week 5 ~ here and now

Did you get a chance to see yesterday's post on Heidi Swapp?
It was a bit of a recap and the Media Team shared some of their favorite pages from the
Memory File Album Adventure.
I loved reading what spoke to everyone on this journey.
I would love to hear from you too.

Today I want to share my version of week 5.
These pages were inspired by Lindsay.
Again...great, great prompts.

The prompts led me to focus on...well...the here and now.
As she shared, the idea was to focus on what one is embracing in their life right now.

As women, as well you may be wives and mom's, that can be a hard prompt.
Our focus is so over spent on everyone else around us.
Making sure their needs are met and cared for.
But as the saying goes, if you are not taking care of yourself, who is?
And this is what these pages caused me to ponder.

My favorite part of this was the list that she created.
her list of reflective thoughts on herself.

For me I took my most recent journal entries.
Very often when I want to focus on a habit or trait or virtue,
I will turn it into a 'she-ism'.
So I made a bullet point list of my current 'she-isms'.
I know this will be so poignant when I go back in a few months or even in a year and review where I was headed.


My next favorite thing to follow in her prompts was the envelope of hopes.
Not only did she share a fun technique for adding an envelope to these pages,
a secret hiding place if you will,
but she also encouraged to write down your current hopes on strips of paper
and 'hide' them in the little space.
This was such a freeing exercise to free write my current hopes.
Some practical.
Some not so much.
Again...to come upon these in the next year and review them will be very powerful.

Behind that page I wrote the lyrics of one of my favorite songs that help me focus on my here and now.
It's an oldy from DC Talk called Day By Day.
A prayer of a song.
I have adhered to it for years.

This page was simply creative fun for me.
I really love the pocket protector pages that are part of the Memory File Album.
The team has used them in so many differing ways.
I made my top pocket simply a pretty space with a Definition Sticker.

And then I followed Lindsay's prompt for the bottom pocket to add fun embellishments and images and words of reminders.

Right here and now this is one of my favorite sayings.
I wish I would of cut it out on paper that had less of a pattern.
But you know...I was embracing the here and now...
and so I left it as I created it.
Not perfect.
But a great reminder nonetheless.
Go slow.
Be God struck.
Grant grace.
Live truth.
Give thanks.
Become the gift.

Thank you Lindsay for an amazing ride on this adventure.
Now go...
embrace the here and now.