WITL 2016: Monday

Week in the Life (WITL) is an annual memory keeping project lead by Ali Edwards.  The idea is to take a really deep dive into everyday life for one week a year.  I've been participating since 2008, with the caveat that most of those years on only on the blog and not in albums.  I've been pondering how to make sure they get into albums this year and am trying to treat it more like December Daily by actually gathering the photos I plan to use and do the writing daily.... still not sure it will work, but it will be on the blog in any case.

Interestingly, the 2015 WITL (only on the blog) took place the first week of school this year.  It seemed interesting to have the 2016 WITL be the last week of the school year/first two days of vacation.  Most of the rest of Ali's WITL crew did this project last week, but I was in DC and preferred to document a week when we're all together. (I have documented time in DC before in Day in the Life and other projects, not to worry).

On to Monday....

This will be the first image and facing it will be some text.  I've written down the timing of the day, gratitude, observation, and overheard notes to be added, but will likely also add some text explaining the individual collages as with the below.  For now, planning on 8x6, but might upsize to 8.5x11 as I have some albums that size on hand. The above photo is as we were putting away groceries this afternoon. 

Collage 1 - Morning through returning home from the grocery store.  I will likely time stamp these once printed. The basic stories are: (from top left)

• Morning coffee
• buckling in for school
• Kids at the bus stop
• A look at my work day - planner 2 iphones, 2 screens, pencil, and a beautiful view
• A trip to the grocery store with E
• Holdie handsie with E walking to the car from pick up -- my favorite photo of the day. 

 Collage 2 - from returning home through the evening -- on instagram, I made three collages for morning, afternoon, and evening, but ended up with two instead for the album.  Possibly that lower right photo should be turned hmmm..

Stories from top left:

• afternoon chores
• Jumping on the pile of throw pillows and looking at scrapbooks after dinner
• Brent brushing E's teeth
• Me reading Goodnight Moon to E
• Brent playing games online with friends in the evening
• B's Oklahoma box --- which is full of Oklahoma projects from the last few weeks.

Overheard- at about 8:20 B mentions something he did in Enrichment today.  I'm shocked to discover that after probably a month or two of waiting he finally got to go to Enrichment and failed to mention this for 4.3 hours!  We even spent some one on one time today prepping dinner just the two of us.  Clearly I am more excited about Enrichment than he is.

Observation - I love, loved watching M go through maybe 4 different big scrapbooks tonight. I had opened one to show her her dance pictures form when she was 3 and that lead to many more books.  I love all these albums and am glad she does too.  I should resume scrapbooking soon.

Gratitude - I am thankful for the verdant green of this moment of spring in Oklahoma.  It makes me so happy. I'm thankful for an awesome job and time with my kids. 

Notes: Skipped some pictures of food today, including the picture of popcorn that somehow always makes it in.  Perhaps there will be a food page at the end? Keep reminding myself that there are six more days and many of these things happen daily so no need to try and use all the pictures on day 1.  Also, my big camera is broken so all iphone this year.  So far, so good.

Read more about WITL from Ali and others here.

And just for nostalgia sake:

Monday of WITL 2015 here.
Monday of WITL2014 here.
Monday of WITL 2013 here.
Monday of WITL 2012 here.
Monday of WITL 2011 here.
Monday of WITL 2010 here.
Monday of WITL 2009 here.

Wow - that is a lot of years and my journaling is usually a lot more detailed than this time...hmmm... we shall see.