This week I’m playing along with Week in the Life, an intense documentation project from Ali Edwards. My Week in the Life posts can be found here.
Tuesday and Wednesday were not fabulous days. I wrote a lot of words for those days, but I don’t necessarily want to share them publicly. Here are some of the photos.
This week I’m playing along with Week in the Life, an intense documentation project from Ali Edwards. My Week in the Life posts can be found here.
I copied and pasted most of this post from notes I made in the Momento app. Photos are a mix from Jason’s and my iPhones, plus a couple from my DSLR. Total photos- 26
6:30 AM Jason’s alarm went off for the 2nd time and he got up and went to get ready for work. I rolled over for another ten minutes, then got up. Fitbit told me I’ve only had six and a half hours of sleep, which does not bode well for the rest of the day.
I got up and did my morning stuff, contacts, teeth, weigh, and put on workout clothes. I went to the kitchen and give MK her treats, then started breakfast for Jason and packed his lunch (leftover pizza from last night). The oatmeal exploded in the microwave and a made a mental note to finish cleaning that up later. I was already cranky because my phone died and I struggled with the Nikon. Not many pictures this morning.
Jason gets out of the shower and dressed. I grabbed a banana and glass of water and we settled in front of GMA for a few minutes. We’re especially interested in the John Goodman trial, having lived in West Palm. There was also a funny story about a couple of thieves who got caught after butt dialing 911 and bragging about it to each other (with Bon Jovi playing in the background, no less).
Jason left for work and I got my stuff together to go for a walk. There’s a funky smell and I realized I’ve left laundry sitting in the washer since Friday. Good job jen. Started that going again and headed to the park.
It’s a short one this morning, only once around the track. My shin splints are acting up, which is ridiculous because I just walked 3 miles on Saturday just fine, but now I can barely do half a mile. Blech. Anyway so I walked/jogged around the track. It’s nice and chilly outside. Great to get outside and I felt my mood improving. I went home and sat down to write out my morning. MK came over to snug with me.
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9:00 AM Laundry, fed kitty, texted Jason and Marsha. Ate breakfast. Checked my calendar and started planning for my day.
Listened to Stuff You Missed in History Class (Hethern School, the Witch of Wall Street, the Great Leap Forward)
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9:37 AM Laundry. Dishes, shower, Jen maintenance. Cleaned the microwave mess. Listening to Die Upon a Kiss. Skimmed blogs. Cut my bangs and the back of my hair. Did my eyebrows.
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11:30 AM Wrote out birthday cards for mom and Marsha. Went to the front office to drop off mail and get a furnace filter. I asked around to see if there were a lot of trick or treaters in the neighborhood and it looks like there aren’t. Bummer, but we’ll probably get candy anyway. Just in case.
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12:30 PM Ate lunch (leftover pizza) and texted with Jason a bit. Spent way too long working on writing a bio (so awkward!) Stress ate some chocolate chips.
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3:15 PM Realized I’d forgotten to put dinner in the slow cooker, so took care of that. Spent a couple of hours working on CT stuff, mostly familiarizing myself with the Gingerscraps CT forum and downloading from my other new team, which won’t be announced until next week.
Took care of the cat box, garbage, and checked the mail.
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5:15 PM Checked on dinner and watered the house plants. Went outside to check on the balcony plants and watered those. We’ll be eating two tiny tomatoes this week. Flossed. (I floss in the afternoon because I’m always always too tired before bed. I figure better do it in the afternoon than not at all).
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5:30 PM Jason came home and we sat around and talked about our days. He’s had a very busy Monday as usual. We went out for a short walk and fought off bugs. He took a few pictures for me. I’m just not feeling the pictures today at all.
We came back home and I realized that I’d also forgotten to start the side dish for dinner. I can’t get it together with food timing today at all. We finally sat down to eat at around 8:30. It was really good! This was the first time trying out these recipes and I think both are keepers. We are and Jason helped me clean up and put things away, which I really appreciate. Cleaning up after dinner is my very least favorite part of cooking. I try to clean as I go, but there always still seems to be a huge mess anyway.
Creamy Slow-Cooker Chicken with Vegetables
Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes
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9:00 PM We settled in front of the TV for Monday Night Football. Neither of us was super into the game, so I listened to a podcast about the Cultural Revolution while browsing the new Studio Calico LO’s. Jason surfed on his iPad. Chairman Mao was making me sleepy, so I turn on the Adele Pandora station. I started reflecting on where we were last year and how grateful I am that we have so much more time together since we moved. I was feeling very romantic, but too tired to act on anything. We went to bed around 10:30.
Best part of today- Drowsy snugs on the couch after dinner
Worst part of today- Knowing that the sale of my childhood home was finalized today.
Observations- Thinking of how different our lives have been over the years I’ve been doing WITL. Two years ago we’d just moved and I was unpacking our apartment. Jason was just starting his new job. Last year we were totally burnt out with Jason’s commute and I was itching to move again. Now we’re settled in a different apartment closer to his job and we get to spend so much more time together.
I love Ali’s post about looking for the “why’s” of your day. I’m going to keep that in mind this week.
I’m not feeling the photos today. Good thing I have a whole week.
Overheard- The hilarious Lincoln commercial parody from Jim Carrey.
Gratitude- more time, creative work, and good sources of streaming music
Next week I’m joining Ali Edwards and many other people in documenting A Week In The Life. If you’ve never heard of WITL, check out Ali’s blog. It’s a super intense week of documentation with photos and words..Some people make albums from all this documentation. Some people add it to their Project Life. Some people blog about it.. That’s what I did last year.
It’s crazy looking back at last year’s WITL. We had just moved and I was still unpacking and organizing. Jason just started his new job. Miss Kitty, not used to the new house yet, was keeping us up at night like a newborn. LM was living in California. It was a fresh start for us, and a very welcome change (for the most part).
Things are different this year, but not too drastically. Jason is in a very busy season at work right now. MK and I have settled into our routines at home. We are all eating better and moving more. This time it’s LM’s turn to be in a new place, exploring his new city and traversing this strange thing called Middle School.
So what does this mean for WITL this year?
I’m going to still take a ton of pictures, aiming for at least 50 a day. Hopefully they will be much better photos this year now that I have a newer phone and a DSLR.
I’m going to use the Momento app to document again. I’m pretty excited, because in the newest update they have the option to set alarms to prompt you to make journal entries. And as always, Momento gathers all your social media info into one place.
I will be blogging every day, probably the next morning. I think I’m going to copy and paste the journal entries directly from Momento for the posts to keep things simple.
I am making lists! Lists of photos I want to take every day. Lists of photos I want to take during the week. Lists of prompts. I’m way more organized this year, which is what happens when you’re not trying to unpack a whole house!
I’m going to look around for inspiration, but I have a pretty set idea on what I want to do with all that documentation. Depending on how many pages they end up being, I’ll either add it to my Project Life, or I might make a Blurb book if all that documentation gets out of control.
I’ll be doing this all digitally. I have two template sets that I’ll be using. The basic structure of each day will be 4-6 pages, depending on how many photos I take. I know things will drastically taper off towards the end of the week, so they will probably need less pages, which is fine. This will be my first time actually doing something with all this documentation, so I’m keeping it simple.
Page 1- title and big photo
Page 2- words and a couple of photos (probably just copying and pasting directly from Momento)
Page 3- words and a couple of photos (weather, news headlines, meals, general observations, gratitude).
Page 4 and 5- 9 photo grid, so 18 photos for both pages. (This might change, but I want some sort of photo grid)
Page 6- Photo collage
Like I said, this is subject to change, but I have it all mapped in my head and it looks awesome! It’s a very similar structure to what Ali has done before, only in digital instead of using page protectors, if that helps you picture it.
There will be minimal, if any, embellishments. I want clean, simple, linear.
I would love it if my extended family would join in. If I can get enough participation, I might make more pages showing what they’re up to.
I will be harassing Jason and LM mercilessly to send me pictures.
I can’t wait to get started!
Last weekday wilt post…
Jason got up in the middle of the night. In pain again. Feel so bad for him. MK was annoying, pawing at the blinds. Jason came back to bed and we fell back asleep. Got up and made coffee and lunch. Packed an ice pack since that seemed to help yesterday. Felt nauseous this morning. Took out the trash and Jason left for work. I watched the news and did morning IM’s. Got caught up on blogs on flipboard. Need to really limit the flipboard and pinterest today.
His breakfast:
My breakfast:
Raisin bran, cleaned up the kitchen and living room, emptied the dishwasher. I’ve developed this weird habit of leaving all the cabinet doors open and walking away.
Put away some laundry from yesterday,and loved on MK. Listened to the Mommy Beta and the Answer Bitch podcasts.
Worked on the blog. Listened to Diamond Solitaire audiobook.
Had lunch. IM’ed with Jason. Blogged some more. Three posts in one day.
Showered. Worked in CT stuff. Looked on Pinterest for Cinco de Mayo ideas. Realized that the green onion stubs I put in water earlier this week have really sprouted up.
Jason came home and we made a quick trip to Publix. Got some junky food.
Came home. Taco’s and Mojito for me.Had a headache all afternoon. Apparently mojitos don’t help with that. Watched a couple of episodes of House Hunters International and turned in early because neither of us were feeling fantastic.
Project notes-
Just chugging along. Still not getting as many pictures as I want, but still more than I take on an average day. I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot this week, but it really is an “average” week for the first time in months. Really wish Jason was feeling better. But it’s sort of forcing us to slow down the pace, which is a good thing I guess. We can’t survive going full blast forever. I should be enjoying the rest.
I’m already thinking about next wilt. I think I’ like to do another one when Little Man is here. This will be our first summer where he and I are both at home, so really looking forward to that. Those weeks will be a big change from the way things are now so definitely worth documenting.
Thinking of how different my days are now than they were six months ago. How different they will probably be in another six months. Wish I had time to do witl last year when I was working.
17 photos taken, mostly of things around the house
5 Momento notes
2 tweets
1 FB post
1 foursquare check-in
1 husband who needs to quit with the monitor pulling
1 wife who needs to quit with the obsessive Flipboard checking
1 kitty who needs to quit with the late night dance parties
2 more days to go…
New verse, same as the first.
Having a hard time thinking of what to get pictures of in the mornings. It doesn’t help that I have been nodding back off when Jason gets up. Will work on that tomorrow. Got up, made lunch, flirted with Jason, watched the news. I neglected him a bit last night so will give him extra loving’ today. 🙂
I’ve been keeping little notes on current news stories this week, so I can add that into whatever I end up doing with all this week’s documentation.
Jason left for work and I had breakfast. Worked on blog post while listening to PRT. I have now listened to every episode twice. Not sure what I’ll start on next. Maybe relisten to the Digi Show or catch up on my tech podcasts. Or a book. I’ve wanted to start the audiobook of the Hunger Games, but I want to wait until I can read it along with my sister.
Wasted a couple of hours on Pinterest and blogs.
Took a shower. IM’ed with Jason. Had some lunch. Cleaned the fridge. Wrote another blog post and looked at blogs a little. Brushed MK.
Jason came home in a lot of pain. I made pasta and tomato sauce with mushrooms and garlic bread. We watched some TV. News, trashy entertainment TV, Community, and the live episode of 30 Rock. I cleaned up the kitchen and we went to bed. Very nice night, other than Jason hurting.
Project notes-
Thursday was an incredibly unproductive day. I think unproductive days are ok every once in a while and they usually end up making me super productive the next day. I didn’t do a ton of documentation. I’m not burned out per se, just don’t have a direction. I saw on Ali’s blog that she’s taking a lot of house pictures, so I might try that today (Friday). I’m sure the next time WITL rolls around, the house will be very different.
Jason mentioned something about whether or not a particular thing was “wilt-worthy”, which was hilarious. I love that he gets on board with all my scrapbooking/ memory keeping/ etc. It’s awesome to have a supportive partner. I’m hoping to be able to add a little more of his voice into this project.
I think this has been a great exercise in getting me to write more.
It’s super neat to read other people’s wilt adventures. It really shows so many people in different stages of their lives, single, married, kids, no kids, first babies, or a housefull of children. I think one thing that has struck me in particular is that there are so many women with husbands or partners who are away, on business or in the military. But they are managing their homes and families. I’m so very grateful that my husband comes home every night. I honestly don’t see how they do it. We were in a long distance relationship for almost a year before we got married and that was plenty! Which doesn’t really have anything to do with witl, so moving on…
16 photos taken (really?? is that all???)
4 Momento notes
1 satisfied wife
1 pained husband
1 wakeful kitty
3 more days… home stretch!
I’m keeping up! I almost can’t believe it. I’m not going to say this too loudly but… I might actually finish this. 🙂
Rinse and repeat.
Got up after the first decent night of sleep in days. Packed lunch, watched news, Jason left for work.
Raisin bran, flipboard, and settled in to work on yesterday’s witl post. Wow I’ve had a bunch of views on my little blog. Almost all from linking up on Ali’s blog. So hi new people 🙂 Thanks so much for taking a look!
I got down on the floor to play and love on Miss Kitty. We’ve been a bit distant for a couple of days after the traumatic cat carrier incident.
When she got bored with me, I got up and started some cleaning. Laundry, vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom.
It hit me last night that we only have about 7 more weeks until we go pick up Little Man so I need to really get after his room. It has been the holding area for all of our boxes of stuff since we moved in. Jason set up the bed last weekend and shifted some boxes so it looks a little less like a Hoarders episode. But still a LOT to do. Which I have a feeling that a lot of the stuff in boxes is going to goodwill. If we haven’t needed it in the past 2.5 weeks, we might not really need it.
I emptied out a box of stuff that mostly went into the shed. SO happy we have outside storage space now. I hung up some pictures in the kitchen. I don’t remember ever being this excited for decorating before. It’s actually fun unpacking and figuring out where to put things.
Had lunch, IM’ed with my sister and jason, and more Flipboard. Can you tell that’s my current obsession? I check it at least 10 times a day right now.Showered and put away laundry. Checked my challenges on SDD. Worked in my flylady zone for this week, the bedroom. Dusting and putting away things that don’t belong. I think I’ve done more in my zones since we moved than I did all last year. Want to keep things nice 🙂
Jason came home and we headed to the grocery store. We usually go on Sunday or Monday, but with one thing and another we kept putting it off.
We got home and I put some junky food in the oven. (Jamaican patties and pigs in a blanket). We watched a little tv and I moved my laptop over to the couch do I could do the Speed Scrap at SDD. We ate and watched a new Betty White show and some other sitcom that didn’t make much of an impression. I did my speed scrap. It’s always nice scrapping and chatting even when there are just a few of us. Jason had fallen asleep on the couch so I woke him up and we went to bed.
Project notes-
I feel like I’m sort of settling in with this. I’m continuing to use Momento to keep notes. Photo count is down a little, but I was expecting that to happen. I think the doing P365 for the past year and a half has done a lot to help me think of things I want to photograph. I already took a lot of everyday photos, so I knew the biggest challenge would be the documentation part. I’ve found that I’ve gone from writing notes every hour on monday to doing it every 3 or 4 hours yesterday. I might be losing some details, but I think I’m getting a good summary. Most of this post was copied and pasted straight from Momento again. One other somewhat surprising thing is that I’m not really using instagram at all. I usually take a lot of instagram pictures, but I don’t think I’ve taken any this week. Which is okay, but I might do some of those today. (I’m hclappy if anyone wants to follow me)
Day 3 stats:
36 photos taken
4 Momento notes
1 tweet
2 Foursquare check-ins
1 distracted wife
1 on the mend husband
1 playful kitty
4 more days to go
Alrighty here goes Day Two.
Woke up at a decent time yesterday (6:15) after another rough night of sleep. Jason was ridiculously cheerful this morning. Rolled over for another half hour.
I got up and packed lunch. Jason was still chipper and grabbed my phone to take a couple of pics. We watched a bit if the news. This is a new habit we’ve gotten since he started the new job. It’s nice to spend time together in the mornings. We’ve never really had the schedule in the mornings to be able to do that.
Jason leaves for work and I go straight back to bed, listening to old Paperclipping Round Table episodes.
I woke up at 10:30 and have cereal. Check Flipboard and that inspires me to write out a really long blog post. Had lunch and IM’ed with Jason while he ate. They had Deal or No Deal on in his lunchroom.
Read a couple of other people’s witl blog posts then had a shower. Opened up the blinds and felt my mood getting better. Continued listening to PRT throughout the afternoon. Did some cleaning and took out the trash.
Love putting my iPhone on shuffle. It’s fun to hear Journey, Evanesence, Earth Wind and Fire, and Adele one right after another. I totally didn’t find myself singing “After the Love is Gone” using the Gatorade bottle as a microphone. Not at all.
Talked to Jason while he was on the way home. Started cooking apricot sauce for chicken tonight. Still working on timing the dinner cooking and talking to Little Man while still having dinner before 9:00 with the new schedule. Listened to Hypothetical Help and Trending Show podcasts.
Jason came home and we went for a walk. Talked about the Little Man. He’s taking the California Standardized Tests this week. Jason talked about his day of working on computers. He’s doing a lot more walking at work now. Discussed pedometers. I’m interested in the Nike Fuel band, but wary after being burned by the Jawbone Up bracelet last year. Saw a lot of ducks around the lake. Great walk.
Came back home and had dinner. We had some of Jason’s favorites, Apricot Chicken, Broccoli Gratin, and macaroni. This officially ends “Jason is Great Week of Recipes”, which technically lasted a week and a half, but no complaints here. Strawberry shortcake for dessert.
We watched the last two episodes of Whites. So funny! Then we caught up with Up All Night on Hulu. It’s funny how we relate to the couple on the show, except for the baby part. It got us talking about lots of nice things- how he proposed, having a song to call our own, and all the places we’ve been together. It was a really really great conversation. Talking to him is one of my very favorite things.
Notes on Day Two-
Like I said yesterday, I was seriously considering quitting this project after Day 1. I’m glad that I kept it up for two whole days. It was embarrassing to put it out there that I slept half the day away yesterday. But sometimes you just need to do that. And it did a lot to help my mental and physical well being. As far as documentation yesterday I was pretty relaxed. I took a few notes throughout the day on Momento and copied and pasted them to make the bulk of this post.
45 photos and screenshots (plus a few more that Jason took but I haven’t uploaded to my computer yet)
6 Momento Notes
1 chipper Husband
1 grateful Wife
1 sleepy Kitty
5 more days to go….
So yesterday was interesting. Well not really. I’m just trying to put a positive spin on things. I think the universe is trying to tell me to get over myself and cultivate a more positive attitude. I’m trying, universe, really I am.
Yesterday started at 3 a.m. with Miss Kitty jumping around acting like a nut. This has become way too common. She gets a wild hair, then Jason gets riled up. I can usually sleep through the turmoil until he starts throwing pillows at her… So I laid there for a while, but the Exedrin I’d taken the night before squashed any thoughts I’d had about getting back to sleep. Plus I had Ideas. Ideas about decorating the living room. Ideas about blog posts. Ideas about calling my sister Right Now and asking if she had my sewing machine because it was imperative that I start sewing all my clothes Right Now. This is what happens when I take Exedrin, I get a lot of crazy notions in my head. It’s the caffeine. I spared my sister a middle of the night phone call and started making lists. I heart lists.
Sorry for all the bad photos. I’m putting the unedited versions here.
More drama with the cat ensued when I finally headed back to bed, around 6. We decided that we’re up for the day. Jason headed to the shower and I started making lunch, coffee, etc.
When he comes out, he’s doubled over with chest pains. Of course inside I’m freaking the hell out. But I asked a few questions and figured it wasn’t a heart attack. (Don’t take this as sound medical advice. I know the signs very well and knew it was probably was intracostal strain) But still, very upsetting to see your love in pain like that.
He laid on the couch until time to go to work. I was worried, second guessing myself every two minutes, vacillating between “He’s going to be fine.” and “What if something happens while he’s driving?”. But he was starting to feel better and like he could go, so he went to work.
I did my morning routine stuff, starting laundry, emptying the dishwasher, clean up the kitchen, and stretch. Breakfasted on bran flakes. Watched some Today Show and listened to iPad Today. Lamented that Leo Laporte does some really dumb things for such an intelligent guy. Showered. Really exhausted from lack of sleep. Worked on Ye Olde Blog and IM’ing with Jason. He made it into work relatively ok. Traffic was bad.
I worked on the living room shelves. We got another Billy bookcase from IKEA on Sunday so I have plenty of room to spread out my cookbooks, scrapbooks, and various other things. I unpacked six boxes of books and arranged them somewhat artistically. It was actually nice having the planning time in the early a.m. because I had a good idea of where I wanted things to go so it went pretty quickly.
In progress.
The rest of the morning was taken up with Flipboard, Pinterest, and purging e-mails. Also a snack of seafood salad and ritz. This is where you queue the foreboding music.
Before I get to that, I’ll talk a little about my process. All throughout the morning I was taking lots of pictures foe WITL with my iPhone. I used the Momento app to make little notes. The app also collects my Facebook and twitter posts. That’s how I was able to keep pretty detailed records of my morning. Since I’m in the process of unpacking still, I took a lot of pictures of that, like the before and after shots of the shelves. Every half hour or so I’d stop what I was doing and snap a couple of pics and make a couple of notes in Momento. I knew the first day would probably be the most detailed, since the first day of any project is always shiny and new and full of promise. I figure it’ll taper off towards the end of the week and I’ll be talking less about my daily routine and more about whatever unpacking/ decorating projects I’m working on. That’s the plan at least.
Anyway back to my day. I had lunch and settled in to do some SDD stuff, catching up on the forums and seeing what else I needed to work on to finish out the month. Then I got sick. Back to the computer feeling a little woozy but ready to push through. Then sick again. And again. Talked to Jason and asked him to bring Gatorade. Figured out it must have been the seafood salad. So not in the mood for WITL documentation at that point. Listened to a couple of How Stuff Works podcasts and felt miserable.
Jason came home feeling pretty rough too so we spent the rest of the night on the couch feeling sorry for ourselves. At some point in the afternoon before I started getting sick I had put some BBQ chicken in the crock pot so we had food. I made some pasta and green beans. We ate and I cleaned up and finished laundry in between getting sick some more. I was Super Cranky at this point and just wanted sleep.
But MK had other plans. She had slept most of the day, taking a brief break to supervise me getting the shelves together. So she decided instead of letting us sleep, she wanted to run around the room making noise and jumping on things. I tried to put her in the carrier, but it was too traumatic for both of us, so I ended up putting her in the guest bathroom for the night. Didn’t sleep well because I kept waking up wondering where the cat was.
Thoughts on Day One. When I woke up this morning I was in a Foul Mood and ready to call off WITL completely. It was too much. I couldn’t handle WITL+being sick+Jason in pain+ unpacking+ lack of sleep. I felt my dreams of having a really cool book on my shelf slip away.
Then I remembered Elise Blaha’s post from yesterday about how she is doing WITL this time around. Less documentation, just lots of photos slipped into her Project Life book. Hmmm… maybe it’s not a lost cause after all. I could probably handle that. Ideally I would still love to have a book like Nettio’s, but in the meantime I’ll keep snapping away. And if my WITL ends up being just photos and blog posts stuck into Project life, then that’s still awesome. Roll with the punches and always have a backup plan right?
So Day One down-
35 photos and screenshots taken
11 Momento notes
1 FB post
7 tweets
1 Cranky sick wife
1 husband in pain
1 cat with a death wish
6 days to go….
hclappy scraps 