Around here - Week in the Life 2020

This week I am participating in our annual "Week in the Life" photo project which is our 13th year.  It's the brainchild of Ali Edwards a US Storyteller/Scrapbooker and people from all over the world participate documenting their lives for 7 days.  It can be as simple or as detailed as you like.  You could take a photo on the hour, every hour of your day or you could just take a few photos.  The idea is that you document your life right now.  Most people think their lives are boring, particularly since most of us are at home 24/7 at the moment due to ISO thanks to the Coronavirus however it's the collective images of 7 days that tell the story.

If you have a hard time getting your head around it think about what it would be like if your parents or Grandparents handed you a photo album with a 7 day period of their lives.  Their cars would be different, houses, furniture, appliances, decor to name a few.  Think back to the 70's and the orange and brown kitchens that we all loved and the red white & black circle wallpaper my sister and I put up in our bedrooms.  Documenting books, TV shows you enjoy, the foods we eat etc.  Remember those pottery 70's mugs that were brown, olive, mustard ones.  You can still get them at the charity shops and as soon as you see them it evokes feelings of the days gone by.

Not sure if you remember that TV show on last year where the family had to live through the decades it was amazing.  They decorated their house of the era and provided recipes, etc. and what was around eg the kids went to the arcade to play their games and there were no mobile phones so the parents had to wait until the kids got home.  It was such a trip down memory lane as there was a time when they could go out to the Chinese restaurant for dinner as a treat.    The show is called "Back in time for Dinner" and I can highly recommend you watch it particularly if you are Australian.  It is brilliant and so interesting taking you back from when the family had their first computer etc.  It's so good to watch.  Watching this show you can see that they are time warps for history and the Week in the Life project is exactly the same.  What car we drive, what our house looks like, what our clothes look like.  When I was a kid our stereo was a wooden piece of prized furniture in the lounge room which also had the radio as well.  These days our children have phones which play music, no need for even records or CD's.  It's all so nostalgic and I'm passionate about documenting our lives to tell the stories to my own Grandchildren one day in the future.  They will be able to see what their parents lives were like when they were growing up.

Last year we did the "WITL" at the same time which ended in Sunday being Mother's Day and I always take photos of the cards and words that my kids give me and also breakfast in bed.  Last year the kids were going to school every day and this week they are at home learning on line and this is very historic.  Last year we had a hairdresser come to our home to do our hair [and for many years] however I have now changed hair dressers and go to a local salon instead.  Last year I was having coffee at my friends place on acreage and I could hug her, this year all her family are at home working and schooling and we haven't seen each other for weeks and I can't hug her.

Last year we had all the family over for Mother's Day and my kids could hug their Grandmother and currently they still can't see her or do that and we can't gather together for lunch to celebrate Mother's Day.  Last year I was dropping off my daughter to school early for her music lessons and this year she is at home.  I was ironing uniforms and making lunches early in the morning and this year I'm not doing that...yeh for some tasks dropping off my to do list.  I realize that this year is totally way out of the norm however that's the beauty of documenting your life because from one year to the next what is "ordinary" may not be ordinary the next year.

This is a link to my Week in the Life 2012.  Here is another example of Elise's Week in the Life with mostly photos.

I have photos of the kids picking out their DVD's on $1.00 Tuesdays and there are no longer any Video/DVD stores. I have photos of us at the local nursery that was around for 30 years and it's been pulled down with town houses being built on site.  What is our everyday today may not be the same in a year or 2 years down the track.  The beauty of this project is more precious as the years go by.  James was 4 and Sienna was 2 when I first started this project so you can imagine their lives are completely different now and both are taller than me.  This project is amazing and I love doing it every year.  I have a simple format for the day "morning" "midday" "afternoon" and "evening" and I take 4 photos for each.  One vertical photo for a large image and 3 horizontal images.  I've really simplified the format and the number of photos as the years go by and this format is super easy.

Here's some example pages.  I have lots of photos with the kids in them however they are not keen on me posting lots of images of them now they are teenagers so they do feature in a lot of my pages.