The Happily Ever After Hypothesis*

"Happily ever after" never rang true for me. Not that I don't believe in happiness. Just not endings.

My rationale for this? Well, if you are focussed only on one thing and that's your destination, with no flexibility, with nothing else that excites you or intrigues you; what happens when you reach that destination? What then?  If getting there was your ultimate goal for your happiness, what now? What comes after your happy ending?

I read in a magazine the other day an article about women and their goals for 2012. One of them said, "I've always been the odd one out, so this year I want to meet the man I'm going to marry. Having a huge wedding will make me so happy."  Another talked about how her job was getting her down and how she wouldn't be happy until she had a new one. Yet another talked about how she "can't wait to lose the weight and my new happy life will begin." I totally applaud all these women for having goals, but I wonder if they've considered being happy now, on the way to reaching those goals? I don't want to be someone who says "I will be happy when X happens."

I've always believed that life was about the journey, about the what happens along the way, about the people you meet on the path, not about the destination.  I'm not the no57 bus, my destination isn't written all over me. So I don't always know exactly where I'm going. Don't get me wrong - I'm not directionless, I have goals. But sometimes, events and people change how I see things and that means my next step is in a different direction than the one I'd originally anticipated. I get to achieve my goals in a different and perhaps unexpected way. And I learn something. And I keep going. I don't think I'm ever going to be 'at' happiness. I'm creating and choosing it every day, every step I take along that path.

*and yes, that is another TBBT inspired blog post title.

Project Life 2012: February part 1

As a reminder, I'm using PL to document our lives on a monthly basis -I haven't committed to producing a 2 page spread for each week, and will just fill as many sides and pages as I need to document the month.

Even though, I am still finding that I am doing something every week. So this past week, I began my February entries, and am surprised to find I have filled one side of a page protector already. It being February and Valentine's, I'm focussing this month on things that we love.

Here's the overview:

I embellished the title card a little to match the Love theme - I like the strip of hearts and single hearts which were cut from paper in the Making Memories  "je t'adore" range.

Next up, on the top right is a 'Praise Postcard' which Chloe brought home from school. Her English teacher had given it to her for being a 'responsible citizen'. I paperclipped it to a 6x4 piece of paisley paper, added a Heidi Swapp pink journaling spot and some 7 gypsies stickers, and called it good. I love that PL allows me to add this kind of memoribilia into my album! Here's a close up:

In the middle row, I've included two journaling cards detailing the tv programmes Chloe and I love to watch just now. Yep, these are the small tiny templates from the amazing Cathy Zielske. Love these!

Next to them, I have a journaling card with a photo of my new shoes, which I took on my mobile (cell) and sent to my Polaroid PoGo for printing. These little snaps are such a cute size, and I love that you can peel the backing off to make them stickers. Perfect for PL, even if the photo quality isn't fabulous. I've included a quote from one of my favourite Paolo Nutini songs, which fits exactly my thoughts about shoes.  I didn't like the design of this journaling card, so I just used the blank reverse.

Alongside this, I've printed out one of the filler cards from the digi Clementine set, which I just recoloured in PSE to match my page a little better.

In the bottom left, I included a card about my current favourite treat - Fab ice lollies. I adapted a Cathy Zielske 4x6 journal card template for this, to include a small snap of the treat and add in the product name (cut from the packaging) with foam squares for dimension.

Lastly, in the bottom right, I documented the exciting day last week when the PL 2012 products were available in the UK for purchase and pre-order. It was an exciting day - and there were so many eager PLers in UK & Europe that the traffic crashed Tammy Morales Scrapbookers Inner Circle shop site for a little! But we all managed to get on and place our orders. As you can see by the angel and devil circling round my head (webcam photo with clipart), my PL heart and my wallet-aware head battled it out, but I did order page protectors in big pack of design A, big variety pack and some 6x12. Together with our VAT tax and shipping, that little lot came to £70GBP, but it will keep me going for absolutely ages, so totally totally worth it! The Clementine core kit is available for pre-order, but not sure if I can afford it now, and I'm finding the digi kit I purchased is fun to use. Huge thanks to Tammy and Becky for bringing PL to UK and Europe.

Been a busy start to February and looking forward to continuing to record the 'love' for the rest of the month!

Linking up again to The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday, and to the ever lovely One Happy Mama. If you haven't visited these blogs already, do pop along for a huge shot of inspiration and plenty of PL!

Ferris knows

A short and sweet blog post today, because I'm busy with the crafting again - lots of cards and jewellery and website tweaking. But in the midst of being very busy, I saw this quote online.

Not only is from one of my fave films of all time from one of my face directors, but it's also a great quote in itself. Life does move fast. There are so many moments I don't want to miss because I'm trying to see what comes next.

So I'm trying to live in the now, appreciate all I've got (and scrapbook it of course)! And in the spirit of taking a moment to look around, I'm going to stop working now to take a break for hot chocolate.