Faith Through The Year - January

The January theme is "New Year's Day", and the prompt had to do with making resolutions.  The idea was to make a list of spiritual goals that you wanted to accomplish during the course of the year.  This was the only layout I had finished when I first started doing this album two years ago.  Pretty much everything used in the creation of this layout (and all of the other monthly layouts) was made by Creative Memories.  The only things I changed were the year (intiially it said "Spiritual Goals for 2008") and the list of goals I have.  I also signed and dated it this time so that when I look back I know exactly when I made the list.

Until next time,

J.

Faith Through The Year - Introduction

One of my goals for the year is to finsh at least one of the many started scrapbooks that I have.  I figured that my "Faith Through The Year" album would be an easy one to do, since it only involves doing two pages per month.  I had actually started this album a couple of years ago, but I only got the January layouts finished.

This album was inspired by an article I found on the Creative Memories website under Faith Scrapbooking.  The "theme" for each month is a holiday or observance, and there's a prompt idea with a verse to go with it.  I had to get a little bit creative with two of the months, since this article was on the US site, and they had Columbus Day as the theme for October and Thanksgiving as the theme for November.  I made my October theme Thanksgiving, and my November theme is Remembrance Day (which it seems to me is based in part on what they had for Columbus Day).

This is the title page for my album:

I had to make two new tiles for the year, since it originally read "2008"; I also added the Jolee's lilly accents to the pink and green accent squares.  Other than that, I did'nt have to make any other changes to my page to bring it up to date.

Stay tuned to see more pictures of future layouts from my "Faith Through The Year" album! Until next time,

J.

I Believe...

This list came out of an entry I did for a blogging contest at Scrapbook.com.  The idea was to make a list of beliefs about life.  After I had finished my entry, I kept thinking of other things I should have included on it, so I started into another list.  (The new list eventually turned into a layout for my "Book of Me" scrapbook.)  Some of the beliefs are rather silly, some are more profound.  But put all of them together and what you get is my outlook on life.

• I believe that chocolate is good for what ails you.
• I believe that the recipe for a perfect day involves a sunny, cloudless sky, an open highway and good music on the radio.
• I believe that one can never have too many purses or too many friends.
• I believe that the sun will always follow the rain.  But while the rain is here we should get out and dance in it.
• I believe that the storms of life will not last forever, and that they will be followed by a beautiful rainbow.
• I believe that we should all cultivate the ability to laugh at ourselves.
• I believe that coffee is magnetically attracted to anything I wear that is white or khaki in colour.  (Actually I know this for a fact.)
• I believe the best part of each new day is that there is one.
• I beleive that one day I will see my bedroom floor again.
• I believe in gettin' my groove on whenever I hear a good song on the radio, and I don't much care if you laugh at me when I do!
• I believe that we should start with dessert first.
• I believe in creating my own happiness.
• I believe that things will always look brighter after a good night's sleep.
• I believe that every now and then, we all need to take time out to curl up with our favourite blankie and pillow and take a nap.
• I believe in buying myself flowers for no reason at all.
• I believe that getting out my crayons and colouring book is highly therapeutic.
• I believe that faith and a prayer will take you a long way.
• I believe that miracles are all around us; we need only open our eyes to be able to see them.
• I believe that scrapbooking was invented as a means of parting me from my paycheques.
• I believe that before we can forgive others, we must first forgive ourselves.
• I believe that we should dance whenever we feel the urge.
• I believe in eating what I want, calories be damned!
• I believe in being thankful for all that I have.
• I believe we should live each day like it was our last.
• I believe in "happily ever after".
• I believe that everyone needs a teddy bear to hug when they're having a bad day.
• I believe that we should treat the people around us the way that we ourselves would like to be treated.
• I believe that no problem is so big it cannot be overcome with God's help.
• I believe in taking time to stop and smell the roses.
• I believe that life is what we make it.  I believe that we should celebrate each day we are here, because we don't know how many more we'll get.  I believe that the best is yet to come.

Until next time,
J.

New Year, New Start

Happy New Year, one and all!

I love the beginning of a new year.  For me, it's like starting a new journal - everything is clean and blank, and I haven't messed anything up (at least not yet).  I've discovered something about myself as the years go by though.  I suck when it comes to making resolutions.  Seriously.  I start out with the best of intentions, but by the end of the first week of Janaury I've already broken at least one resolution, and the rest seem to go down like dominos very soon after.  Whoever said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions obviously knows me.  I've finally acknowledged this inassailable truth about myself and resolutions, and I've relegated them to the category of fruitless endeavours.  What I did last year that met with slightly more success was I sat down and examined my life, and made a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish in various areas.  And guess what? I actually managed to accomplish a couple of them! Of course, when I came across my goals list there were more things undone than done on it.  But the point is there were a couple of things that I did manage to do.  What I did this year that I'm hoping will be even more successful is that I took a sheet of paper for each month and made a list of a few things that I want to have done by the end of that month.  Then at the end, I took a few more sheets of paper and titled them all "Progress"; these are where I can make notes on how I'm doing on meeting my monthly goals.  Now you're probably saying to yourself "Wait a minute, isn't that the same thing as making resolutions?" Well yes, technically it probably is.  But you see, by telling myself that I'm setting goals for the year, and not making yet another resolution that will be broken by the end of January, I figure my chances for success are much higher.  To my way of thinking, it falls along the lines of the "how do you eat an elephant?" prinicple.  By breaking my goals down into small manageable pieces, they're going to be much easier to accomplish rather than looking at large tasks, getting overwhelmed and giving up before I even start.  Wish me luck, cuz I'm probably going to need it!

Until next time,
J.

PS. The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.