A few weeks ago, Ali Edwards posted about noticing and the importance of a practice like this during a year like 2020. She gave the prompts of comfort, delight, rest, nourishment, and play and then encouraged us to take photos of each and share them on social media with the hashtag #aeartofnoticing. I loved seeing the perspective of others and participating in this challenge myself, especially since one of these is my word for next year.
Here are the photos and words I shared during this week:
COMFORT
Comfort is my spot on the couch. Comfort is dogs for blankets. Comfort is homemade bread and pot roast and crockpot soup and mac & cheese and meatloaf. Comfort is being wrapped up in a long hug. Comfort is sun streaming across my face. Comfort is a big fluffy comforter and the perfect napping pillows. Comfort is watering my plants. Comfort is warm clothes fresh out of the dryer. Comfort is tradition, and rhythms, and seasons.
DELIGHT
Typically delight looks like deep conversations, hosting all the people, and traveling. There hasn’t been much of that in 2020, so I’ve tried to look for more moments of delight in the small things. Sunsets, cinnamon rolls, art journals, growth, and nuggets of space for quiet and rest.
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit that changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. – Maya Angelou
REST
Taking photos of my feet is my regular practice of grounding myself, getting present, and in-the-moment rest. (This is just a reminder to myself that rest doesn’t have to be big. Sometimes it’s taking a pause in the midst of the most full day.)
NOURISHMENT
I felt like I needed a little jumping off point for nourishment, so i checked out the dictionary definition: the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition.
So here we are, looking up. Enjoying the fresh air and nourishing my mind with the beauty around me.
PLAY
Enjoying this Art Journaling box from Let’s Make Art. Love getting to play with new-to-me mediums and techniques.
Kevin recently shared how he documents his life over on the FinalVibe blog, so I thought I’d take some time to share a little about how I document mine. We are a little different in how we like to see our memories but regardless, we both find so much value in visualizing our journey and how we got to where we are today. Both come down to pictures and words, and being intentional about looking back to see how we’ve changed and how we can inspire our future selves.
1. Project Life
Eight years in and I still love memory keeping with pocket pages. I love the opportunity to be creative and change my process on a whim while still having the cohesive photo sizes. For the past couple years, I’ve done monthly layouts in 12×12 albums which has allowed me to use just four albums over the eight years. One of my biggest fears about this project is how much physical space they take up, but there’s just nothing like having printed pictures. Kevin sometimes sends me photos, too, and I just love getting his perspective in our albums. This project helped me to document through college, graduation, engagement, marriage, pups, and becoming homeowners. Looking back on photos of my college duplex, friends living next door, random celebrations, and first days with our pups are such sweet reminders of the blessings in this life.
One of my favorite things to do as a kid was look at photo albums when I was at houses of family members. I love the way that photos capture stories and feelings. Words do, too, and that’s why I always make sure to include them, even if it means tucking them away behind photos. I always want these to be books we can flip through to remember all of our favorite moments.
2. Chatbooks
Chatbooks are photo books made with your photos on Instagram, Facebook or camera roll and only takes 30 seconds to set up. I keep my scrapbooks in my craft room, so I like to have something smaller and less precious to have on the coffee table in the living room. These have been a piece of cake to make and are always a talking point when we have guests over – everyone picks them up. We go with the softcover edition and print one with highlights from the year and one for each vacation.
Price-wise, these are super reasonable at $10 (+ free shipping). You can get your first one free with my code JACQUELINEREAPE-TXQQ.
3. Hobonichi
I started using the Hobonichi Techo last year after going down a rabbit hole on YouTube. It’s technically a planner but I use it for daily stream of consciousness journaling. It has both monthly spreads and a day per page, which is a great contained way for me to journal (aka I have to keep it short and sweet). Also being that the pages are numbered by the date, it keeps me motivated not to get behind. This space is more raw and unfiltered than project life and includes fewer photos in comparison. I don’t plan on anyone reading these but me.
These notebooks are A6 (4-1/8″ x 5-7/8″) and believe it or not, the ones pictured above started out as the same size. I love how chunky they get as they are filled up over the year. I think I’m going to switch from the Hobonichi band to Stalogy next year, but I definitely plan to keep up the process as long as it’s working for me.
4. The Blog
We’re coming up on 11 years of blogging! I haven’t always been consistent but I truly treasure what I have been able to write in this tiny little corner of the internet. I love doing regular posts such as my currently series, because it’s so fun to see those stack up over time.
Even though I’ve considered quitting more times than I can count, I’m thankful for the fact that the internet seems more concrete and “forever” than physical photos and paper. I look back on posts from 2010 or even just last year, and can get such a clear picture on who I was at the time and what was going on in my life. It might not feel that way for other people, but that’s why I continually keep doing this for me.
Kevin makes a point in his post that you have to document in a way that makes sense for you – but at the end of the day, you just have to start and then stay consistent for long enough to see the effects of being intentional with a practice like this.
What are you doing to document your life and visualize your legacy?
At the beginning of last year, I made a goal to spend the entire year focusing on connecting with God in prayer. I read a couple books and did topical bible studies based on prayer and in August, I upped my game by creating a prayer binder. It has easily been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done to invest in my quiet time with God. Now that I’ve had some time with it, I thought it might be a good time to share it here, too.
First things first, a prayer binder is a tool that helps to keep all of the things I want to pray for in one place. The best thing about using a binder, as opposed to a journal, is that it can always be evolving. Throughout the past 5 months, I’ve rotated and changed things out so that the flow of prayer comes naturally to me. My prayer binder now incorporates prayers (both written by me and by others), scripture, photos, and a couple embellishments here and there. I’m really into paper-crafting, so I had a lot of supplies on hand that I used to get started. Even though mine has lots of patterned paper and decorative bits, it can also be as plain as you want it to be. Here are the supplies I used:
When you get down to it, my binder is comprised of 4 main parts that are made up by the acronym PRAY: Praise, Repent, Ask, Yield. I also have a resources section to keep random information and notes. Each day, I start by praying my way through both the praise and repent sections. When I get to the ask section, it’s set up into daily and weekly prayers. There are things I pray for each day, an then a rotating list of things I pray for weekly. This process give me a more reasonable amount of things to pray for each day and it helps remind me of specific details that I may forget without notes in front of me. This is followed by a section where I yield and being still before God. Throughout all sections, I write my prayers on sticky notes so that they are easily movable. It’s a way for me to wait expectantly, because when God answers the prayers, they get moved to the praise section. This way, I can continually see the work he’s done and the prayers he has answered. Here’s a look into what I’ve included in each of the sections:
I pray specifically for the sin in my life and for my eyes to be opened to the things that I need to bring before the Lord.
A – Ask – Daily
I use an “emergency room” section (an idea from The Reset Girl) which is a spot for anything that is urgent, needs daily prayers, or for specific and upcoming prayer requests.
Bible Verses I include with the “emergency room” section
I pray daily for myself, my heart, goals, divine appointments, and my relationships as they relate to the prayers for the next section.
A – Ask – Weekly
Monday – Our Marriage
Even though I pray for Kevin and our marriage daily, I include it on Mondays as well in more of a ministry type of way and the way we welcome people into our house and life. This is also a catch-all for anything else related to our marriage that doesn’t fall into the daily section. For example:
Our House
Hospitality
Our goals
Tuesday – Friends, Small Group
This is easily my most robust section, as it includes both photos of each person/couple, scripture I pray over each, and any prayer requests or things going on in their lives that I want to pray for. It brings me so much joy to see their sweet faces as I’m lifting them up in prayer.
Wednesday – Non-Believers, Social Media/Influence, Blog
The third day of the week is all about praying for non-believers all over the world and non-believers we interact with on daily basis. I pray for interactions with non-believers and the people we may have influence on in terms of social media, the blog, etc.
Thursday – Our Jobs, Work, Stewardship/Finances, Military
This is a big one – I pray for our specific roles and interactions at work as well as the way we steward our money and pay off our student loans. I ask God to continually give us direction in these things. I specifically work with people who have served in the military, so i’ve included that in this section as well.
This is pretty self explanatory, but I also have pictures, verses, and specific things I am praying for for each person in my immediate family and my relationship with them.
Saturday – Kevin’s Family
This is the exact same set up as I have for my family, except with Kevin’s side.
Sunday – Government, Our Community, The Crossing (Our Church), Missionaries, Ministries and Organizations we Support
This is also quite the doozy of a section. I originally had these split apart but I kept feeling myself overlapping them in prayer, so I put them all together. I’ve found a couple really great prayers online for each of these.
Enneagram Quote about Resting in God’s Presence – As I have studied the Enneagram, I have learned a lot about the impact it has on my faith and some of the things that I have a hard time with. For me, that is being still before God. No question that this has always been a struggle, but I had just always called it a distraction or wandering brain. I picked out a couple quotes from The Sacred Enneagram and some images from @xoenneagram on Instagram that relate to this topic and the Enneagram.
I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from Cori the Reset Girl (her video is below), but there are tons of great resources on the internet.
Mysa Home Styling’s Setting the Table – you have to sign up for emails to get this little guide, but I’m telling you, it’s worth it. I keep this in the front of my prayer binder and it’s been a good reminder to make my home more comfortable for others.
