Project Complete!

December 31, 2009 – Day 365!!!

I finished up the puzzle I started late on December 26th today. I can’t take all the credit though. Ken, who admits he doesn’t have any patience to do a puzzle, helped me. He put together 4 or 5 pieces of the puzzle. :-)

I love the picture on this puzzle; I would love to live there - if I didn't work in the concrete jungle.

And this is it – my 365th photo of 365…the last day of Project 365! When I began this project one year ago, I was apprehensive about taking it on because I wasn’t sure that I could take a picture a day, every single day for an entire year. But it’s thrilling to have completed this project! I don’t have a desire to quit yet though, so I’m going to try doing it for another year.

The Cookbook

December 30, 2009 – Day 364

About 2 ½ years ago, I decided to type out my favourite recipes so I could pass them down to my children and grandchildren. That was the beginning of a once-in-a-lifetime project and little did I know that it would take me so long to complete! I spent countless hours typing and proofreading my work.

I’ve enjoyed cooking, baking and trying new recipes since I was a teenager so I have accumulated many favourites over the years. Once in a while I would put this project aside because it seemed like an enormous undertaking that may never be finished, or I’d simply lose interest in typing recipes – but I always kept coming back to it because I never lost the desire to pass along a copy of my favourite recipes.

After more than two years, I finally finished typing every single one of my favourite recipes! Once I reached that goal, I decided it would be great to include any others that my kids may wish to include – and I’m glad I asked because a couple of them did have recipes to contribute. Once I added their recipes, I then thought it would be interesting to include favourites from other family members as well, and I began to collect and type up recipes from aunts and cousins.

As I continued to collect recipes from my family members and add new favourites when I would try a new recipe that was fabulous, I realized that this was a project that could very well never have an “end”. So early this year, I set a goal to finish the collection of recipes in time to give to my kids for Christmas gifts this year and that’s what I’ve done.

Although this cookbook is finished, Christine is going to take over and start a new cookbook of our future favourites! I will submit to her any new recipes I try that I would consider a new favourite or any recipes I collect from family members.

I had planned to print a copy of the cookbook for each of my children, put the pages in plastic sleeves and add them to a binder; however, my sister Darlene had a much better idea. She went to Staples not more than a couple weeks before Christmas to see how much it would cost to have the cookbook printed and coil bound. Each was only $32 and change to be printed on cardstock – and could be done in time for Christmas! Darlene ordered four cookbooks for herself and I asked her to order five for me (one for each of my kids and one for myself). It turned out that Staples made an error on the first printing. Instead of printing the heading pages single-sided, they double-sided everything other than the first page of the cookbook. They redid the job as we originally requested it be done and we still had the cookbooks in time for Christmas! My sisters Marilyn and Cathy and my aunt Joan bought the first set of misprinted cookbooks at cost – I guess they didn’t mind some of the headings being on the left hand side of the pages.

Including the index and category heading pages, the cookbook is 271 pages long and is about 1 ¾” thick after being printed and bound. Creating this cookbook truly was a labor of love and feels thrilling to have it done and see it in “print”!

Puzzle Mania

December 29, 2009 – Day 363

Adam, Michael, Christine and Ian worked on a puzzle on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I love doing puzzles but, even though my kids took turns helping me in the kitchen, I didn’t get a chance to participate because I was busy preparing a bounty of snacks on Christmas Eve and a turkey dinner with all the trimmings on Christmas Day.

However, on Boxing Day, Christine brought out a box of ten puzzles that she received as a gift from Claire (Ashley’s step mom). Ian, Christine and I each chose a puzzle. Christine chose a 750 piece puzzle (the mailboxes); Ian chose a 500 piece puzzle (the waterfall) and I chose a 750 piece puzzle (the barn/farm house), and we began putting our puzzle pieces together. It was shortly after midnight when we got started: I didn’t get much done because I went to bed around 1:00 a.m., Christine turned in around 3:00 a.m., but Ian was up until 5:20 a.m. – just to finish his puzzle!

Ian started – and finished – a second 500 piece puzzle (the wolf) the next day!

Christine had breakfast plans with friends this morning so she let Ashley take over her puzzle after she left. Ashley was sure she’d be able to finish before it was time for them to leave for home early this afternoon but in the end she ran out of time and had to ask Ian to help her with the last 20 pieces or so. They (barely) finished the puzzle before they had to pick up Christine and head for home! Ian and Ashley gave me a couple minutes to take a picture of the puzzle once it was finished (which wasn’t the picture I chose for P365 because the puzzles Ian had put together had already been taken apart and packed away in Ziploc bags) – then they proceeded to take it apart, pack it up with the others and take it home with them (all of which I took pictures of)!

I don’t have my puzzle finished but Christine let me keep it here to finish. Once I’m done, I’ll take a picture, then take it apart to give back to Christine next time I see her.

It’s always so much fun to have my children, in-law children, and grandchildren come to visit but I feel overwhelming sadness and anxiety when it’s time to say goodbye. Even though Christine and her family only live 3 hours away, I had to choke back tears and fight a panic attack when they left today. I immediately turned my focus to cleaning house and went out to get a few groceries to keep myself from losing control of my emotions.

Girls' Night

December 28, 2009 – Day 362

Christine, Ashley, Hope and I had a fun evening together tonight. We used the hand and foot moisturizer treatments that Christine and I bought at XS Cargo on Boxing Day; gave each other back and foot massages and talked about saving our money to go to a spa together one day, and maybe on a trip together to New York City when Ashley graduates in 2 ½ years. We also talked about yoga, being healthier – and shared our excitement about starting Superfoods 365 on January 1st.

Project 365 wasn’t my idea. I think the originator’s site is this one: http://photojojo.com/content/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/ but Superfoods 365 is an idea I came up with based on the 365-day goal. We’ll simply add nutrient dense foods to our diet each day. Dr. Steven Pratt and Dr. Oz have lists of superfoods and I’ve compiled a list for us to use based mainly on their lists. Each of us will decide how many superfoods from the list to add to our diet each day (without obligation to change anything else about the way we eat) but I think the four of us have decided to add 5 superfoods per day. We can have more whenever we want, but not less.

Sleeping Beauties

December 27, 2009 – Day 361

Christine, Ian and Austin sleep in our guest room when they come to visit. Ashley and Hope either sleep on a queen size air mattress or on the couches in our bonus room. On this visit the girls have been sleeping on the couches. I snuck in this morning and took a few pictures of the girls while they slept. The noise of my camera and the light from the flash woke Ashley up but Hope continued to sleep – although she later told me she was dreaming that I was taking pictures.

Boxing Day Shopping

December 26, 2009 – Day 360

I usually stay clear of stores on Boxing Day but this year I went out and even had fun shopping with Christine and Ian for a few hours.

Ian wandered off to the electronics section while Christine and I were shopping at London Drugs. When we finished our shopping, we found Ian playing the Xbox 360 NHL 2K10 hockey game. He was quite happy to let us know that his team (Calgary Flames) beat the Edmonton Oilers 9-5.

If I could post more pictures for Project 365, I’d photograph the purchases I made today but since I limit myself to one picture a day for this project, I’ll just write about them, more for my own record than because I think anyone is actually interested. :-)

London Drugs had a beautiful set of cutlery (for eight settings) on sale for $24.99 from $60.00 so I bought the last three sets that were on the shelf, ten boxes of icicles at 60% off the regular price of $1.49 each, a green olive oil bottle for $1.99 that was marked down from $9.99 and a package of 12 AA batteries for $6.99. I also bought myself a new shiny purple metallic pen with my name on it at London Drugs but it wasn’t on sale. I paid $5.99 for it. At XS Cargo I bought the Guitar Hero Aerosmith game for PS2, that comes with 2 guitars, for $29.99, a set of Revlon hot rollers for $10.00, a hand moisturizing kit and a foot moisturizing kit for $3.99 each. At Michael’s I bought two rolls of wrapping paper; both were 60% off the regular price of $10.00 each.

Christmas Day

December 25, 2009 – Day 359

This is the group of us that spent Christmas Day together this year. Back row: me, Michael, Adam, Ian and Hope. Front row: Ken, Little Bear, Christine and Austin. Travis and his family went to Amanda’s mom and dad’s (in Grande Prairie) for Christmas and Ashley was at her dad’s.

We had a wonderful day together.