Action Plan for #MyDetailsClass, plus some pages and random stories

Here is my plan for this class

Stories first. LO’s can come later. I’m still unpacking and trying to get my routines established at the new apartment, so I’m not even going to attempt LO’s right now. Unless I get super inspired and have to make something Right Now. My plan is to keep a running list of journaling for story ideas in Evernote.

Simple page design. Once I get stories out of my brain and into Evernote, I’ll open up an 8.5×11 page in PSE. I’ll paste the text into that and format depending on how long the story is. So far I’m liking splitting the 8.5×11’s in half vertically. I’ll leave a little room for a photo if I have one. Keeping this super simple. If I don’t have a photo, leave some white space and I might find one later.

Tell past stories of the Teenage/ Young Adult years, plus current stories. I have over fifty LO’s in my “All About Jen” book. Only three of them are from my teenage years. And of those, two of them are about my hair! Clearly I need to work on filling some holes in my story. That hasn’t interested me before at all, but I think I’m ready to tackle that now.

I’m in a transitional stage right now with the move and all, so I want to be sure to document current things too. I’m going to try and do a past story and a current story for each prompt.

Community participation. There is a great FB group for the class. I’m getting lots of fun ideas for pages. I’m hoping to stay current with the class and soak up the inspiration.

Looking forward. I’ve done a ton of “Currently” type blog posts. I’ve made pages with some of those already, but I’d really like getting those in my books. That might mean making pages, or just printing them off on regular paper and slipping them in. Looking back at my “Jen” book, those are some of my favorite things to read so I want to make sure they’re in there. I think they fit in well with the theme of the class.

Here are my first couple of stories using the pre-class prompt of “Thinking”.

Thinking- 1996 Edition (modeled after “Currently” prompts.

Journaling reads-
Busting my ass trying to graduate high school after slacking off for three years.
Contemplating quitting and getting my GED instead.
Listening to the advice of a wonderful counselor who was the only person who “had my back”.
Ignoring the problematic behavior of my boyfriend.
Picking up my sister from school every day.
Walking my dog Tank.
Looking forward to a summer trip and working at the Coffee Shop again.
Getting accepted to Trevecca with a scholarship.
Taking my 4th year of French.
Eating nothing all day until the evening because I couldn’t afford lunch.
Hanging out with my girlfriends at school.
Screaming matches with my mom every day.
Loving on my Bella.
Feeling very strong in my faith, but losing faith in my church.
Talking on the phone to Melissa as much as I could.
Being grounded constantly.
Listening to 107.5 and 103.9.
Watching Days of our Lives and Oprah.
Mastering Algebra II the second time around.
Cutting.
Living within walking distance of Jamie’s school, Angie’s house, and church.
Staying with my dad every weekend.
Riding the school bus.
Carrying around seven big textbooks everywhere because I couldn’t be bothered to find a locker.
Reading Elizabeth Peters, Cleveland Amory, and Anne Rice.
Writing notes to my friends every class period.
Wearing a horseshoe ring from Jon, a cross necklace, and my grandmother’s engagement and wedding rings every day.
Loving Buttered Rum lipstick from Avon and Exclamation perfume.

I cold probably make pages about several of these. Having them in a list form like that was so much easier than trying to write out everything that was going on that year. I like that I was able to mix in fun stuff with the heavy, emo stuff.

Next to that is a page inspired by Megan’s LO that listed her college schedule. I would like to eventually do something like that, but I wanted to do a quick page about my feelings from my first attempt at college. At some point I’d like to find some pictures on the internet of the campus and add those.

Journaling reads- I knew Trevecca was not the right college for me from the start. But they offered me a scholarship, so that’s the one I went with. (My family was adamant that I attend college, but provided nothing in the way of help finding resources or money to pay for it). So when I got that magical letter in the mail offering me a little money to attend, that’s where I went.

It was a great school, just not for me. I was not raised Nazarene, so the idea of singing modern Christian pop instead of hymns and wearing pants to Chapel was foreign to me. I had recently broke off ties with my childhood church, so I was in flux.

But the biggest thing that caused me to leave college (the first time) was not related to school at all. My mom went into the hospital. At the time my sister still lived with her. So I moved back into my mom’s house temporarily to be with her. I had a hard time balancing taking care of her, visiting my mom, and going to school (all on the bus). I was having relationship problems during those months as well. My 18 year old self couldn’t manage it all, so I stopped showing up. The last straw was the decision to have eye surgery that December. It conflicted with Finals, so I ended up only taking one Exam and only getting credit for one class.

Despite everything, I really enjoyed my short time there. It was not my most shining moment academically, but that’s ok. And it’s a funny story to tell for people who didn’t know me in my younger days. Yes the girl who cusses a blue streak went to Christian college for a minute. (I also taught Sunday School and wanted to be a missionary, but that’s a story for another day)

My third page for the class hits a much lighter note. I think that will be a trend moving forward so I can balance out all the angsty teenage stuff.

Journaling reads-
I speak before I think.
So I have developed this problem lately, in the past couple years of being at home, of speaking the first thought that comes into my head. Being alone for most of the day with just me, the cat, and my inner monologue has somehow made me completely lose my “mouth filter”.

It is quite embarrassing and sometimes hurtful to other people, like when I say unkind things to my husband, or tell people what I really think of their boyfriends. I don’t mean to be a hateful bitch, I just blurt out the first thing that comes into my head. Which is almost always the wrong thing.

On the other hand, my spontaneity in speaking is probably mostly a good thing for my marriage. I tell him countless times a day how much I love him and how awesome he is. If I stopped to think before I said those things, they might go unsaid.

Words are important to us. I need to say all the words. I think I just need to pause a few seconds before I let the words spill out of my mouth. So I won’t accidentally tell him “I missed you today. And your booty” in front of my sister. TMI y’all.

And for my last page, I copied and pasted the text from this post.

And that’s just the pre-class! I actually have ideas for a couple more pages, but this is what I have so far. It feels good to get all this out of my brain 🙂