picture this - project 365

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." - Annie Dillard

In 2010 and 2011, I undertook a challenge to take a picture a day for 365 days. If you ever find yourself with an obscene amount of free time on your hands, feel free to go back through my blog history and check out all three hundred sixty five of my days :) In the interest of saving time though, here's a brief(ish) wrap up of the entire project. Enjoy! 

A TRIP AROUND THE SUN

Can you believe that the year is over?

Because I can’t.

There were times when I thought it would never end, and times I thought to myself, “Am I really still doing this?” But now that thethree hundred and sixty fifth day has arrived, I’m so proud of myself for sticking it out and completing the challenge!

Some days it was hard to pick just one picture to represent my day, and others, it was hard to come up with something to post about. Some days were bad, most days were good, some were amazing, and some were boring or stressful or busy. Some days marked special occasions, and some marked nothing special at all. But this collection of three hundred and sixty five pictures isn’t just about those individual days. To be honest, I can’t specifically remember a majority of those days. Most of them came and went and nothing special happened. But if it weren’t for this project, those days would have been gone from my conscious memory forever.

So to summarize, I’d say I’ve learned two important (and possibly contradictory) things from this project. The first is that you need to be able to appreciate the little things so that you can appreciate the big ones. To take the time and process every single day acknowledges that each day is a gift and deserves to be appreciated. We all remember the big moments in our lives, but it’s all of those seemingly insignificant days and moments that make up who we really are.

But - at the same time, you need to be able to look beyond all of these single, individual pictures so that you can see the big picture.

(Ha! Picture! See what I did there??)

I’m so lucky to live where I do, to have been blessed with an amazing family and friends, to be healthy and happy, to have so many great experiences behind me, and to have so many more to come. Those are all of the things that I see when I look back over each of these 365 days, and it makes things like a broken air conditioner or a long day at Chevys seem not so bad at all.

So let’s take a trip back in time and see just what happened over this past year…

First of all, according to the labels that I assigned to each from post, I blogged about "Chevys" 15 times, "class" 21 times, "family" 66 times, "food" 45 times, "friends" 49 times, "Honduras" 15 times, "Random" things 33 times, "SHH" 15 times, and "Summertime" and "the beautiful outdoors" 12 times each. I'd say that's a pretty accurate depiction of my priorities, with family, friends, and food being my top 3 :)

Here's what else happened...

I started out with one big post of my whole first week.

I went back to work at the CYC, and shared a few stories about thecute kids there.

I got a new job, too! A few too many of my 365 days were spent atChevys, and many of my blog posts showcased the “specialsboards” I had to make for them.

I spent an unusually hot fall doing things like going to concerts and some football games. I went to YogiBerry a few times in there tooJ

I got rear-ended on day 39, and spend a few more months with Ruby the Volvo until I handed her down to my sister and got Lucy the CR-V.

I spent a lot of time missing my summer in Spain and longing to go back. I also got to reunite with some of the amazing people I spent time with over there!

I didn’t post a picture on a couple of days. Once that was on purpose, and once it was an accident.

I graduated from College Park Scholars.

I celebrated Halloween in College Park, Thanksgiving andChristmas in both College Park and Berwyn, New Year’s in theAdirondacks, Valentine’s Day at Target, St. Patrick’s Day eatingShamrock Shakes and singing karaoke, Easter in Mexico, and the4^th of July in a variety of backyards J

I turned 21!

I celebrated a lot of other people’s birthdays, too! Most of them were milestones (1, 21, 50, 60) and some were not (17, 20…)

I had a few visitors come! And more than a few fun nights with my best friends.

I made A LOT of friendship bread.

I got to go to Florida twice; once to see this guy and this guy, (and their parents!) and once to celebrate my nephew Brett’s Bar Mitzvah and see family I haven't seen in a long time!

It snowed a few times, and Maryland freaked out like it normally does.

I missed Mom-mom just about every day of the 365, but wrote a post about it on her one-year anniversary.

I did all kinds of things to prepare for my trip to Honduras…

…and then I went ahead and went there! I blogged a lot about thatand the life changing experiences I had there.

When I got back from Honduras, I got really involved with SHH oncampus. We raised money in all kinds of crazy ways, and I had somuch fun doing it.

I watched Bobby change so much over this first year in his life. I’m in love with him!

I got to go on TWO spring break trips – one to Hilton Head with my friends, and one to Mexico with my family.

I read a book that changed the way I view teaching, and will definitely impact the teacher I become.

I met my brand new baby cousin Julian, and then scored the best job in the world babysitting him over the summer.

I got excited over lots of random, silly things like neti pots,bananas, planners, sharpies, and drying racks.

I also got excited over a not-so-silly thing – my brand new camera!

I made a few trips to the beach to get my tan on.

I went to my cousin Meredith’s wedding, and then headed back down to College Park to start my year-long student teachinginternship!

There were two natural disasters during my first week of student teaching, proving to me that you really do need to be prepared for anything when you’re a teacher – even earthquakes and hurricanes!

And that brings me to today! So many other things happened in between all of these posts that I just mentioned, and so much else went down this year that never even made it onto my blog. It goes to show you that there are so many things that make up a year, and consequently make up a life. And it wasn’t just my life or my year, a lot of times it was yours too!

My life and my year and my days wouldn’t have been what they were if it weren’t for the family and friends, colleagues and kids, and sometimes even strangers that I interact with on a daily basis.So THANK YOU! Thanks for sharing this year with me and for reading my blog – you guys rock J

Stay tuned to laurenelizabeth11.blogspot.com...….”Picture This” may no longer be around, but who knows what might show up next!

Xoxo,

Lauren