For 2018 I chose the word LIGHTEN in an attempt to lighten my life in many ways: my stress, my stuff, my body. I tried to throw off the things holding me down and even though the second half of the year was a bend in the road I hadn’t anticipated, I feel like the word was a success. During the home remodel we definitely lightened a ton of stuff that was tossed or donated. There is still some work to do there, but we are committed to getting rid of stuff and not accumulating more. I only lost a few more pounds during the year, but didn’t gain any, so I am feeling stable and almost pain-free. Unfortunately, I didn’t lighten my stress but because I began the year with many projects going early, I was able to mostly weather the end of year deadlines, so I call that a win. [Read more…] about One Little Word 2019
One Little Word
One Little Word 2018
It’s time again to choose my word for the year. It’s an attempt to choose a word that influences my state of mind throughout the year and creates a structure and framework for my life. Thanks to Ali Edwards for the idea. I love the idea and it has really impacted my life in many ways. I am again signed up for her workshop to document my word each month and create pages in my scrapbook that talk about my journey.
For 2018 I have decided my word is LIGHTEN. I want to lighten my life in many ways: my stress, my stuff, my body. I want to throw off the things holding me down. I’m looking forward to a great year!
Here are my past word choices:
2009-SERENE
2010-CREATE
2011-BALANCE
2012-VARIETY
2013-MEMORY
2014-MEMORY
2015-EMBRACE
2016-FOCUS
2017-CREATE
One Little Word 2017
It’s time again to choose my word for the year. It’s an attempt to choose a word that influences my state of mind throughout the year and creates a structure and framework for my life. Thanks to Ali Edwards for the idea.
Here are my past choices:
2009-SERENE
2010-CREATE
2011-BALANCE
2012-VARIETY
2013-MEMORY
2014-MEMORY
2015-EMBRACE
2016-FOCUS [Read more…] about One Little Word 2017
One Little Word 2016
It’s time again to choose my word for the year. It’s an attempt to choose a word that influences my state of mind throughout the year and creates a structure and framework for my life.
Here are my past choices:
2009-SERENE
2010-CREATE
2011-BALANCE
2012-VARIETY
2013-MEMORY
2014-MEMORY
2015-EMBRACE [Read more…] about One Little Word 2016
First quarter 2015
I’ve been busy so far this year working on my One Little Word, EMBRACE. I spent all of February focusing on re-lighting my love of scrapbooking by participating in an annual event I’ve wanted to do for several years called LOAD. The purpose is to create a layout a day for each day of February. The overarching theme was Once Upon a Time and our connection with books, and each day the host, Lain Ehmann, gave a different prompt that we could use for our layout. These included design principles, color combinations, or a topic sentence, all from beloved children’s books. I managed to do a layout all 28 days of the month and I had so much fun. My output has slowed down in March, but I’m still working.
I did a layout showing the entire month’s work, which included a few extra layouts on some days for a total of 34. I count two-page layouts as one layout. Because I mostly stayed with the daily prompts, I had to do some layouts about me, which is a first, and also not chronological, which was fun and very freeing.Here are my two favs from the month, both of which were color prompts:
This year I also signed up for Ali Edwards’ One Little Word class which gives monthly activities to help keep our word visible and in use in our lives. I did the prompt for January which involved a lot of reflecting and making goals and got those all in my album but haven’t finished some of the daily life pictures from January and none from February or March. Need to add those pages to the album in the second quarter. February’s prompt was to make a vision board and I had so much fun cutting up magazines and gluing that all together. It’s now hanging in my sewing room.
I’ve been doing some sewing, too. My new threesome quilt group is doing a 1930’s quilt this year and have several blocks done and I’ve posted about those already. My regular twosome quilt group made a Schoolhouse table topper that needs to be hand-quilted as soon as I finish the Candy Shop quilt, which is almost done. We are now working on an Arrowhead quilt, but it’s a secret project so I’m not posting much for now. But it’s looking mighty awesome so far. Other projects in the works include the following:
I’ve spent a fair amount of time getting some pillowcases sewn up for the Festival of Trees gift boutique in December. Some of this fabric has been waiting around for two years for me to get it done, so I thought this was the year to get them all sewed up and off my plate. They turned into thirteen lovely pillowcases.
I’ve only been out in the garden once so far this spring and it looks like it needs some major cleaning up. But Scott and I were asked to be in charge of a youth play at church and since I wrote it and am directing it, it’s taken up a ton of time this quarter. I have to spend a lot of time planning and organizing in order to utilize the limited rehearsal time and make it all seem effortless. The performances are this week and I will get some time and energy back.
We’ve also spent a lot of time discussing, planning, and researching the possible addition to our home and it’s amazing how time-consuming that’s been with very little actual progress to show for it. But lots of knowledge in our heads.
As part of my One Little Word this year, I made a list of things to get done. I’m working away on the list and crossing stuff off which is making me happy. Organizing my quilt patterns, cleaning up my scrapping studio, reading some magazines then moving them out, and reading books for my reading challenges. I’ve kept up with the two that have monthly goals and made progress on the others, and I’m eleven books ahead of schedule on my goodreads annual challenge of 104 books/year. Plus my dishwasher has been broken for most of the quarter and I’m washing dishes by hand, which takes time but lets me listen to audio books. Trade-off.
Here’s to the second quarter of 2015: may it be productive. EMBRACE the future!