consider yourself: How Do YOU Do It?

Source: stock.xchng / 13dede

Look to your behavior to find material for scrapping yourself:

• Begin with your habits and routines around daily life—from what you like for breakfast to a look at the errands you run regularly. Chart out a typical day. Think about how long it’s gone this way, what it was like before, and how it might change. Scrap the parts that you think reveal something about you, that you don’t want to forget, or that you just feel like scrapbooking. Make sure to include journaling that: 1) includes details not shown in the photo, and 2) talks about you and how this routine is related to who you are.
• Look at other cycles in your life and list the routines you have around them, including weekly routines, annual routines, and things you do when the seasons change. I scrapped “Two-Week Accumulation” with a photo taken on cleaning day at my house—which comes around every two weeks.
• Next, consider your own unique approach to things big and small: Do you plan dinners or do you eat out or do you rely on someone else or do you just fly by the seat of your pants? How about vacations? Do you like to be busy sightseeing or would you rather sit by the pool? Think about your “I’d rathers” and scrap those that most compel you. “I’m A Schlepper” is a page I did about my tendency to take a lot of stuff with me when I go places. In the journaling, I included both details about this behavior as well as thoughts about what this says about me.
• Once you’ve got a list of your habits, routines, and approaches to life, it’s time to get contemplative. Consider evaluating some of these tendencies. To do this, write about whether you think the behavior is a good or bad thing. Defend it or write about changes you’d like to make.

JOURNALING: I prefer purchasing house-cleaning services to purchasing new clothes . . . or even new craft supplies. It’s been almost two years now that I’ve had this extra money to make this possible. The best thing about it is that it ensures the house does get cleaned at least every two weeks. This does not mean that I don’t clean. Indeed, picking up for the cleaning person is a major undertaking around here. When Jenn arrives, I’ve usually finished picking up downstairs and I move to my bedroom, where I put some things away and pile even more on the bed -- to be put away right before I’m ready to crawl in it 12 hours later. My office is a nook off the bedroom, and so we’re all often here in the late evening, doing homework, reading, the boys taking baths in our tub while I do a little work and watch MSNBC. These photos are a great shot of what most accumulates in this room: books, clothes, and an odd assortment of toys. (Oh, wait, I already took the 15 drinking glasses downstairs.)

priming the engine: ask yourself this

• list 5 things you do almost every day (or every weekday) because you must
• list 5 things you do everyday because you want to
• what item from these lists do you think does the most for your life?
• what item does the least for (or even harms) it?
• what are some pages you could do about your habits?

think about it: quotations

Use these quotes as a springboard to thinking about your approach to the small and big things in your life. Pull out a pencil and paper before you start reading, so you can make notes about ideas that come to mind.

• Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life – Ralph W Sockman
• Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. – Lou Holtz
• Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t. – William Shakespeare
• If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain. – Maya Angelou
• Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each one a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage, they form at last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dew-drops which give such a depth to the morning meadows. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Curious things, habits. People never knew they had them. – Agatha Christie
• A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. – Herm Albright
• Human Beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives. – William James
• Abundance is, in large part, an attitude. – Sue Patton Thoele
• Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time. – Mark Twain
• Nothing is stronger than habit. – Ovid
• Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable. – Sir Francis Bacon
• Art and science have their meeting point in method. – Edward Bulwer-Lytton

write it: journaling prompts

Complete these prompts and jumpstart your journaling.

• There’s actually a good reason I do it this way . . .
• Just, please, don’t interrupt me when I’m in the middle of . . .
• I’d rather ____ than ____. (For example: I’d rather spend my extra money on a housecleaner than new clothes. I’d rather read a book than watch TV).
• I’m a night owl/early riser because. . .
• When spring/summer/winter /fall arrives, I immediately want to . . .
• At least once a day/week/month, I . . .
• It’s not my favorite thing to do, but nevertheless, you can count on me to make sure . . .
• The first/last thing I do in the morning/evening is . . .
• I know I shouldn’t _______ but I do anyway because . . .
• I spend way too much time . . .
• I’ve memorized these phone numbers because . . .

I take a lot of stuff to the beach--shovels, buckets, chair, pop-up tent, food, drink, extra clothes, sand-sculpting tools. This behavior extends to other outings. I think it has to do with wanting to be prepared--but, even more, it may be that I think if I’m prepared, I have control & then all is right with the world. In my defense, I’d like to point out that at least I’m a self-aware schlepper. 08*07