Blessed New Year!

Blessed New Year everyone!
I'd like to give you this verse and wish that I received from a very dear friend:
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."
In the coming year, may God's grace cover you, may His presence watch over you, may His love abound toward you - moment by moment, step by step, day by day. I wish you and your loved ones a Blessed, Peaceful, Joyous and Wonderful New Year!

After a wonderful time spent with old friends on New Year's Eve, reminiscing and laughing as we thumbed through old photo albums, we spent New Year's Day quietly and just by our family. After a time at the beach it rained, and we headed for our favourite Borders' bookshop nearby, and our favourite seat in the Borders' cafe.

It was so nice to sit with dh and reflect on the past year and the new year and share our thoughts and wishes over coffee. I won't share everything with you, but I liked what Rozanne Paxman said in the ScrapGirls newsletter, if I may quote some of her words, she said that sometimes when she compares her life with that of some interesting blog writers' , "I begin to think that I live a remarkably unremarkable life. I get up. I get dressed. I work. Sometimes, I cook. Usually I don't. On rare occasions I bake. Usually I don't. My house isn't as clean as I'd like it to be. My haircut is easy-to-do. I'm using the same makeup I've been using for years...." I had to smile because that is so me! You must read all that she says, but eventually she concludes that "for now, my life is as it is and my blog proves it. I guess that's okay. It feels good here."

Me too, I'm not perfect and neither is my life, but DH and I concluded that it is good, and definitely as good as it gets, and we treasure what God has blessed us with.

I didn't make resolutions, but I intend to enjoy every little blessing I have to the fullest, find the good in everything and in everyone I meet, and "love mercy, do justly, and walk humbly with my God" (Micah 6:8) :)
Now I did start something yesterday! I took a lot of pictures, and at Borders I saw this fantastic book that touched the part of me that love the magazine, graphic style of photo-booking, then I went to Ikea Goddess' blog , and read about the 365 Project link she had... well one thing led to another, and I started what you see here!

I'm not ambitious about taking a photo for everyday, but I will certainly like to keep going maybe every other week for 2009! This will be in simple graphic style, so I can keep it up, while I still get to be scrapbook style-creative with my Japan Travel photos!

If you're interested, the 1 Jan journalling reads: We woke up really late. After all, tomorrow we start 6 am school days! The boys bought and played their once a year entitlement to a computer game (yes, they are deprived!) Jared, his Return to wonderland platinum edition, and Ryan his Avatar Bobble battles. While we watched Dan in Real Life for the second time - wonderful movie, just the way we like them! After much debating (nowadays its usually a 4 way debate ..sigh)we made it to the beach for our much missed (3 weeks in Japan followed by 1 week of rich Christmas/New Year foods) local foods - satay, chicken wings, nasi ayam, ice kachang and coconut! YUM! The boys spent time playing on the beach - we have countless similar photos of them at this same beach through the years! They never tire of it! We sat on the beach and while he read papers I caught up with the sewing of school pants for Ryan - he's so thin everything needs altering! I still have 16 name tags to sew onto both their school shirts! When it rained we escaped to Borders, and our favourite love seat in the Borders cafe. We chatted and reflected on the new year and how good we have it, how it's so "As good as it gets", and how we must treasure each day. Then a quick take-home dinner and it's off to bed for the boys at 9, while I set out their first day uniforms, shoes, the bags they had already packed. We are ready for the new year! And this is how we spent the first day.

Now I would like to share with you lovely layouts from some wonderful readers and friends! This first one is by honeybee, love her Christmas morning pics!
And this is what Vanessa has on her desktop showing off great family shotsThis is by Britney, love the theme of EverydayLife and the way she scrapped about them.
And I wanted to show you my photobook! It was all of 100 pages! I had to throw 2 pages out, and when I received my book, I realised I duplicated 2 pages!! ugh!! But everything was beautiful, love the cover, the paper, colors, how well the textures showed up (I enlarged a couple of shots to show you here), and the spacing using the shutterfly printing guides turned out so well, I was so excited to get it, yes, I did do a bit of a dance :)
And here is the entire book (can you spot the duplicated pages?)

Click here to view this photo book.

Finally I want to leave you a little gift, a kit I made nearly two years ago when I was designing and selling at GDS, it's kind of out of date now, compared to the superb kits out there now, but you may like it. It has to do with everyday life, that's why I thought of it.Download the Paper pack hereAnd get the Elements pack here