Welcoming 2019 - Time to Get HEALTHY!

Saying goodbye to 2018 took me some time.  I'm still working on getting myself fully organized for 2019.

2018 was my year to PLAY - for six months I mostly kept up with LifeBook 2018 and enjoyed the new art ideas to which I was being exposed.  Then I joined a Creative Team whose designer passed away from cancer two months after I signed on, joined three other creative teams from her shop only to have the shop close, and followed those designers to new shops.  All of which completely distracted me from LifeBook.  I was still PLAYing - albeit it digitally - so I considered my word and my involvement with it to be a success.

This year I'd like to get back to the LifeBook version of art-ing.  I've signed on for LifeBook 2019, but so far I haven't even managed to get through the first lesson.

Totally aside from PLAY, during the first six months of 2018 I focused on my health - my weight and my physical condition.  I joined WW and lost some weight; unfortunately gained the majority of it back during the second half of 2018 - between trips to the Jersey shore and Kauai, travel for work, and the holidays.  Honestly, I will probably always struggle with my weight.  Bad combination of insatiable appetite and slow metabolism.

So... 2019.... knowing that I really want to get HEALTHY so that I can enjoy and actively participate in the rest of my life - rather than merely surviving it or suffering through it - I decided to make HEALTHY my word for the year.  My primary focus is on my physical health and I have some goals in that regard.

 I am participating in Ali Edwards One Little Word class this year, but probably won't be doing many of the album prompts this year because I'm adding this to my daily planner rather than keeping a separate album.  I want everything together where I see it all the time.

I'm also thinking about my mental, emotional, and spiritual health - as well as having a healthy home, healthy marriage, healthy relationships... you get the idea - healthy can truly encompass the entirety of your life and being!

I've started classes at a local gym (began in December) and I've signed up for the Whole Life Challenge that starts this coming Saturday, the 19th.  Check it out HERE and think about joining me - I'd love to have some of my blog friends on my team!

This challenge ties in so neatly with everything that I'm trying to do this year, and the price was quite reasonable, so I couldn't not give it a shot!

To keep myself accountable and be fully transparent about what I'm doing, here is my "before" picture, complete with belly.  Ugh.

I've also joined Cathy Zielski's FIT class again, but that's mostly for her monthly inspirational audio.  I'll be tracking my stats in my daily planner:

I really like that this keeps everything together - how well I slept, how many steps I took (which for the winter months isn't as important to me as getting in some exercise classes), how much water I drank. The facing page tracks my weight and measurements, my monthly goal, and how I did.  Not quite ready to share that.  I'm also writing in a page each month of daily gratitude entries.

So those are the plans... and here are some of the goals for the year:

Created with Tami Miller's "Love Life" kit which released today at Scrap Girls.

What are your goals for 2019?

Thirty Days of Thankful - Wrap Up

I participated in Cathy Zielske's "30 Days of Thankful" during the month of November.  

For these pages, I used Cathy's templates (available at Designer Digitals) along with papers and elements from Gobble On and Autumn Days (available at Sweet Shoppe Designs). 

My final four days of the month:

Having completed a month of things to be grateful about, I felt ready to tackle the title and closing pages:

Thirty Days of Thankful - Week Four

I'm participating in Cathy Zielske's "30 Days of Thankful" during the month of November.  I'll be using the Friday link-up day to post my pages.  

For these pages, I used Cathy's templates (available at Designer Digitals) along with papers and elements from Gobble On and Autumn Days (available at Sweet Shoppe Designs). I'll be using this same group through-out the month.

With the rush this week to host a Thanksgiving Dinner for fifteen, I got a little bit behind on creating my gratitude pages, but here is what IS done:

 On the version that will be printed, I actually changed this to Day 16 (the day we went to Ocean City to pick up furniture) and moved my car to Day 22.

 I had journaled "12" because that is the number I was working with. The day before Thanksgiving my brother Jason called to let me know that his entire family would be attending and the number I was serving jumped to 15. Luckily, I had already bought enough food! But I did have to purchase plastic plates and silverware... I don't own enough dishes to serve 15!

Clean & Simple - 7 & 8

 Last week Cathy gave us a "no journaling" layout and taught us some tips on creating our own title block. I finally learned how to use a "guide" in PSE. Definitely some new skills coming out of this class!

This week's class also had us creating our own title (with some very close work on lining things up) and our own text box.  Doing this stuff from scratch really makes me appreciate templates even more!!

30 Days of Gratitude | Share 2

My spread for the 7th - 10th:

Here's the 7th:

There are some thing that it isn't easy to get a photo for. Thank goodness for Google Images! I was able to source photos for the 7th & 8th from there and will continue to do so on days where I just don't have anything to fill that space.

Here's the 9th:

Really appreciating our library lately!

And finally, the 10th:

30 Days of Gratitude

Although I'm late getting a post up, I am participating in the 30 Days of Gratitude project (which I have done in past years as well.) This year I decided to do a 4x6 hybrid project which is being added to my Focus Album, so Cathy Zielski's templates wouldn't work for me. Not to be put off by the minor inconvenience of the lack of ready pre-made templates, I used Cathy's design as a starting point and created my own 4x6 templates.

I used Krystal Hartley's "Autumn's Chorus" digi papers and printed each page on 4x6 matte finish photo paper and inked the edges.  I even did the math so that the space for the photo is a clean percentage of a 4x6 photo - so I'm cutting photo's to 2.667 x 4 inches (2/3 size).  I'm able to print two photos to a 4x6 photo paper this way!  I created and printed all the date stamps on a single 8.5x11 page and cut them out and adhered with foam squares. 

And then put the blank pages into the album. And immediately realized the foam squares were a huge mistake, making it impossible to close the album! So I had to painstakingly remove all those foam squares (4 per card) and re-adhere the date blocks with regular adhesive.

 Yielding a much better overall result!

 Here's the first spread.  And yes, I did use last Friday's quote as the opening to this section of my Focus album!

Here's a close up of the title section - all digi, using Krytal Hartley's Autumn's Chorus kit.

 November 1st. You knew I'd have to use this photo again, right??

November 2nd.

 The second spread in the album.

November 3rd. Pumpkin art courtesy of Rachel (the M&M guy) and Becca (the smiley one).

 November 4th.  Daylight Savings Time ended and the clocks went back an hour. Sunday seemed forever long!

November 5th. Caught wind of this meditation challenge on facebook. So far I'm loving it! You can still sign up, we are only 4 days in!

November 6th. And you all know the results. I'm ambivalent about the outcome. Snapped this photo while I was actually IN the voting booth!

I love Cathy's idea of Share A Page Friday's, but I know going in that won't work for me. So I'm going to share every time I complete a four day spread... assuming I can keep up with it!