Travel Turtle travel | crafts | culture | life | fun | family

First, only one day into the Reclaim Time class at BPC and I am so, so, so glad I signed up for this class. I had a bit of a mishap yesterday when I tried to print the handout before my son’s nap. I had about a 5 minute window to do it and the computer jammed and in my hurry to fix it, I broke it! So is my luck.

You’d barely know it’s the holiday season if not for: 

This is kind of what the photo layout will be for the left side of my album. The top two pictures will each open up separately to say:

(Left photo): Colmar the Elf arrived this morning. He wanted to make it easy for W to spot him, so he “hid” right next to one W’s favorite sites, the digital frame. When W woke up, I explained to him that Colmar is going to visit us every day until Christmas and report back to Santa directly. W listened attentively and the screamed when I put him down. I guess he’s not so concerned with what this “Santa” fellow thinks.

(Right photo): With December, our chocolate advent calendar starts. This year Grandma Lola brought it while she was visiting. It’s the kinder-egg calendar so that means we get both chocolate and a holiday-themed toy every day. What a treat!

I can’t put these directly into my DD until I print the photos over the weekend. Then, I hope to find a decent local printer or rely on the one I’m not so fond of for most of the printing. I don’t want to go more than 3 days without getting photos printed, so if I have to use the local not-so-great-printer I will. I’m willing to sacrifice quality just to get it done if I have to, that’s more important to me than anything.

I also have a separate notebook I keep with the notes of what I want to do. I’ve never had a printer at home, so I’ve always had to batch print several days at once. I usually paperclip my thoughts, but sometimes it’s not enough space or I lose those thoughts. I like keeping it in a notebook. It helps me put it all together when the photos are done.

Another thing I decided yesterday, I like to know what’s happening in our lives other than holiday stuff, but I really want to focus on holiday stuff. Does that make sense? When the mood strikes, I’m going to include a little tidbit of what’s going on in our lives. It’ll be something like:

A: Started Reclaim My Life Class online C: Got home late W: Clapped when daddy walked through the front door.

Yesterday, someone commented that this is their first year doing one and it has not started well. I know I’ve read Ali Edwards say some encouraging words here and I’ll try to help reiterate. You want to take it day-by-day, but don’t look at it day-by-day. Meaning, there will be days that are dull and there will be days that aren’t dull and at the end, the whole thing will be awesome because it’s your memories. The first year I did this, I knew I was leaving the city I lived in. So, aside from actually wanting to do “cool” things for my album, I did also want to experience all that my area had to offer (and I lived in Orlando, so that’s a lot of offerings!).

Last year, I had a one-month-old baby, it was snowing, I was still recovering from delivery and most of my photos were of my son napping. Not. Fun. I knew I wanted to record whatever it was we did, but I had no time to do anymore than take a picture and add journaling. It was the most boring mini. A few months ago, I added some of the embellishments that I didn’t have time for last year (to make room for my 2011 DD supplies). When my folks were here I showed them my two albums. I warned my mom that the 2010 version was quite dull. We flipped through it and although the layouts are a little odd sometimes, it’s really amazing to flip through. Seeing my son taking naps in almost 18 of the 25 days somehow is still charming. Because that’s how I spent my 2010 December… with a sleeping baby! And this year, it’s going to be so different. So, don’t worry about it being dull, you’ll be surprised how it comes together at the end and in the future. (But, if you are super concerned, this is a great post by Ali Edwards with 25 ideas for inspiration.)