Currently, and How I used the new Project Life App

background  from In Summery by Allison Pennington

Currently

recovering from the hectic craziness of September where our entire family was consecutively down with conjunctivitis (!); Jared had a dengue scare; I successfully made a 10k run (!); and we were all clocking long hours at work and for school, phew!

keeping up with the current craze in my office - carrying over from our 10k run, to stay active, and been going to gym classes 3 times a week, my old bones are beginning to feel young again :)

happily letting dh plan for our year end trip, I am the fussy and meticulous one, so I usually do it. We surprised ourselves that I can actually let go, and that he is actually as meticulous or more, once he gets into it! And this time we are booking all our accommodations through AirBnB - cheaper rates than hotels, more character, and we like meeting locals!

wasting too much time shopping online for jackets for the whole family suitable for the weather at the year end trip location, I usually try to score pre-owned stuff as we only use these warm weather clothing once a year or less, depending on where we go, but the Uniqlo ultra light down is on sale now, so we just might get it instead!

noticing and appreciating that my boys are totally not the 'chasing after the latest and greatest' type. I asked to 'safekeep' their phones during exam days recently so they won't be so distracted, and noticed that especially Jared's phone is so old that is is rusted at various corners! And they never once asked to have a new phone :)

loving the plethora of healthy food and salad bars sprouting all around - they have such interesting choices - been having salad for lunch everyday if I can help it - and inspired to concoct salad dinners on weekends

walking with a dear friend as she battles her 2nd year with cancer, and being so encouraged by her faith, courage, and our God's Lordship in her life. I'm learning the difference between trusting in the gift and trusting in the Giver. As F.B. Meyer (reading from Streams in the Desert) puts it, the gift may be good for a while, but the Giver is the Eternal Love.

thankful for a long weekend and appreciating the loveliness of peaceful and uneventful everyday life

How I used the new Project Life App

Have you tried it? the new Project Life App?

I thought about it for three days, then jumped in, haha! Mainly I was not sure if it would be useful for me, since I am very comfortable with doing my PL on photoshop, with digital supplies, then printing them and inserting them into my physical album.

This is what I did: Last month, I went with a group of friends to the Bali marathon, well to be specific we only did the 10k run, and between us we took hundreds of photos which we Whats-Apped to each other. With the App on my phone, I was able to sort through and select photos and cards while I am on the bus home from work, and completed this 'page' in 30 minutes, including adjusting the brightness and contrast on the photos, etc, which were all very easy to do on the app :)

After exporting the above page, I then went in and swapped some of the photo spots for other photos (see arrows below) to customize the page for each of my friends! Super Easy!

After I got home, I downloaded the exported pages from phone to computer, added bits and pieces of word art, recolored the 'Here we go' filler card, and each of the pages are done! I am sending it for printing at Persnickety and will slot it into a 12x12 protector. Also printing a page each for my friends!

By the way, I had never ever done any run in my forty something years of life, and doing this 10k was such a great experience! I decided I would walk the whole 10k, and trained about 4 times in the month before, listened to dh's advice about starting slow, warming up, keeping a comfortable pace and did it! The actual day, waking up at 3am, assembling at 5am with so many runners, the comaraderie and spirit in the air was palpable, then setting off and feeling being part of this great crowd (albeit a rather slow member of it), pressing on, encouraging each other on, being cheered by the locals and onlookers, just a very wonderful time! I might do it again!

I did another PL page on my way home another day, just pulling in photos and typing some journaling, see below - less than twenty minutes! I'm getting very productive on the bus!

All I had to do was add some word art and bits in photoshop and it's done! Because 99% of photos for my PL are taken on my phone, this works for me especially on the go. I still proceeded to 'cut up' this page into 4x6 photo sizes for printing, then inserted them into my PL as usual, so as to fit in with my other photos and protectors.

And this is the other PL page for September, done the 'traditional way' :) 

Jared had high fever for a few days and the doctors suspected he had dengue fever, giving us a scare; all of us were infected by a bad case of conjunctivitis one after the other, we were all stuck at home, none of us could really help the other, and it was the school holidays week !! And I really like the effect of writing on photos - though I need more practice with this - that looked like my arm was tattooed, haha!

And finally, just one 365 photo a day page to round up the month, and today is only the 6th of October, I love recording our daily lives in these simple easy ways!

I will be back with more double page layouts in a week or two!