Friday, December 31, 2010

Something for the new year

It's the last day of 2010, and I'm feeling the pressure. For the past few weeks, I've been contemplating something I would like to do in the new year. Before announcing my big plan tomorrow, I decided to post it here first and get the input of my wonderful and wise blog readers.

This is a resolution that doesn't involve exercising or reading a certain number of books or sending out more birthday cards or working harder. Whew!

I have been wanting to sit down with my iPhoto and create photo albums of our family. It's so easy to create beautiful photo books these days. No need for special papers or embellishments or acid-free glue anymore. In fact, the books themselves don't even have to be hard copies. They can play as slide shows on the desktop computer or travel with me on the iPad.

I started working on J's baby book and realized that I have so many great stories on my blog that I can cut and paste into her book to chronicle her first year.

So, I was thinking... What if everyday of 2011 I created one new page in my photo book? It could be a daily photo to capture the moment or a snippet of our life. Basically, I would like to do a better job keeping track of those "moments of meaning" that I talk about.

I would also like to post these moments on my blog. But here are my thoughts:

I would love to look back at 2011 and be able to remember one little thing we did everyday of the year. But I don't want to get so busy recording moments that I forget to enjoy the moments.

I would love to set a goal to do this every single day. But I don't want to add one more chore to my life that I stress about.

I would love to challenge myself to find the moments. It would push me to think of more creative ways to use my camera and my words to find the good in our everyday. But that also could change the tone of my blog. I don't want to lose my freedom to write about whatever random thought pops into my mind.

My friend, Kelly, does an amazing job of posting a photo and a short snippet to chronicle every day of the year at her house. She is also smart about it! She doesn't necessarily post every single day. Often she goes back and catches up from days she missed.

So, I'm trying to decide if this should be a 365 days of the year type of thing. Or maybe just a Monday through Friday thing. Or perhaps just a weekly recap.

Anyway, I would love to read your thoughts on the matter. You can feel free to encourage me in this idea or to be my voice of reason. And I also would love to know if any of you have a system for staying up-to-date with your photos and albums.


dec2010emily

5 comments:

Sarah said...

Funny that you bring this up, as I have created my own "every day" task that will be on a new blog. I'm revealing that tonight!

Here are my thoughts: If you truly want to do it, it will be great. If you then see it is an annoying task, you will stop. I say "Go for it!"

everydayMOM said...

Oooooo, can't wait to read about your "every day" resolution!

Lynn said...

In 2009, my cute as a button and very artsy Aussie Cousin attempted a self portrait of herself every day. It didn't work. But, in 2010 she attempted and accomplished the same. She is very creative, so it wasn't her holding her camera at arms length or taking a picture of her reflection in the mirror. There were times when she was a handful of days behind and had to add several in one day. I have to say, I quite enjoyed viewing her self-pics.
You are so creative! I would love to see (and envy) your creative 'everyday' moments!
Happy New Year!

Lynn said...

I forgot to tell you that the Aussie Cousin would post her photos on FB.

everydayMOM said...

Thanks for the encouragement, Lynn. I would love to see your cousin's self portraits! Does she have a blog, too? Or only on FB?

It's funny how when you are doing stuff like that, you feel like people probably think you are weird or wouldn't be interested. But, just like in the case of your cousin, other people really do enjoy it!

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