A common source of guilt is piles or files of unorganized photos. I have loads of photos and guilt, too. I still have every intention of purging and sorting my printed and digital pics as well as scrapbooking them, but if and until that happens, I have a great solution: make a photobook.
I made a beautiful photobook of my mother-in-law's life in about a day and that includes the time spent scanning photos. My husband turned 50 in February and I decided to make him an even less time-intensive book. I used only digital photos. I reviewed all the photos I've taken over the past 5 years and let me tell you I have a bunch! But I was pleasantly surprised by how little time it took.
To make a quick, guilt-reducing photo book, first begin looking through your photos of your subject. If you have printed photos, pull them out and put them in a separate box or envelope. Before removing them, note where they're taken from. Use a sticky note to mark the page of albums where a photo has been removed. For digital photos, create an album file or tag to indicate which photos will go into the book.
The second step is to organize your photos. Because I didn't have exact dates for my mother-in-law's book, I realized that the photos would be easy to organize by decade. For my husband's book, I found that I could organize them into shots by himself, with me, with each of the individual children, with the kids in groups, with our family in groups, with his extended family, and with his friends. Once you've decided on your organizing structure, you'll want to either scan or add photos into subfolders. For example, my mother-in-law's book had one large file with subfolders for the 1960s, 1970s, etc.
The third step is to choose a digital photobook maker. You can drive to the photo developer and have them organize the book for you. You can also choose software like Creative Memories' StoryMaker Plus or Shutterfly which will give you fancy, decorated pages. I chose Creative Memories for my mother-in-law's book and had the book published through a different online developer. For my husband's book, which I didn't want to be fancy or have much journaling, I chose Walgreens. Their software was easy to use. Work on just one subfolder at a time! This is key. As you work, you may decide not to use certain photos to fit the templates your software provides. Try not to sweat that. 🙂 You can always print those photos or use them in another project.
My husband's book arrived about I week after I completed it. He was thrilled and I felt forgiven for my failure to print photos or to scrapbook them at all. He now has a short book with the most treasured photos in it from the last five years. It's not as great as having a paper scrapbook with tons of journaling, but he sure didn't seem to mind. You could make a great photobook this weekend and be guilt-free…for a while anyway.
My children and I read this today as part of our gardening study. What an incredible book! The pictures are gorgeous and the story is moving. It is set during the Depression which made it doubly educational. Buy or check this book out for your kids or grandkids. You won’t be sorry!
I find I need the daily inspiration of prayer and Bible reading to live the Christian life. After all, even the daily inspiration doesn't keep me from blowing it. I know that I'm more likely to walk the walk when I'm inspired this way, however, than when I'm not.
When I bought Jillian Michael's Shred video, I decided to sign up for the free 30-day membership on her website. (Before clicking, be aware that her choice of workout attire isn't modest) While I haven't been doing her daily scheduled workouts or using her daily menus, I have really enjoyed her daily emails. It's a different topic every day–short and sweet. If you need regular inspiration (who doesn't?) I highly recommend it. What else do you use to stay inspired?
Today I am taking my planned day off from working out. I'm a little bit discouraged about my progress weight-wise. I've stayed exactly the same weight. I need to focus on the increased fitness I am enjoying. I will persevere and if I get no results, I will change things up. (I'm really just trying to convince myself 😉 Have a wonderful week!
I know, I know. I haven't blogged my fitness progress. I've been distracted by having my purse stolen and being on national television. On the stress chart, I'm right up there! But I have been doing well since I started on Monday. When distractions keep you from exercising and eating right, just persevere!
What's going well: Exercising first thing in the morning. I have gone back to my strategy of immediately popping out of bed when my alarm goes off. I stand up before I'm fully awake and within a minute I am fine. I know this is weird, but I take my iPhone with me (I use it as my alarm clock) to the bathroom first thing and it helps me to wake up to look at the fresh emails. I was thrilled that this morning I woke up before the alarm. That means that in four short days my biological clock has been reprogrammed.
The intensity of my workouts is going very well. I have been trying lots of new approaches to fitness that I will blog about individually later and all of them are helping to challenge me.
Eating is going great. It's become more automatic for me.
What's not going as well: Drinking water. It is very, very hard for me to drink 8-11 glasses a day. I honestly hate having to constantly run to the bathroom. I am going to keep trying to drink more however.
Tracking my calories every day. The main problem happens when I am too busy to plan my meals on www.Gyminee.com. I'm still tracking some, but not every day. I want to get next week planned on Gyminee so tracking is easy.
Limiting fruit to earlier in the day. This was my plan using www.tomvenuto.com's book Feed the Muscle, Burn the Fat, but since I cannot eat any other carbs besides veggies, it's extremely difficult to do. I'm not going to worry about it as I think I can meet my goal without it.
I'm off to the gym to do lower body. I don't plan to have my purse stolen this time. The good thing is I got a really cute purse to replace it. LOL
I had the chance to be on the Jim Lehrer News Hour for PBS with Gwen Ifill last night. I got to ask the second question of a state and local panel discussing Obama’s First 100 Days. Parts will air at 6 pm tonight and the whole program will air at 7 pm on Friday if you would like to check it out!
I’ve got to be honest with you…this is a sight I thought I’d never see: my mom at a gym. But here she is in her 60s and lifting weights for the first time.
I’m so proud of her. She inspires me! Until last summer I thought exercise and eating right were mostly about looking good. That’s why I wasn’t as excited about exercising as I once was. I figured my “looking good” days were long past! They are, but looking good isn’t the best reason to work out: health is.
Benefits of Fitness for Older Women
Exercise reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Exercise can not only help us live long, but live WELL. When we commit to strength training, we do not have to spend the winter of our lives weak and frail. Nursing homes and wheel chairs aren’t inevitable. Sure, there are circumstances you can’t control. But why not do what you can?
Even though I am convinced that aerobic exercise and strength training is a great use of my time, I still need fresh inspiration. Sometimes that inspiration comes in the form of a new workout. If you need a new workout, check out my post on 6 Short Workouts You Can Do at Home. But there’s nothing as inspiring as seeing the benefits of fitness in action.
Inspiring Fit Women Over 50
WARNING: If you find photos of women in bikinis objectionable, pass on all but the last video. Otherwise, check out these amazingly fit older women. Pin this post to your fitness inspiration board so you can look at it again when you don’t feel like heading to the gym.
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
