Happy Weekend: prompt for next week

Now, may be even today

1. Describe your perfect Sunday.

2. What things have you accomplished that, before finishing, you were dreading to the depth of your soul? Going to the dentist after three years of abstinence? Reading all the books you had to read for your masters? here is your space to list all those things, then cross them off. It’s OK that you’ve already done them – you need to celebrate striking the big things off your to-do list. Consider adding things you still need to do. You can draw inspiration from seeing them next to a list of all the other things you’ve accomplished.

 

Happy Weekend: prompt for next week

During the week:

1. Write your favourite smells on one page and on the opposite page  - write your favourite sounds.

2. Use another two pages to  get really creative. What is your favourite colour? (Green? stick dome grass here. Yellow? – Find your favourite shades on paint chips at the hardware store and tape them into your journal. Red? Find every related shade of red crayons and doodle on this pages)

What would you ask?

I spent at least two or three hours yesterday writing down all the questions I want my new nanny to know the answers to before she starts working on her own (she has a hand over period of about two – three weeks). Once I finished the list was about 4 pages long:-) Do you think she’ll run away if I ask her to spend her first two weeks filling in all the blanks (answers she doesn’t have straight of the top of her head now)?

Here is my mega list! What do you think?

Parenting #6: Who is Supporting and Nurturing You At the Moment?

Now, to tell you the truth, I’ve skipped at least two topics I was planning to cover. At first I felt quite bad about it. You know, usually I really like to stick to my plan, but then I thought … “It’s MY parenting book, it’s OK to change and mould it as I go along”. I am so preoccupied with my pregnancy and all the changes that it brings into my life now that I couldn’t wait another couple of weeks before I could write about how it feels and what  am thinking and planning to do – I wanted to talk about it NOW. The chapter 6 layout is a compromise between the planned topic and what I’m actually wanting to write and talk about.

So, the idea was to draw kind of mind map listing all the areas you receive support from other people and collage their  photos. on the next page you then would list out all the areas where support is lacking and write down where you might actually get it from.

Well, my version is way less reflective and soul-searching. I only listed out the positive side, people who help and nurture me and I used the other side of the page spread for something totally unrelated:-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My biggest achievement on that spread is the tiny poem in the left top corner of the right-hand side page. It’s called cinquin and is a five-line poem or stanza.

I’ve picked the following template to create one:

Line 1 – a one word title
Line 2 – a 2 word phrase that describes your title or you can just use two words
Line 3 – a 3 word phrase that describes an action relating to your title or just actions words
Line 4 – a 4 word phrase that describes a feeling relating to your topic or just feeling words
Line 5 – one word that refers back to your title

So, my absolutely ever first poem in English goes like this:

JOY
Beautiful Present
Comes and Goes
Delighted Excited Over the Moon
Precious

Here is another example (by Miki):

River
Clear, wonderful
Slapping, whirling, flowing
The river is cold.
Water

Happy Weekend: prompt for next week

During this week, how about you:

1. Start a list of happy songs (how about “Shiny Happy People” from REM or “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond?). Try to add a new song every week from now on. Ask your friends to contribute. (or, we could start a list here! send me your suggestions and we will create one common Very Happy List)

2. Pick a particular time on a particular day of the week and, every week, list what makes you most happy at that specific moment, until you fill up two (!) pages. Watch your moments of joy accumulate, shift, and circle back in again.

Parenting #5: What does the Ideal Parent Look Like?

Oh… what a layout. I mean… I was very brave this time:-) I made something with my own hands… I created a collage, made of magazines cuttings and 3D elements cut off the cards I bought. Nice morning spent in a café cutting paper and glueing elements together! I wonder what people around thought about me:-) I then scanned it in my local photo shop and at home erased the background in PSE (just a bit here and there) to make it look a bit more real rather than just being an imaged inserted onto a digital page… Now I know – creating your own embellishments to use for scrapbooking (2 and 3 dimensional) is quite easy (though – at least in my case) buying digital once is way cheaper!

I really liked this part of this journal! I had to create a job ad describing what kind of parent I (as a child) would be looking for. I had to describe the job, what qualifications ideal parent would need to have, traits they need to posses, experience and references:-) And then, on the opposite page I had to write my letter applying for the job and create a collage that would represent what family means to me, what an ideally family would look like. LOVED IT!:-)

Joy of Love Prompt #6

The prompt for today was Thing that they love. Anything from food to a toy for each of us. So far I got only to take some pictures for Henry – his most favorite toy – a Cat. And I am still getting use to my new lens. I also spent couple of hours yesterday reading through my camera manual. I couldn’t remember a lot of things I learned in the photography class I attended a year ago: bracketing, metering, picture styles …

 

Happy Weekend: prompt for next week

In the next 6 days:

1. What is your favourite thing? Cats? Dogs? Reading? Find a bunch of happy quotes about it and write them on one page

2. On the other page create your own personalised happy map of all the countries, cities, and street that mean the world to you. You can use GoogleMaps or anything else that will help you create a map, then print it out and paste it into your book. (Some ideas to get you started: favourite childhood locales – from school to the site of your first kiss; your favourite vacation spots – from a family trip to your honeymoon in Bali)

Joy of Love: what they wear

Today’s prompt was to photograph what your loved one wears. I found some nice pieces to photograph among Henry’s old shoes and also my own jewellery

My Canon and the Lens

So, my canon is back and I also bought a new (2nd hand) portrait lens. I was playing with it in the last two days using the prompts I receive for Joy of Love. And here are a couple of photos!

1. Prompt #1: What are they doing? The idea is to photograph your loved one doing something very typical for them. Well, for Henry that’s iPhone watching (Russian cartoons)

2. Prompt #2: How they look. I have several photos to keep all of us in our memories, rather then only Henry:-)

3. Prompt #3: Then and Now.  I had similar pictures taken a year apart: in Feb 2010 and now in Feb 2011!

1. Watching cartoons

2. Inesa

2. Family

2. Henry

And here is another version of the Then & Now . It’s also a collage, I think all those time-line series work best as a collage… I’ve done all of mine in picnik’s free account (though I must admit, that the premium version is becoming more and more tempting:-)

And then, after giving it some thought I decided to include somewhat less successful photos. They are what they are because both me and Nigel are not great fans of our own images. Hence we end up not looking into the camera or making funny faces… But, so I thought, we need to get over it and document our lives as we do it for Henry!