This may be cause for celebration. I finished a full year of Project Life. In a timely manner. As in Finished. Finite. Finito. Fin.

Done.

Things I have learned:

Having a plan for printing photos on a regular basis has helped me do this project in a way that I call successful. (What you call successful may be entirely different. That’s the cool thing about scrapbooking. You get to decide what your successful memory keeping consists of, no one else can define that for you.)

I suck at remembering to take daily photos, or writing daily journaling. I work best in spurts. I can do Layout a Day easily now. But I no longer feel like I have something I need to prove. I know what I am good at, I know what my style is, and I can whip up a decent page in next to no time. I don’t have to take a picture every day or write every day to capture the essence of our lives.

Plus I really don’t like having to figure out how to squeeze in vertical journaling cards with vertical photos.

Speaking of which, the part that takes me the longest? Deciding which photos to use in which pocket page. Have I mentioned that I take a lot of vertical photos?

I need to work on improving my handwriting. My family keeps complaining about how difficult it is to read what I have written. That’s partly a result of the kids not getting a lot of cursive instruction in school, and partly a result of me not taking the time to write neatly. I can’t tell you how often my Ys look like bumpy Js.

Getting my boys involved in adding their own thoughts is hard. But every time I run across a card they’ve written, I’m glad. Now if only I didn’t have to nag them to do it.

Remembering to use memorabilia is hard. Deciding where to put it in my albums is hard. Too bad memorabilia is so cool.

You know what’s even cooler?

Knowing the album is done, having a plan for the next one, and being able to start right on the next year’s book.

Look!

I’m a month into the next album already. Now that’s what I call successful.