and entertainment budget this month for sure ... but some months are worth it and you just re-prioritize everything else ... like housework and errands and laundry. LOL.

Favorite things to eat included oyster shooters at Monterey Bay Canners, chicken and waffles at Roscoes, omelets at Broken Yolk, sushi at Love Boat, pizza at Pizza Port, escargot at Oceanaire, shrimp cocktail and prime rib at the Red Rock resort in Vegas.

We never go to concerts ... except this month. I'm always amazed at the $50-$100 prices for well known musicians here in Socal. Plus, you see a dot on stage and end up watching it on the big screen anyway. So we usually pass ... but in March, we had an opportunity to see some smaller bands in smaller venues at smaller prices. We took advantage more than once ... Soja with Anuhea, Green with Passafire, Skanic with English Beat. Love standing in front of the stage and rocking out for sure!

Enjoying birthday goodies and feeling very blessed so many are so thoughtful!

Project Life March

Randomness is the best way to do this Project Life. Things that were part of March get captured here just because and I think I like it better that way. The baseball card size also helps to use the scraps from my scrapbooking stash and I'm hoping to whittle that supply down. In this year of less, I'm not acquiring any new stuff by choice but shopping my stash and using what I forgot about is great!

Business trip to Las Vegas was jam packed with work but time spent with coworkers is always fun. The job I have now is pretty independent and so much is online that having face to face time with my team mates that I'm always talking to via email and instant message is valuable. 

A couple family birthdays in March also brought time together with family. Our extended family (called Hanai in Hawaiian) includes cousins and aunties and uncles. Just hanging out and catching up is always joyful ... plus the kids keep growing so every time we get together, we marvel how life moves so fast.

And only one candle to blow out, let's not keep that one real. haha. Mom always gifts us birthday money in a lucky envelope too. It's an Asian tradition around Chinese New Years but she uses the nice symbolic envelopes year round for love and good fortune.

This year will be one of being brave and to keep going. Focus less on the fears, on what others think and focusing more on just doing it and having a good time. Remembering the important moments here in Project Life is something I'm really excited about too.

Project Life March

Rather than doing Project Life by taking a picture a day, I'm finding that I'm taking the iphone pictures taking randomly throughout the month and just getting them into my Project Life binder. These are the happenings of this month and I'm remembering. That's LESS and really just good enough. I think this is the easiest way to scrapbook yet.

March was birthday month and a tradition amongst my girlfriends is to do happy hour together for each of our birthdays. I chose Monterey Bay Canners because they have wonderful seafood appetizers and dollar oyster shooters. I think my 2 all-time favorite things to eat is always shellfish and noodles.

Wines, martinis and margaritas are always nice to add to the mix. I'm so grateful for these friendships and the good times we are sharing together. 

Just snipping bits of memorabilia like the birthday card keeps this memory keeping process easy. I've never been one to scrap souvenirs and memorabilia before. I always save things from vacation but am never organized enough to get them into scrapbooks. As for the everyday, I dump everything! Starting now to keep a few items here and there in a folder for Project Life and getting them into these pages here. Keeping to this baseball card size keeps it simple too.

Project Life March

I know it's April but I'm finally getting March scrapped into my Project Life album.

Journaled the tabs from the pre-made cover page I started at the beginning of March. This album will be very informal and a gathering of memories one month at a time. No pressure, just whatever I remember. Less is more ... at least I'm getting the memories captured and that's the best part.

Not one to usually scrap 8.5 x 11 page layouts, I'm now discovering that they are easier. There's less space to fill and it's easier to just keep it simple. The same layout ideas and plans still work but just less. I'm liking this very much and looking forward to getting more of the everyday stories told. Plus, I'm printing wallet size pics from my iphone and hope to get better at emptying out that sometime 500 plus photo cache!

Are you doing Project Life? Do you have a billion pictures on your iPhone too?

Project Life Year 4 and 1

Couldn't get myself together to decide on doing Project Life this year. Definitely the picture a day idea was overdone. After 2 years I was not really motivated any more. But after seeing so many bloggers getting into it and capturing the memorabilia of everyday moments, I decided that these everyday stories shouldn't be forgotten.

I'll be doing a week at a time and just telling a few short stories here and there of what's happening in my life as it happens. Using a couple of binders from Office Depot and baseball card inserts. I'm starting with my birthday week in March and going until next birthday ... thus the name Project Life Year 41.

Last weekend I started the cover and gathered my supplies. Even printed a couple week's worth of pictures but haven't quite put it all together to show you here. Soon .... stay tuned.

Are you doing Project Life this year?

Guilty as charged ...

I've been off the Project 365 bandwagon as of late. After 2 years and my one little word for 2012 being ENOUGH, I thought it was best to take a break. But after reading this latest post, I think I am still VERY interested in capturing the everyday moments. When I only take out my camera for the special occasions, I am guilty of doing the "look at me" drill with the kids and they HATE IT. When I just take random pics of our life together, they are more inclined to participate and then I capture magical moments.

Imagine the little boy. Maybe two and a half years old. He’s at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, perhaps for the very first time. He’s discovered the kids’ area and is intent on scooping up the krill with the basket. He is being the whale. He tries again and again and again. You can see the intensity on his face. He is mimicking the big kids around them. You know he is hoping to fit in.

And there is his dad with his camera in hand. Ready to document the moment. It makes my heart sing.

And then…
My heart breaks.
Dad can’t see the moment. He doesn’t see the action before him unfolding in the magical way it so often does in childhood. Instead? He says the words. You can probably guess what they are.

"Look at me.”

And again.
“Look at me.”

Now he becomes more emphatic.
“Look at me.”

And then he almost nears anger as he holds the camera at the ready waiting for the bright eyed, smiling child to turn for THE photo of their trip to Monterey.

“LOOK AT ME.”

Exacerbated. He gives up. He puts the camera down. He’s done.
He grabs the child, still intent in his activity, and heads on to the next station. Camera in pocket now.

He missed it. He missed the magic. He became so involved in photographing the image HE wanted, he didn’t see the beautiful image that presented itself.

Story told by captureyour365.com

So now I'm thinking about this March Photo a Day from fatmumslim. Thinking of actually starting a Project Life album for this year from the many scraps I already have ... because I do have ENOUGH. Thinking of my gratitude for this blessed life I'm living right now because it really is ENOUGH. Kids are happy, marriage is happy, parents are healthy, family is growing by 2 more feet ... it really is more than ENOUGH. I want to be grateful and remember this.

What have you done to capture memories this year ... it's already March! Are you guilty of taking every special moment and trying to turn it into a perfect picture moment? How about just capturing life as it is?

I'm a Winner & I'm Taking Twelve!

Some of my Facebook friends may have noticed that I am not really doing Project 365 this year. After 2 full years, I think it's time for a fresh approach. I'm going to do Project Life and Take Twelve instead. And what perfect timing . . . since I was recently a winner of the Take Twelve Inspiration Kit at the Capture Your365 blog!

Along the lines of my one little word being ENOUGH, I think I'd rather just take enough pictures to get memories told . . . once a month on the 12th I will take 12 pictures and scrapbook that! There's a whole community of people doing this at the Ella Publishing blog. And the kit will have inspiration ideas, prompts of what to take pictures of and a digital template to scrap the end result. Yay!

I'll most likely take other pics with my iphone throughout each week as well and use the Project Life method for that. Haven't bought a kit or anything . . . just using my scrap stash, an 8 1/2 x 11 inch binder and baseball card sheet protectors for now. There's just so many people jumping on the Project Life bandwagon this year that it's a little overwhelming and it took me a while to decide where to start. So . . . I'm going to remember to just keep to ENOUGH to get a few tidbits of life's daily stories told . . . that's all.

Be back soon to show my Take Twelve and Project Life January progress. Are you partaking in any of these scrapbooking or photo challenges this year?

PS. You know what's so funny too? My lucky number since high school has been 17 and wouldn't you know it, that was my number this time and I won!!!