Yellow Azalea

Auckland returned to Alert Level 3 on Wednesday 12 August, so I decided to attempt the “Week in the Life” project run by Ali Edwards. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 and postal issues I did not receive my products earlier in the year, in time to do it with the community. I have done this project a couple of times before, and I love looking back at previous snapshots of time. This year, week in the life may not reflect a full on typical week (with work) but as we have lived restrictions for 6 months now, maybe a week in Level 3 is more typical than I think for 2020. This is what I received back in May to go with my project.

At Alert Level 3 we have to stay in our BUBBLES and if we are non-essential workers then we must work from home or stay at home and Holly and Mitch can not go to school. The rest of NZ was only put in Alert Level 2, because the origin of the cluster is based in Auckland, so they are less restricted This seems to have made an even bigger divide between Auckland and the rest of NZ and for our family personally, it has raised a few problems with getting 2 of our care workers to work, as they live in the Waikato and we live in Auckland, even though it is only a 30 minute drive.

Anyway, as I am still playing around with my lockdown journal, there is some crossover in what I am doing, so I am targeting writing about our daily routines and stories of how each of our lives are playing out in this week. The photos of course, are very ordinary – pictures of home, food, pets and daily happenings. There are no trips to quiz nite, restaurants or bars, work and travel outside of Auckland. But this will be an indication of our everyday life right now. It is interesting to look at the routine parts of life and to record these in an album alongside the celebrations, outings and holidays that we most often scrapbook. Ironically, the week in the life dates I have chosen of 17 to 23 August are only a week different to the week I did in 2015.

In 2015, our cats Max and Ariel featured quite a bit in my stories, but unfortunately just before week in the life documenting, but during the beginning of our Level 3 lockdown we also had to say goodbye to our cat Ariel. I took her to the vet to be euthanised as she had a large tumour that had started to cause her pain and was affecting her bladder. It was tough. I have never had to make a choice about a pet like this before. In the past, the cats Phil and I had have come to their own end so it was a new and tricky experience. She has been a big part of our families life, so we will miss her and her loud meow.

Even though it is now early September I have only put together a couple of days of this project – mainly because I have not been able to get my photos printed yet. I tried to order pictures online and wanted to get mainly 3 x 4 photos for my pocket pages, but the site I was using only did wallet size and then I printed out 4 of each photo by mistake. I really needed 4 photos of the inside of my fridge. Therefore, I haven’t got any pictures of completed pages yet, as since lockdown moved to Alert Level 2.5 (30 August) I have pretty much been full time looking after Mitchell as he has not yet returned to school. I know that Covid has made us do many things differently, and even though I thought I did a lot online, I have been pushed to do more, and I don’t always like it, as sometimes it just doesn’t allow for the quirks and extra things we need.

So, no pictures of my week in the life yet. And only work in progress pictures of my lockdown journal, as this is something that will take time to fill and complete. I did write quite a bit about menopause in my lockdown journal as this is something that is affecting me A LOT at the moment.

But, I have been playing around with my little layered page books that I made during the Kellee Wynne class earlier in the year. I decided to make one of the books as an inspirational book, to give myself a little bit of self compassion. I am always saving quotes on pinterest, so decided to add a few quotes to my pages.

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And lastly, a scrapbook layout featuring Holly. This is adapted from a layout class during an Imagine If weekend – I can’t recall which event (Pretty Rustic or Botannicals), and my page doesn’t look anything like the project, but that is what I like to do – use the products to make a layout in my own style. It’s a photo from 2 years ago now, when Holly went to Wellington with Phil for the Armageddon weekend.

Now that we are in Alert Level 2 (and a bit) I will try to get some prints made so that I can carry on with both my Week in the Life and my lockdown journal.

In the meantime, happy creating.

Cherie x