December Daily Album

Last night I spent some time consulting with my pain management coordinator. He's the guy who has me running off for surgery etc. It's his job to keep straight all the fun I'm having. The conversation was depressing to say the least. My medication was increased again as the coccygeal injection was a cataclysmic disaster. His words, "Occasionally a spinal injection completely ruins a person's life. You're that person." It did something nasty to the bone and now I can't sit for more than seven minutes or stand for more than ten. The pain is exponentially worse and my quality of life is really in the toilet. I'm supposed to keep in mind that this is short term. "Only about a month longer" But that's a lot of special days with my family I'll be missing out on. I have to get the nerve to walk across the room - decorating trees and making gingerbread is way outside my scope right now.

So, with all that on my mind I decided to jump on the Daily December bandwagon. I'm terrified that I'm going to miss this winter entirely. Or at least not lock in memories of the moments.

Ali Edwards popularized the concept. Basically you make an album or notebook and add a note and picture each day. People often include envelopes for receipts, cards etc. I didn't want to spend any money and I can't go shopping so I made the album in about an hour from the chipboard back of a used legal pad and scraps from my paper file (including some awesome ouchless cardboard from Gauche Alchemy). You'd be amazed at how many piece I've saved that meet the 5x7 requirement I set. The covers are 5.5 x 7.5 to make room for odd sized items (like scallops).

This is a great recycling project. I plan to make some more inner pages from discarded manilla folders, cereal boxes etc. And don't think you need to be crafty for this. If you can keep a journal, you can do Daily December.

What I'm not doing is stressing out, spending a lot of time or expecting much of myself. I am adding at least one picture and a short note about what we did. Sounds good to me.

Here's some pics:





And here's my page from yesterday. As you can see, I haven't done my inside covers yet and I'm keeping it very basic. Simple is good.