Documenting more of my family's daily life has been one of my goals.  In the last two years, I noticed a definite lack of photos and memories, and I wanted to change that.  Back then, I had tried to get into the whole Project Life thing.  The concept was perfect for what I wanted to do, record more of the daily events.  But I just couldn't get motivated.  I had all the various protectors, bought some of the kits, and a lot of desire to get this started.  But recording everything by the week seemed too hard to keep up with and I felt all this pressure to make sure and take enough photos, even if there was only room for eight for a week.  I tried getting into Project Life at various times and I have these mini spreads started but never completed for long.



Then, in November, I decided to really make it happen.  But to do so, I had to change things up a bit.  I couldn't keep myself caged to a set format of weeks documented.  So I decided to just go with it and document however I wanted!  This sounds so simple, but it was freeing.  I decided that if I didn't have a photo for something, I didn't care and just went ahead and wrote things down.

 
This changed things up so much.  I was able to continue with my Project Life album because I didn't feel like I had to do it a certain way.  November was a great month for exploring this new idea.


Some of the things I liked to do was add in bits I picked up in the mail that caught my eye, like that little Gecko with Nestor's college jersey.  How cute was that?  I also felt free to add in all the cute bits I had been saving up like sentiment cards.  They weren't just "filler" cards anymore.  I wanted them in there because they made me happy.  That was enough of a reason.


This project has become more a diary instead of an album.  And I like it that way.


I like that my husband has also gotten into documenting with me.  Things will happen that he think will be so fun to put into our album.  He likes that it captures those bits and pieces that make him laugh.  And this is exactly what I wanted for my album.


November was definitely a fun month to rediscover my love of documenting.

Since one of my goals this month is to restart Project Life, I have been thinking of ways to make it more interesting.  I'll go into more details on a different post on how I'm changing up how I approach Project Life, but one of the things I pinpointed about what makes it difficult for me to continue at it was not enough creativity.  I loved scrapbooking because of all the tiny touches and embellishments I could add to it, but I had a hard time doing much of that in my Project Life album.




















So...I decided to come up with some inserts of my own!  Little snippets that can be added to the pockets along with purchased items.  I've been so happy coming up with ideas for mini collections using items I already own.






















The first set I've put together are Christmas Memory Cards.  I have created additional sets which can also be purchased at the shop.  Since these are items I plan in using for my own documenting, they coordinate with the patterned papers I was planning on using this year, namely the Wonderland Collection by Studio Calico.  I loved the colors used in this collection. 





















Each 3x4 card is die-cut and then hand-stamped with different fill-ins for a favorite Christmas memory. 

The fill-ins included are:

• Tradition
• Activity
• Decoration
• Recipe
• Ornament
• Moment
• Wish
• Movie
• Book
• Food
• Song
• Memory 

I am looking forward to filling these out as the month of December progresses.  I can't wait to see what my husband writes on the cards.  It's always so nice to see things through his eyes and this is such a great way to document it!

 

Losing weight has been at the top of my list of things to do, but nothing really seemed to click for me.  I used to enjoy working out at the gym and would be there almost every day.  An hour of cardio on the treadmill, elliptical, or rowing machine, and then an hour of free weights to cool down.  Then life really started in the form of my first job after college and the days at the gym disappeared.  Gained a little weight, but not too bad yet.  Then I moved out on my own and that's where the slide downhill picked up speed.  It became too easy to just eat and be lazy.  Meals were a lot of convenience foods.  Couple that with hypothyroidism and everything just sucked.  Losing weight just became too hard for awhile.

I can't really pinpoint the moment that it all got to be too much for me to ignore, but last month was it for me.  I'd had it.  I had to do something.  I wanted to start liking the person I saw in the mirrow again and I wanted to enjoy dressing myself instead of getting frustrated when my "fat" clothes became my normal clothes.


In came my first helper...My Fitness Pal.  I had actually used it a few years ago and loved it, but it became hard to continue when I couldn't have my cell phone on me all the time.  For now, I don't have that issue.

My Fitness Pal (MFP for short) is essentially a calorie tracker.  What I love so much is the super easy method of tracking.  Their food database is enormous and I can add new foods by scanning barcodes or inputting it by hand.  I can even input my own recipes ingredient by ingredient and save them for future use.  Here was something I could use easily and keep at.

Since I wanted to jumpstart the weight loss wagon, I chose the extreme 960 calorie per day goal.  I'm not going to say I always met it, but I'm darn close most of the time.  My favorite method when deciding what to eat is to input it into MFP and play around with portion sizes until I get to the calorie count I want.  It makes meal planning a lot easier.

 
This is where my second helper comes in...the Fitbit One.  I credit a lot of my resolve to continue on this little gadget.

The Fitbit One (FBO for short) is a sophisticated pedometer.  It tracks steps, flights of stairs, distance walked, and active minutes.  Their app can also track calories, but I don't use it for that.  It can even track sleep activity which is pretty neat.  It shows your restless moments, awake moments, and sleep times.  Just something cool to see.

What I adore about the FBO is its ability to track calories burned and sync up with MFP to subtract those calories from my total.  Pure magic.  I'm not sure what the formula is, but the calories subtracted from MFP is not total calories burned.  I see them as "extra" calories, those that you burn beyond what you typically burn while sedentary.

Seeing that relationship between my calorie intake and activity in real time is what keeps me moving forward.  The days I eat I little too much, I jump on the elliptical and work my way back down to my goal.  I don't beat myself up for going over because I can literally see how much extra activity I need to do to get back down.  I'm sure it's not a complete one to one tracker since it only tracks your step movements.  Using weights is not going to show up although MFP has ways of tracking those activities.  I just rely on the FBO to track my movements.  Even better are those days when my activity outperforms my calorie intake and I have room to spare.  Love it!



With my two little helpers, I have said goodbye to 5.8 pounds so far.  Not a huge amount, for sure, but still significant to me because this is the most progress I've made in a very long time without wanting to give up.  Can't wait to see how much more I can lose in the upcoming weeks!

My weight has always been something I've struggled with.  Over the last couple years, that struggle has gotten that much harder.  Part of it was being diagnosed with hypothyroidism which slows metabolism.  The other part was just not trying hard enough, I guess, to try and control it.  It's not that I didn't want to lose the weight.  I just couldn't find that something that I could keep at to make it work.

My two year wedding anniversary is coming up and I want to look and feel better for my husband.  I'm not going to make that drop off point by September 3rd, but I'm hoping that I'll be well on my way to creating a routine that will get me there.

So...this is where Project Life comes in.


I want to document all of this.  Something to keep me motivated and moving forward.  I think I've found the two things that work for me and I've made some progress already!  I haven't been this excited in a long time.


Seventy-seven pounds to go.  Bleh...cannot believe I've gotten to this point but at least I've marked it.  You're going down!  Since I started about a month ago, I've lost 5 pounds (4.6 if you're going to be exact).  And I'm ecstatic about it.  It took forever, but I got those first 5 to leave.


Today, I did the elliptical for 2 miles.  Not much, but it's been a couple of rough nights falling asleep.  As you can see, Netflix was keeping me company the whole time.  I hope that I can keep adding to my album more success stories.