trimmingthesails

There are some stories ...

 ... which fold themselves neatly into memory, like sheets stacked in an airing-cupboard waiting to be lifted out for use. There are others which billow and bulge, like a duvet or sleeping-bag refusing to be squeezed into its cover: these have been my December. The highs have been high, and lows very low. Still, it has felt good to be able to capture their flavour and frame them into two pages; good for things to be steadier, though still fragile health-wise, for my parents; good to stop living on the edge waiting for the next emergency; good to be reunited with my home and computer and sleep again ...

Thank-you to Julie for the numeric inspiration in the first column above - her own month of numbers is always enjoyable to read. This is but a very short story - there are many wonderful ones over at Sian's great Story-Telling Sunday, and hoping you'll be able to visit some of her tellers of tales. Sorry to have been away, and glad to be back: and wishing you all a joyful and creative year ahead.

Edited to add: thank-you to Jemma for letting me know the journalling was unclear - hoping the single page below is clearer. :)

Chunks ...

I don't know about you, but chunking is the only way I am managing to keep this December project going. Though as I type, 'chunk' sounds a little too, well, chunky. I'm thinking more of what you get when you take a culinary knife to hunks of chocolate, and chop 'em down even further. Nibbles? Nobbles? Dust? Have we got a word?

That's the equivalent I'm talking about and it's sometimes only a minute or two long. Download the snapshots, attend to something else, open the template, attend to someone else, drop in a photo, attend to somewhere else, type a title ... you've got the picture. Micro-scrapping. So far, that's got me to here:

I'm hoping it might lead me to being up-to-date by the finish of the weekend ... Oops, time's up! See you soon?

A Book of December Days (-ish) ...

You were so right, Susanne, about a December Daily: "everything takes longer than you think it will. And you'll change your mind more than you think you will". Recent events have tossed that comment right into the space in front of me, and it's jumping up and down and waving: Hey, look, pay attention!

So my previously simple December Daily layout has morphed into the über simple: one photo with writing on it. It doesn't get much simpler. There are few common threads to link them together: a heading, a collection of three subtitles, a date, and some rounded corners. The size and shape might vary because I don't have time to make each absolutely identical. But I am, at least, on my way ...

It might even reach completion this year.  And how are you finding the process? Did you make A Plan and are sticking to it? Or have you found yourself where Susanne and I are? It may not be the Full Monty, true, but I'm actually quite liking the -ish ...