Why Create Space?

I originally posted this as "Why Make Space", but since, I have changed the wording to Create Space to include the creativity that I want to practice more. I am changing "make space" for "create space" in this edited version.

In my attempt to "create space" as I'm calling part 2 of my Revive55 Project, I am having trouble answering why I am saving certain things. I was looking at things that I was not getting rid of, and was wondering why not? 

In the past few weeks, I have recycled, donated and thrown away more sentimental items than I have in years. I feel like I'm in the process of having a mindset shift. Things that I was holding on to even just two years ago when I started my Revive55 Project, I'm able to let go of now.

For example, I kept magazines and newspapers. I had a box full of them. Two years ago, I got rid of more than half of them...and now, I decreased it even more. Looking at them, I wonder why I saved them in the first place. Some of them are not happy memories; but perhaps that is also a mindset shift that happened to me in the last decade or so. Letting go of sad memories. I don't mean to forget them, but why have something to remind me.

I think rather than asking why I am saving something, a better question may be why do I want to create space? Focusing on my future vision and even focusing on how I feel today may be more impactful.

I have been living in this house for over twenty years. I have accumulated a lot of stuff and memories in that time. Every year I decluttered things that were no longer useful or loved, but sentimental stuff continued to accumulate. What started as one memory box, became two, then four, eight,  sixteen... Okay, I don't think I ever only had one memory box. I left for university with more than one, but you get my point. What started out as a few photo albums became dozens. My digital photo and video collections keep growing. Hard drives and cloud storage keep increasing. How will we find our photo and video memories in 10 or 20 years if we don't curate them?

I have had many birthdays and holidays. I have collected countless gifts and cards. I find gifts harder to part with than things I have bought for myself. Gifts have more sentimental value but should they? If I buy something, it's something I love enough to spend on. I wouldn't necessarily have bought the gifts chosen by others. It's not the thing but the gesture from the gift-giver we value.

As my children have left home, looking at how much they have accumulated makes me realize that perhaps I have encouraged them to hold on to things. There were many times that I kept some things that they were decluttering. There were times when I questioned their lack of attachment to things and "explained" why they were special or reminded them of who gave it to them or where we were when we got them. I don't want them to continue to collect for another 20 years like I did. I also hope to inspire them to let go and make/create space in their lives as a process not a huge mid-life project.

I have read many decluttering books, listened to podcasts and even taken a course. The message is normally to tackle sentimental things last and often times, they don't cover that part.

Sentimental things are personal. We'll hold on to things and let go for different reasons. Hopefully by reading about my "Create Space" journey, you'll reflect on yours and be inspired to make/create space yourself.

Why create space?

I want to create space so that I can enjoy my most meaningful memories. Like I said in a post last year, "they are more beautiful if they are few". Separating our most precious photos, video moments and mementos from the clutter makes us appreciate them more. It also makes us recognize what we value most so we can create more.

I want to create space in order to love what I keep and to keep what adds value to my life. 

I want to create space in order to make new memories. Like I mentioned in my last post, by creating a void, there is room for something new to come into our lives. For example, this is one of my old Facebook posts:

I think my first reaction was that it was a bummer that I got rid of the bag or a Murphy's Law thing. [Of course I get invited after getting rid of my bag]. Letting go of Murphy's Law is another mindset shift I've gone through. I thought of the Law of Attraction because I had been researching snowboard events. I hadn't seen this friend in over a year. When I told her about my Olympic-themed blog and work with SportCafé, she invited me because the Dew Tour would be on and it was one of the first 2014 Olympics qualifying events.  

I didn't think of the "create space" aspect of it at that time though. By letting go of old skiing memories, I made new memories. How many times has this happened and I didn't make the connection?

I decluttered my china cabinet. I was always having to move things to get to what I wanted. I put a lot of it in boxes in a closet, but also donated some. Whenever we have champagne, we have pairs of glasses. With our kids being older, we now often aren't just a couple having champagne so we mix and match glasses.

Although I didn't declutter champagne glasses (yet), two of these are our originals (from a Perrier Jouet gift set) and the other two were being given away by someone in my neighbourhood recently. There was room in my china cabinet for "new" champagne glasses and we now have a similar set of 4.

I may not declutter my champagne glasses. We use them a lot more than our tumblers or high ball glasses (and some of them have sentimal value ;-) - there's that word again). For our wedding crystal pattern, we had 12 of each glass style. We only have 6 or 8 wine glasses left (they were well loved and sometimes broken), so I don't need to keep 12 tumblers and high ball glasses that we rarely use. Create space for what we value, use and love.

Wedding gifts will be a great topic for a future post. For now, here are a few questions that I'll be reflecting on in my quest to create space.

How do we keep our memories alive when we let go of the things or delete photos? How do we decide which memories are worth treasuring and which are holding us back? Am I holding on to something in an attempt to hold on to my younger self? Am I holding on to something because I used to love it? Am I holding on to something "just in case" it becomes more sentimental?

I have to admit that I will struggle in making space and letting go. It's easier to know something than to act on it. That's one of the reasons that I want to continue my Revive55 Project. It helps to reflect when I'm writing about it. 

I know I will be happier with less, but it will still be difficult to let go.

Revive55 Project Part 2: Make Space

My 55 week Revive55 Project ended a year ago. I thought it was a good time to reflect on the project and look forward.

I started the project in the hopes of preserving all my memories. I was feeling like my collection of photos, videos, stories and mementos was growing and was getting out of control. I was overwhelmed with the quantity and was no longer making photo albums or scrapbooks to preserve them. I had started to make yearly photobooks that could hold four times the number of photos in the same amount of space on my shelf but still felt like I wanted to do better.

I thought that focusing on my memories for 55 weeks would help me to "catch up" and help me better remember my stories and moments.

What I found though was that 55 weeks wasn't enough to preserve it all. I also didn't want to spend that much time preserving instead of creating new memories. Once I "caught up", then what? How would I preserve memories going forward?

The R55 Project started out with a bang. I had lots of plans. I did lots of shopping - buying products that would help preserve and display mementos and photos.

Many "memory projects" planned went undone or ended up half-done. 

During COVID, I saw a meme that said if only I had a week (or a month) at home I'd get my unfinished projects completed. Then COVID gave us months at home and projects still went undone. So as some of my projects went undone, I wondered why. Was it because they weren't important or it wasn't worth the time they would take? How could I complete them in a better way?

Having taken a break and gained perspective, I am ready to re-focus my efforts to finally achieve what I had hoped. What I wanted was to feel like the memories that mattered were being collected and enjoyed.

Home organizers will say that decluttering is the first step to organizing a home. In hindsight, I see that I could have started there, but I wasn't ready. I made the rookie organizing mistake to go buy containers to organize the stuff rather than removing the excess first to see what containers were needed.

I still had a memories journey to take before I was ready to see that I shouldn't want to preserve it all. As much as I did preserve many memories during my Revive55 Project,  I learned that letting go is just as important.

I read the Law of Attraction years ago. Looking back at my notes, I am reminded that Tool #9 is to "create a void or a vacuum". What this means is that we need to create space in order to attract what we want to fill it. The example in the book is in order to attract more clients, we need to make space in our filing cabinet for the new client's file. If the cabinet is bursting at the seams, there is no room for new clients.

When my memory boxes and photo albums were full; I would buy more. Eventually, my shelves and closets were full. My house isn't getting any bigger so I needed a better way. 

Creating a void and making space would make room for new memories and isn't that the point in life is to experience it and not just to collect it?

The other thing I learned during my project is that by preserving it all, we diminish the value of the really special ones. Since my memories were piling up and not "preserved" I started to collect more mementos and to take more photos in the fear of forgetting, but this caused the most memorable ones to get even more lost amid the clutter. The quote I loved was "they are more beautiful if they are few". You can read my blog post about that quote here.

During my project, I was also trying to "unearth" stories I may have forgotten, but I learned that sometimes, we forget stories for a reason. A little digging reminded me of an unpleasant memory. Turns out there was a reason I had forgotten the details. 

My old way of preserving memories was no longer working and I recognized that spending 55 weeks trying to preserve them in the old way wasn't the answer. 

I wanted to find a better way and it needed to start by letting go of the quantity to find the quality.

Knowing that decluttering memories will make me happier doesn't make it easier though. Knowing something sometimes isn't enough to act but I am ready to try.

My new focus of my Revive55 Project will be to make space and to preserve only what is most meaningful.

Reversing Falls in Saint John

Sweet tides, pools of love

Your eyes are full of

Sweet tides, pools of love

Your eyes are full of

(Sweet Tides by Thievery Corporation)

Three years ago, I went to Fredericton for my cousin's funeral. Although the priority was to spend time with family, I thought I'd spend an extra day to see the area. When I researched, I saw that you could see the tide come in or go out in Saint John at Reversing Falls.

To see my vlog for this story, you can click here.

There was a storm as I arrived in Fredericton with lots of snow. It would have been easy for me to decide not to go to Saint John which was more than an hour away. It would have been easy to think that I would go when it was summer. But I decided to go anyway not knowing when I would be back in the area.

I'm so happy I did. There was a viewing spot called SKYWALK where you could watch outside but with it being so cold, I didn't spend too much time there. 

There were glass floor squares behind me. The worker who had shovelled the walk told me not to step on them because they were so slippery. I put my foot on it to see how slippery and he was right!! It would have been worse than walking on an ice rink.

Photo credit: skywalksaintjohn.com

I spent most of my time in the Reversing Falls Restaurant seen in the photo above on their website and seen in my photo below that also includes the glass floor SKYWALK.

Luckily with it being at the beginning of February, it was a quiet day so the staff didn't mind me sitting with at a table with a view for hours. I had a perfect view of the bridge and the tide.

I had looked online to see when the tide would be at its peak and when to arrive. The yellow section below shows how long I was there; from just before peak tide and then more than half of the tide going out.

I initially took a live video then remembered that it would be much better as a timelapse video. I let it run for about an hour but then the battery on my phone was dying. I charged it in the restaurant and grabbed a few more timelapses but never for long enough to get a spectacular video. It's still really cool to see the water rise. In hindsight, it would have been more dramatic to see it go down to see the line of snow where the high tide was.

It's amazing to see the water coming in and then the water goes still as it reaches slack tide. It's only at this time that boats can go by. There were only ducks that swam by while I was there. It wasn't boating season.

It slowly starts to recede before it visibly flows back out.

You can see the level difference in these two shots. It's too bad I couldn't stay longer. I wanted to get back to Fredericton before it got dark.

If you ever make it to New Brunswick, it's worth the time to see the Reversing Falls in Saint John.

Enjoying Memories One Day At A Time

What a difference a year makes. February 12th is special to me because it's the anniversary of the Opening Ceremony I attended at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics (and the 10th anniversary celebration I attended last year). It was a childhood dream come true. This message isn't about that experience. 

My point today is to use these types of "anniversaries" to enjoy our memories. I find that looking back at my memories brings happiness to my days and it brings me hope for the future. Looking back at past memories is making happy memories today. It helps me to look forward to making more memories.

I love making photo albums, blogging and am now starting to vlog. Those are my hobbies and my passions but they're not needed to enjoy our memories.

I have often heard from friends that they want to make photo albums but don't have time or don't make the time. Is it possible that it's because they don't enjoy it or they don't prioritize it? 

I may love knitted sweaters but don't necessarily want to knit a sweater.  Some people may love having photo albums (or the idea of having photos albums) but may not want to take the time to make them. Making the album is a chore to them - and maybe there are chores we do that we hate doing but we like it when it's done. Maybe the consequence of those chores not being done is a lot worse than the consequence of a photo album not done. Undone albums don't smell or take up counter or floor space.

Everyone can enjoy their photos and their memories if they want to. Before my Revive55 Project, I believed that the way to do that was by making photo albums and video compilations. I thought it was about taking mementos out of their boxes and enjoying them. 

I thought I would want to inspire others to do what I wanted to do. I realized though that I want to inspire people to enjoy their memories whether they want the hobby of album-making or not. I want to inspire people to remember the moments that matter to them. 

I know people who don't even want to go look at their digital photo collection because they find it overwhelming so they just put their heads in the sand and think that some day they will sit down and get it all organized.

They think that some day, they will make time for photo albums or photobooks. But why? You don't need photo albums to enjoy your photos. You don't need photo albums to relive your memories. Technology is making our memory keeping a lot easier. I'll write about using technology for instant memory enjoyment in future posts.

One way to start to better enjoy your memories is to notice when we are reminded of past moments. 

Today and this weekend, I will have a mini-celebration to remember my Olympics memories. I'll wear my Olympic t-shirts, look at my photos and videos, take out my Olympics mementos box and watch some of the Opening Ceremony that is on YouTube. 

On Sunday, Valentine's Day, I will look back at past Valentine's Days. I have a box of greeting cards. I decluttered them during my Revive55 Project, but hadn't decided how to organize the ones I wanted to keep. This weekend, I will separate the Valentine ones to enjoy every year on February 14. 

I may use that same idea to organize our anniversary cards or my birthday cards. We don't receive as many cards in the mail anymore so it will be fun to read cards from previous years. That's a lot better than them sitting in a box. But that's me. Memories is my hobby so I want to spend time on them. But you don't have to. Memories may be important to you but you aren't interested in the time-consuming hobby of memory-keeping and preserving.

My Olympics memories are major ones for me so I spend a lot of time on them, but there are SO many smaller ones that I want to enjoy.

I have to admit that I am overwhelmed by my photo collection. Although I keep working at it, and want to purge, organize and create projects; the way I will do that in the future is to focus on these anniversary memories. I'll use these reminders as nudges to take a small step forward.

Besides obvious anniversary events, we are often reminded of other memories - and the "anniversary" may not necessarily be a date on the calendar. We might:

• see a movie set in a place we've visited
• read a book that reminds us of a childhood memory
• see a news article that reminds us of an event we attended
• hear a song that reminds us of a concert
• see someone that reminds us of a friend
• read a newsletter or blog that reminds us of something we're happy to remember

When I am reminded of a memory, I will find the photos if there are any, tell the story or just daydream of that time. While I'm in the photos, I'll delete less important ones and "heart" (star) more important ones.

For example, recently, it was the anniversary of my cousin's death in 2018. When I went to his funeral in Fredericton, afterwards, I took a day trip to Saint John to see the tide come in then go out at the Reversing Falls. I had taken photos and videos but had not looked at them since so I took the time to remember my cousin and my trip to his province. I looked back at my photos and made a video compilation of the Reversing Falls like I had meant to do when I took them - and because that's my hobby and passion. You can see the video on my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/suze20to.

Enjoying our memories can be as simple as remembering or reflecting, sharing a story or looking at photos or videos. So if you don't enjoy making photo albums or creating projects, don't feel guilty but find other ways to enjoy your memories. Let go of "some day I'll organize my photo collection" and enjoy little bits one day at a time. 

Although I love taking time to create memories-themed projects and celebrations, I don't have enough time to capture all my memories in this way so I am finding quick ways to enjoy the other ones. I hope I'll inspire you to do the same.

Scenic Route Part Two

Don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

Singin' don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

(Three Little Birds by Bob Marley)

I finished the second part of my Scenic Route video. If you haven't seen the first part, you can watch it by clicking here.  My original blog post from 2018 can be found here.

I created the first part using iMovie which is pretty easy to learn but it has its limitations. I used Final Cut Pro to make the second part. I have to admit that it took me a lot longer to do it but I will want to continue to use Final Cut Pro.

I will have to learn how to use it better however. When I started to create my next video, I actually started it in iMovie figuring I could just make it quicker. It was a simpler video so I figured I didn't need the extra features in Final Cut Pro. I'm in the process of making a how-to video where I show how I make a highlight video from a few clips. It's not that difficult to do if you're interested in enjoying your videos more.

The first part of the Scenic Route video included a lot of written passages. I was thinking at the time to have the video read more like a book that included video and audio clips but the second part doesn't include as many written passages.  When I recorded the story, it just seemed more interesting to me to hear the story told than to read it. I was surprised how much emotion came up when I told the story to a camera.

After showing the first part I made with my iPhone to my husband, he told me that the video quality would be much better with his Fuji XT-4 camera and external microphone. We now have them set up on a tripod ready to video whenever we want. Even my untrained eye and ear can tell the difference in quality between the two recordings.

Unfortunately, the heater in my study was on while I recorded the video for part 2. I was bummed because I didn't think I could re-record the video with as much genuine emotion. I told the story on the recording for the first time in a while, so it was fresh and I felt what I was saying. I'm not an actor so I didn't think I could recreate it as well if I re-recorded it.

My husband showed me how to get rid of the humming using Final Cut Pro. I really need to learn how to use it better because it's amazing!! iMovie have noise reduction but it's not as precise as Final Cut Pro. The sound isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than it originally was. Someone more experienced could also have improved it more but I'm happy with the lack of experience I have.

Here is Scenic Route Part Two. Hope you enjoy it. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to see more videos and/or subscribe to my blog to read more posts. (click on the icon below my photo on the right column)

Taking the Scenic Route Video Story

Don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

Singin' don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

(Three Little Birds by Bob Marley)

For the past few years, I have been half-jokingly saying (mostly to myself) that I was writing a book.  There is a difference between writing a book and having a book published. Recognizing that, I am more willing now to tell people that I am writing a book, even if I just print a copy for myself.

I have binders full of notes, thoughts, research, passages and quotes from books I've read and copies of my blog posts and emails. I haven't quite figured out what to do with it all and how to present it in book form but I'm working on it.

Last week, I was watching a video that my husband made when we went for a day trip to Elora that included a patio lunch in September 2020. I loved the moment at the 1:47 mark when I exclaim: 

"It is exciting to be out!!"

We discussed how it had been 6 MONTHS since the pandemic started and how crazy it was that it had been that long. The week before, there had been around 100 new cases per day in the province of Ontario (population 14 million). Looking back now, this was the start of the numbers going up again, but we didn't realize it at the time. 

Now that we're 4 more months in, I love that we captured that moment and those feelings.

Here's what I wrote on Friday morning after watching the video:

"I watched the Elora sunflower video earlier and how precious is that? It shows us at a moment in time, a moment of hope, that the worst was behind us, but it wasn't. A moment of 'it's been 6 months!'!! Who would have believed it - and now it's 10 months.

I love these types of glimpses of our lives and maybe love them even more than photo albums. They're more real and you can feel the emotions more.  [okay I wrote that but I still LOVE my photo albums]

I love the written word, but maybe there's a place for video.

What if my book was a visual book. I have tears in my eyes at the thought - is that possible?

Have either written words on the video - or have videos that go with the PDF?

Have written words/passages on the video that you can pause on...and as the story gets to a place that has videos or photos, add them in.

Can I try that with a story I already have - to see if it works?...

There are books, e-books, audiobooks...why not

videobooks? vlogs with written pages?"

I spent that afternoon working on my first videobook clip about the time when we got off at the wrong station in Switzerland that serendipitously worked out for the better. I thought it was a short-ish story and it was timely. We were in Switzerland 3 years ago to the day so I loved to revisit that memory. I already had a blog post written, so it was a matter of copying the words and adding photos and videos.

I also really loved the music aspect to adding videos to the stories. A lot of my blog posts on My Life Is Like A Song start with lyrics. Often times, I wondered if people read them, knew the song or sang them in their head. With a video, I can play them or maybe if I get brave enough, can even just sing the lyrics myself to start the stories.

On Friday night, I published what I had to tell my husband about my new idea and to show him what I had created so far in iMovie. 

I was frustrated with the lack of flexibility with the titles and ways that I felt could make the clip more interesting. He showed me what is possible in Final Cut Pro and I decided that I would learn it and start using it to make my future videobook clips - including part 2 of this story. I figured it wasn't worth continuing it in iMovie. 

I have to add, that I didn't want to google videobooks that day. I didn't want to know if it was already a thing. I just wanted to create something without being influenced. It turns out that videobooks and vooks exist and are especially popular for kids books. I'll look imto it more but for now, I just wanted to enjoy my process and storytelling.

Here's the first demo clip:

I look forward to seeing how the clips evolve as I learn Final Cut Pro and figure out what works in the storytelling and what doesn't.

If you're interested in seeing future blog posts or videos, subscribe to my blog and/or my YouTube channel.