New Year Tradition

Project Life 2014 | Week 1/52

As a custom, if we can help it, we just stay at home on the first day of the year and we normally write our commitments to God as a couple and as individual. We established this tradition in 2013 and we like to keep it that way to set the tone for the current year. Home. Write. Call family. Relax.

However, for this year, a friend asked us if we could perhaps meet her friend that was going to work in Dublin in the same firm as hubby. So of course the answer was yes. It is always nice to meet a new friend, no matter what day it is.

So this is the Week 1 spread of Project Life album (mostly taken on 1 January 2014 when we met and greeted our new friend Treena). Not much as there were only four days on this week.

Other than the reasons I mentioned here, the reason I'm doing this is to push my creative borders outside my comfort zone. This is something I haven't done before so I'm pretty sure there will be lots of misses more than the hits and it's completely fine. I also want to improve on my colour combination skill, learn Photoshop (also something I haven't explored before) and improve on my writing and photography.

Week 1 unraveled. More to go.

One Little Word: Humility

This is yet another inspirational project that I stumbled upon online. The aim is for you to choose one little word that you would like to reflect on and focus on as you go about with your daily life in a given year. It is also in a way, related to any creative stuff you'd like to embark on. As for me, I have forced myself to do the Project Life memory keeping and to be a minimalist at that.

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For my one little word for 2014, I had pondered and contemplated almost all month of January often asking God in prayer what that word should be. As I have been wanting to revive "writing/blogging" this year, I had initially chosen the word write. But God, in His own sweet timing and nudging, decided otherwise. To be honest, I am very much aware that I need to grow up in this area, I was just really too proud to admit it. See? You can pick up by now that my heart needs to grow in HUMILITY.

At this point, I would like to elaborate why I need to meditate on this area all year long. Oftentimes, it is my pride, my selfishness and my lack of trust in God that drive me in doing things, on why I do what I do. I have always been guilty of wanting to be in control, of having an entitlement mentality, of worrying and of being ungrateful. Much of these really stem from my lack of understanding of who I am in the light of who God is. Apart from Christ, I cannot do anything, I have nothing. Am I not just a steward of whatever talents and things I possess? Do I really need to acquire things just to feel secure and important?

It is my prayer that as I have chosen and written down this one little word, that I will be humbled in the truest sense of the word. That instead of demanding, I will gain a child-like faith (Matthew 18:3), depending on God and putting my security in Him alone. That in the process, I will learn to put the needs of others first before my own and in turn, build a more meaningful relationships around me.  That I will be content of what little materials things we have. That along the way, my gifts, however simple and lacking they are, will be used to inspire and to encourage others.

Humility doesn't necessarily mean I should stop nurturing big ambitions. It only means that my dreams and decisions should now revolve around the question of "are they pleasing to God and am I doing them for the right reasons and motives?"

As 1 Peter 5:3-4 put it:

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interest of the others."

My journey to learning humility will of course not be confined to a year, that's for sure. It will be a life-long journey. My desire is to be really intentional about it this year, to think of myself less and to put others first and foremost. Easier said than done, you would say and I will agree. But God's grace is always sufficient for us to try and to be better in this life. Until we become that someone He wants us to be, we should never stop trying. :)

What I want my 2014 to look like: To be filled with humility, to write, and to delight in life. 

Project Life: Unraveling this gift called Life

Here's my official green light at Project Life. For the past three weeks, we have been so caught up in our house move and location change that this project needed to take a backseat for a while.  As of this writing though, I am officially unemployed and I am unexpectedly back to wearing my "full-time housewife" hat. On why I am unemployed is a different story altogether which I am not yet ready to write.  But I will be, one these days I will be. Now that I have loads of time at my disposal, more of my heart will be poured out in words. That I can guarantee.

Just as I committed to write more this year and to do creative stuff that will stretch me, I forced myself to finally do the Project Life which I learned about in 2012. It is a simple scrapbook/album/memory keeping project that aims to stir us ladies to cultivate a good life and record it. Before 2013 ended, my heart's cry to give it a try was so intense I could hardly stop from Pinterest-ing it and reading about this and that.

In 2013, I found life passing by so swiftly. It felt like I was racing with life itself. I felt that if I actually paused I'd be left behind. Needless to say I was also very disorganised in the past year---my photos remain unedited and unpublished, most blogposts remain in the draft folder, most thoughts and reflections remain just that, thoughts and reflections.

Through Project Life, I aim to hit three birds in one stone: to unravel life slowly, to journal reflections especially during the hard times and to get my photos edited and organised.

I also aim to give the mundane ordinary days an exposure they deserve. I truly believe that is in between these ordinary days that life hides its greatest treasures even though they don't get to be shared in FB and IG. It is that stroll in the park holding hands with the hubby and talking about our dreams that are yet to come true, it's in the few words in the bible that provide a silver lining to a very difficult day, it's the friendly conversation I had with an old lady in a bus, it's those simple yet wise advise given by mama, just to name a few.

Let's unravel life, shall we?

At home doing the project. I am in love with the white furniture and wide window glasses at home!

My Project Life 2014 - simply unraveling the gift called life. :)

2014 Calendar

The first year I created a personal calendar was in 2012 featuring my 2011 trip to Ireland. I didn't create any in 2013 but personally committed and vowed to do this again for 2014. I've captured tons of photographs in the last year that one way I can think of putting them to good use is to plot them on a calendar. Then print it, frame it and make it a house decor or an accent. 

I wish I can tell you personally how fulfilled I felt before, during and after I made this calendar! Have you ever experienced being so engaged and actually enjoying what you're doing that you are oblivious of time passing by? I experienced exactly that.

I didn't realised I pulled an all-nighter browsing through gazillion photos and tweaking countless combinations! In the wee hours of the morning, I was gently told by hubby that it was already the morning of 31st! It was only then that I finally decided on my instagram photos of feet and shadows throughout our four seasons in Ireland in 2013. Gosh, I can spend forever doing creative stuff like this! 

Now the next thing to do is to have this printed and framed. That will be my next project once we have settled in to our new place in 2014.

click the photo for a better view

In case you were wondering how I did this, I purchased an online layout by Paislee Press for less than €4 then just added the photos. As simple as that. A photoshop is a must though so I asked hubby to download one for me as a Christmas gift, which he did, bless him. :)

Hi Ya 2014!

This was us celebrating the first five minutes of 2014. This was us minutes after jumping to our hearts content and shouting at the top of our lungs: Happpppy Neewww Yearrrr!!! This was us moments after we said our little prayer of thanksgiving for the year that was.

We are so excited for this year. First of all, we are moving two weeks from now! Let me say that in all caps: WE ARE MOVING! I have also decided to go back to the basics and commit time doing things that I love, one of them is writing. I completely neglected this blog and the fact that it frustrated me to no end meant that its in the very core of my being to write and to express. There's a still soft small voice in me that says: write. So I will do more of this in 2014: write.

I've always thought that New Year is an answered prayer in itself. We all want a clean slate, a chance to try again. Aren't you glad we have a fresh set of 365 days to do things we've been putting aside for years? to explore places we've never been? to capture the beauty that is called life? to love deeply? to be kinder? to build meaningful relationships and to fix an injured one? I certainly am.

Cheers everyone, hope you are off to a good start!

Credits: The center photo is a freebie journal card from Paislee Press, one of my favourite sites in the whole world wide web! :)