In Episode 17 of the FinalVibe podcast, Jan “Gma Jan” Kempker shares a story about her dad and the fried egg sandwiches that he would make for homeless people who came to their home. He had no idea that this story would be passed along to his great-grandson or that his legacy of kindness and compassion would be shared with the purpose of positively impacting others and encouraging them to live out their legacy as well.
And as Andrew went on to say, “That’s legacy at it’s finest…Too often we overhype the big stuff in life. We’re sitting here, celebrating your dad for the kindness in his heart to feed a homeless person an egg sandwich.” This story is simple and it’s actionable. We can create a legacy for ourselves based on the way that we serve and care for other people when all the cameras are turned off and we think no one is looking.
I’ve thought about this everyday since. How does this play out in my life and what will my fried egg sandwich story be?
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?
Completing a half-marathon has been on my bucket list for over 10 years. It’s always been one of those dreams that sounded awesome, but I secretly wondered if I’d ever actually ever make it happen. I’m not fast or a runner by nature, and for some reason I thought that if I couldn’t do it while running the whole thing, then why even bother.
Earlier this year, I started focusing more attention on my health and fitness. I started tracking my diet and doing my best to get more workouts in. I got even more serious at the end of February when I decided to kick the whole thing up a notch by participating in Andy Frisella’s 75 Hard Challenge. (You can read more about my experience with that here.) I was nearing the end of the challenge when Kevin and I started talking about FinalVibe and I virtually attended Rachel Hollis’ Rise x Live Conference. I had all of these people around me saying “yes, you can” and I realized that the only person that was holding me back was myself and my mindset.
I mulled over it for about a week, when I finally decided to just go for it. With 75 Hard, I had been unofficially training and had done up to about 7 miles at one time. I realize that’s not super close to the 13.1 it would take to complete the half-marathon but I figured most training programs have one or two long mile training days that don’t quite get you to the full race length anyway.
I didn’t even map out a tentative path or really tell anyone what I was up to, but I did start recording a little vlog to document myself as I went. I started around 9am and took our pup, Willow, with me. I knew she was good for the 4 mile loop from our house, to the trail, and back around where I would drop her off and keep going.
Once I dropped her off, I went back for a similar loop but added on another couple mile portion that would get me a little closer to the distance I needed to be at to not have to do the same loop 3+ times. Throughout the rest of the walk, I listened to an audiobook (which happens to be my favorite when I’m getting those steps in). I was listening to 168 hours by Laura Vanderkam which talks about how we have enough hours in the week to set strong priorities and make our dreams happen if we take action, chuck out our time, and get over the lies we’re telling ourselves about what we’re doing. It was a motivating one for sure!
On this particular day, it was partly sunny and only 51 degrees fahrenheit. I got lucky, because it was beautiful out. We have a stunning trail system that winds around the area where we live that has lots of shade from the tree canopy. These trails and my neighborhood made up the entirety of my walk, which I’m super thankful for. Aside from the audiobooks, I love looking at the different trees, animals, and flowers that catch my attention. I can’t imagine not having a place like this to explore.
I started having some low-back discomfort due to some tight hamstrings and ended up stopping twice to stretch in the 9th and 10th miles. Between the stretching and this section being the most “busy” part of the trail, these were definitely the slowest of my splits when it came to time per mile. Part of the 11th mile was a zig-zagging path up hill and I about keeled over, but I knew if I stopped, I’d probably never start again. I was getting tired.
I passed by the house around the end of the 11th which was the perfect timing for my pups and Kevin to cheer me on! It makes all the difference knowing that people are excited to see me hit this huge accomplishment. For the last mile or so, I felt like I was crawling, and my mom (who checked in multiple times throughout the morning) called and cheered me on through the end. It felt like it all came full circle, as my mom and I virtually walk together almost every single night.
I was really hoping that everything would wrap up nicely and I’d be stepping onto my porch as soon as I hit 13.1 but ended up needing to go another 1/10th of a mile to make it home – not too bad considering absolutely zero planning went into the day. It was a little after 1pm when I wrapped up, and the errands I had planned (like walking around stores and picking up a 40lb bag of dog food) seemed a lot less fun with the new blister that had formed on the bottom of my foot.
Blister and low-back aside, I felt so good and managed to do 90 minute workouts in the days following. I kept describing it as an “on top of the world” feeling and I cannot imagine what doing a half or even full marathon surrounded by other people doing the same thing would feel like. Hopefully I’ll find out soon enough.
As I’ve thought back on this, I can’t help but ask myself “what’s next?”. I really want to continue improving on my time and start incorporating even more running into the mix. I’ve continued walking (though not at anywhere near this distance) and I’d love to do something more “official” next spring, or maybe even in the fall.
Even though it feels kinda silly to post, I need to know the numbers I’m going to beat next time. So for now, here are my stats:
Total Distance: 13.20 miles
Total Time: 3 hours, 43 minutes, 10 seconds (9:06 AM – 1:08 PM)
Average Pace: 16 minutes and 54 seconds / mile
Fastest Mile: 16 minute and 17 seconds
Slowest Mile: 19 minutes and 24 seconds
Total Calories Burned: 1897 calories
Elevation: 561 feet to 730 feet (481 foot elevation gain)
