I love fresh starts.

I’ve always loved New Year’s, maybe because of the hours upon hours of board games my family plays or maybe because of the wanton snacking that goes on during said hours of game-playing. Or maybe it’s because it represents a new beginning, a fresh start. I was that kid who loved the first day of school because I got to use my brand-new notebooks. Who am I kidding — this obsession continued up through grad school and continues now when I get a new calendar at work or a new planner or a new Moleskine reading log.

So, I suppose that’s what brings me back here. That, and the fact that there are three baskets of laundry on the couch to be folded, and you know I would do a lot of things to avoid folding laundry.

Remember the 500-photo capacity album that I was looking for? Have I completed it for 2012 yet? Nope, because having a baby seriously cut into the time I had to edit and process photos. Am I going to finish it? Yes — I have 156 photos sitting at Walgreens right now, just waiting to be picked up. Is it going to be as cool as I hoped? No, because I lost track of it in all the craziness, lost some of the fun stuff I was going to include, and because I was trying to make do with imperfect tools for the job.

Which brings me to what I hope are the right tools for the job. You may have heard about Project Life — it’s been mentioned on a lot of blogs out there. I first heard about it on Elise’s blog, which I love. It’s basically scrapbooking without having to actually do the scrapbooking, and for someone who’s never been able to scrapbook more than a single page, it sounds like a dream come true.

I purchased enough Design A Pocket Pages to get me through the whole year, with two pages to a week. I also purchased a pack of Design G Pocket Pages for additional photos of special events, a pack of White 3×4 Cards, and a White Signature Binder to contain it all. I’m really excited about using the cards for journaling and quotes, as well as filling the pockets with all kinds of ephemera that I collect throughout the year. I want to add pops of color and patterns with some of my own scrapbook paper that I have sitting around unused.

So why Project Life? I love that it can be as simple or as complex as you make it. I love that you can display photos alongside “stuff”. I love that it’s just about printing and collecting things and then filling pockets.  Is all of this a guarantee that I will stick with this all year? Of course not, but at least I’ll be preserving more memories than if I wouldn’t do it at all.

Just for fun, here’s how I fared on the other goals I listed in that post:

Reading. I kept up with this consistently, reading at least one nonfiction book each month (usually around three, actually). I was afraid to put down a number, what with Aoife coming and all, but I actually hit 100 books, which is an all-time high for me (in my adult life, at least).

Project 365/6. Fail. I still took lots of pictures throughout the year, but in no way did I take one every day. I’m ok with that.

Etsy. Fail. I put the shop in vacation mode after Aoife came and just have not taken the time to get everything re-listed. Extra cash would be nice, but the extra work of getting the word out, making things, and taking photos has been moved lower on the list of priorities.