Leap Day Memories 2020

Tomorrow is February 29th. Leap Day!

Do you have memories on this day? I don't remember anything specific from my past leap days. I remember that a friend of a friend has her birthday on that day. I have watched the movie Leap Year but can't remember if I did on Leap Day.

I look forward to opening my TimeHop app tomorrow to see what photos I took and tweets or Facebook messages I posted on this day.

Special days give us the opportunity to make memories.

By chance I am flying to Hawaii on the 29th this year. Leap Days will have special meaning to me in the future, but only if I make a conscious choice to remember the date that I flew to Hawaii. I don't remember the date that I flew to many other destinations. It's not something that we remember if it's just another date.

To make a date memorable, we need to celebrate it. To mark it as a special day. We want to involve all our senses so I hope that it's true that the smells in Hawaii are unforgettable. I will hopefully have a Mai Tai (or other special cocktail) upon arrival rather than my regular glass of wine. I will see if I can download Leap Year to watch on the plane on the way there.

I will add an event in my calendar for the next Leap Year to have a Mai Tai, put on a flowery dress and celebrate the day we went to Hawaii for the first time.

Before I knew that I was going to Hawaii, I had planned to try to make February 29th memorable. As part of my Revive55 Project, I want to re-create past memories and create new ones. We don't have to go on holiday to create special memories.

If you have past Leap Day memories, are they worth repeating or re-creating?

If you don't have past Leap Day memories, create something new and special. Is there a place in your city or town where you are that you've always wanted to go but haven't? Make it a Leap Day tradition.

Is there a restaurant or activity you love but it's too extravagant to do every year? Do it every 4 years!

Is there a tourist attraction that going every year is too often for you? Because it's there and you could go anytime, maybe time passes and you don't go? I'm thinking of the CN Tower as an example. The majority of people in Toronto probably haven't been up the CN Tower in the last decade. It's a great idea as a Leap Year experience and since it's not very often, splurge by having a drink or meal. Order something different so that it's even more memorable.

If you'd rather enjoy the day at home, try a new recipe, use your good china and crystal, watch Leap Year if you like romantic comedies or do something else memorable.

According to an Irish legend, St. Brigid struck a deal with St. Patrick to allow women to propose to men on Leap Day. This is believed to have been to balance the traditional roles of men and women like how leap day balances the calendar.

As a new tradition, you could find a new Irish recipe or find an Irish pub to celebrate.

Whether you choose to celebrate Leap Day or not, I hope you enjoyed the second month of 2020.

2020 Memories of the 2010 Olympics

To help keep our memories alive, it helps to relive them by looking at photos and videos or retelling the stories of those times. Experiencing the moments again is another way to keep them alive.

At the end of the year when I was looking back at 2019 and the 2010's, I looked back at the end of 2009. What was my life like then? Could I have imagined everything that happened in the 2010's? This reminded me that in December 2009, I was about to have my experience of a lifetime attending the Opening Ceremony and Men's Moguls for the 2010 Olympics.

That experience was so magical that I enjoyed thinking back to the person who didn't know how great it was going to be.

That's when I had an aha moment. In two months, it would be the 10th anniversary of the Vancouver Games. I have been saying since then that I want to go to Whistler who co-hosted the Games. How has ten years passed already?

Before we had kids, my husband and I used to go skiing in Whistler every year. I loved it so much there. The skiing was incredible and the village was amazing. I would have loved to go to Whistler during the Olympics but it was not meant to be.

Since then, I have had many friends post on social media or send me photos of Olympic rings when they went to Whistler. I loved the photos and hoped that some day I would go back to Whistler, ski my favourite runs, enjoy the village and see the Olympic rings!!

That aha moment I had was to use the 10th anniversary of the Games and combine a Vancouver reminiscing stopover with a Whistler ski trip.

We booked our trip to arrive on the eve of the Opening Ceremony anniversary day. There have been times that the Olympic cauldron has been lit for special occasions in the last decade. I hoped they would light it for the 10th anniversary but was doubtful that they would on a Wednesday. With family day weekend a few days later, I thought they may do it then.

It didn't matter though. I wanted to go celebrate my personal 10th anniversary experience. I wanted to see the cauldron even without the flame. I had not seen it without the flame although friends had sent me photos of it when they visited it. I wanted to see the hotel where I stayed even if we decided to stay elsewhere. I wanted to go to Cypress Mountain where the moguls event had taken place.

A month before our trip, I saw news that they were having anniversary celebrations the weekend after family day weekend. I was initially a little disappointed but realized that even if I had known that before booking my trip, I wanted to be there the day of the Opening Ceremony on February 12th, not ten days later. It wouldn't have changed my plans.

A couple of days before our departure, I saw the news that they would light the cauldron the morning that we would be there. I screamed in that moment, running to my husband to tell him the news. I couldn't believe it. On a Wednesday morning, for two hours, the cauldron would be lit!!

We had a late night flight arriving at 10pm, so I was just hoping that there wouldn't be any delays and there weren't. Lucky us!!

The next morning, I was happy to just grab a quick bite, but my husband wanted a nicer breakfast. He googled places between our hotel and the cauldron and found one that he liked. As we walked closer, I see a sign for the hotel I stayed in after the men's moguls. What a view with the harbour in the background! I had not been to this side of the hotel so I didn't initially recognize it as my 2010 hotel.

My husband didn't realize it at the time, but he chose a restaurant that was inside that hotel. Afterwards, we walked through the lobby to the front desk where I pretended I was checking in like I did 10 years ago.

Walking through the hotel brought back such amazing memories.

There were two cauldrons in 2010. One inside the Opening Ceremony venue and one near the harbour where it is today. Wayne Gretzky left the ceremony and rode in a truck to get to the outdoor cauldron to light it. After the ceremony, I rushed to catch a bus to get to the midnight ferry to Victoria. I didn't see the outdoor cauldron until I saw it broadcast on the ferry.

When I returned to Vancouver a couple of days later for the Men's Moguls, I was ecstatic to see the cauldron lit even if we couldn't get close to it because of the fence that surrounded it.

I was still able to take amazing photos of it through the fence, just not with me in them.

Another memory from 10 years ago was my friend lending me his Olympic torch for the night. He had run in the relay a few days before and knowing how much I love the Olympics, lent it to me.

Someone said that I look like a kid in a candy store in this photo. At this moment in time, this is as close to my Olympic dream that I think I'm going to get. I didn't have Olympic tickets yet and no plans to go.

I'm sharing both photos to show the difference ten years makes. Back in Vancouver on the 10th anniversary, there were torch relay runners and volunteers who attended the lighting ceremony. One of the runners lent me his torch for a photo. I'm a lot closer to the cauldron this time. We could feel the heat from the flames as we stood nearby.

I had tears in my eyes as the song "I Believe" from 2010 played on the loud speakers before O Canada when they lit the cauldron. I am so happy that I went back and got to re-create past memories and create new ones with my husband who wasn't there in 2010.

Our reminiscing tour continued to Cypress Mountain where Alexandre Bilodeau won the first gold medal for Canada on home soil. And I was there!! I still have to pinch myself to believe my experience.

The moguls run looked quite different in 2020. The base of the run is a parking lot. The moguls, aerial jump, stands and lights are gone. 

I was still happy to see it and create new memories by posing by the first Olympic rings I would see on my trip and having a great lunch in the chalet that was reserved for athletes, coaches and entourage in 2010 and now display mementos from the Games.

If you want to read more about my 2010 Olympic experience, you can read my blog posts by clicking:

• here for Men's Moguls
• here for Opening Ceremony
• here for pre-Opening Ceremony

Thank you for reading.

Chasing dreams...capturing memories.

Passport Stamps Journal

I found this great travel journal that has passport stamps on the cover.

It gave me the idea to scan my old passports, cut out the stamps and tape them into the journal. I also want to write some details and memorable moments from our trips.

For years I had said that I had set foot in all Canadian provinces (not territories) but lately I had been doubting my story that we landed in Newfoundland when I was questioned once. Why would we land in Newfoundland? Where was I coming back from?

While looking at my passports, I got my answer. On our way back from England in 1995, we went through customs in St. John's, Newfoundland. I didn't dream it.

I love how some customs agents are meticulous in matching the outbound stamp with the inbound stamp like they did on the right side of this page, while others stamp over previous stamps.

What amazing memories to go back through the passports, even if it is just to look at them. I also like the idea of writing memories in the passport itself once they've expired.

I do have a few pages that are disorganized though so I'm happier with mine to separate the entries and scan a page twice when stamps overlap and are from different years.

Looking through, I'm also noticing that there are trips without stamps. I figured it was worth adding mention of them so that the travel journal was complete. I will hopefully find a little memento of the trip to include.

I am reflecting on the finished product before taping the scans in. Should I organize them chronologically or geographically or by type of trip (family, couple, business)? I have placed them chronologically to see how full it becomes. Even with skipping pages for missed stamps and leaving space for writing, the journal is less than half full. Continuing chronologically with future trips would be easy to add new stamps.

If I choose to organize them geographically, it would mean leaving pages blank for future trips after each geographic region. I'm not sure how I feel about empty pages between filled pages.

I like the geographic-themed journal if I had enough stamps to fill the journal but maybe I'll decide to go chronologically. If you have an idea or opinion, I'd love to hear it.

I bought the journal at The Papery at Yonge and St. Clair. It used to be my favourite store when I lived in the neighbourhood. We recently went back to this neighbourhood to reminisce and create new memories.

Keep Up THEN Catch Up

Do you have photo organizing resolutions for 2020 or the 2020's?

I resolved to keep up to date with my photos. When I moved to digital photography over a decade ago, I fell behind keeping them organized and into albums. The more I fell behind, the more I procrastinated to catch up. It becomes overwhelming to see the number of photos grow and grow.

Like the saying goes, it's easier to keep up than to catch up. Many people use this saying when referring to housework, tasks or emails but it's also perfect for photo organization.

It's what I used to teach in my scrapbooking classes in the 2000's:

Keep up with the current photos 

and THEN catch up with older ones.

Although I am not up to date with my photos from the 2010's, I'm starting fresh in the 2020's. I'm focusing on keeping up and then I'll catch up.

Here are some tips for keeping up:

• Rate or rank the best photos (eg. on iPhone click the heart icon)
• Separate very top photos from the rest by creating a folder or album (top 1%)
• Delete blurry, unflattering and duplicate photos
• Choose a time and/or place (and add it to your calendar or to do list):
• daily, weekly or monthly (as often as possible is best)
• at your computer, on your phone
• while travelling, waiting in line or for an appointment
• with morning coffee or evening drink
• replace a meaningless task with photo organizing. For example if you check social media or the news more often than you would like, open your photos application instead.
• If your program allows, add keywords or tags (like Family, Friends, Mexico, Birthday, etc.)
• Crop and/or edit your best photos if needed
• Share on social media or photo sharing site like Flickr, Picasa, Google, Amazon
• Print photos you want to enlarge and frame or include in photo albums
• Import photos into photobook

I'll be going into more detail on keeping up and catching up tips and workflow ideas in the future.

Bookmark the landing page on Revive55 Project for Keep Up Then Catch Up to check back for updates.

Where Are Your Photos?

Photos can play an important role in helping us remember special and everyday moments.

When I used to teach photo album-making classes as a Creative Memories Consultant, one of my first questions was "where are your photos?". The answers I received before digital photos were a lot simpler than they are today.

I would love to know where your photos are. If you want to share, please copy and paste the following questions and send me your answers at suzanne@revive55project.com.

In case you're interested, I'll include my answers at the bottom of this post in case you want to see them before or after you answer yourself.

1. Where are your physical photos?
a) In photo albums
b) Organized in boxes, folders
c) Disorganized in boxes, folders
d) Other: ___________________

2. Are you happy with the state of your physical photos?
a) Yes
b) No
c) No but it’s not a priority so I’m okay with it.

3. Where are your original digital photos (not back up photos)?
a) In an organization program like Photoshop Organizer, Lightroom, Apple Photos, Picasa, etc.
b) In dated folders on my computer
c) On my phone
d) On an external hard drive, USB/flash drives, SD cards
e) In the cloud
f) Other: ______________________

4. Are you happy with the state of your digital photos?
a) Yes
b) No
c) No but it’s not a priority so I’m okay with it.

5. Do you delete or throw away photos?
a) Yes - blurry and unflattering ones
b) Yes - all except the very best
c) Yes - somewhere in between
d) No

6. Can you tell the difference between your best photos and the clutter?
a) Yes - I only keep the best
b) Yes - I rank, heart or star the best ones
c) Yes - I have the best ones in separate folders or albums
d) No - the best are mixed in with the rest

7. How many photos do you have?
a) On your phone: _________
b) On your computer: __________
c) On external drives (originals not backed up): ___________
d) In cloud (originals not backed up): __________
e) I don’t know
f) How can I tell?
g) The number doesn’t matter to me

8. Do you feel like you can easily find a photo from a specific event when you want to?
a) Yes in seconds/minutes (in an album or computer)
b) Yes in under an hour (in an album or computer)
c) Sometimes
d) I wouldn’t know where to start to look
e) Other: ___________________

9. Could you recover your photo collection in case of:
a) House damage (fire, water, damage, etc.)
       i) Yes photos are on the cloud/online
       ii) Yes negatives, hard drive, files are stored elsewhere
       iii) No
b) Computer crashes and is not fixable
       i) Yes photos are copied on cloud, web, hard drive, USB or SD cards
       ii) Yes photos are also on phone
       iii) Yes lower quality copies are on Facebook
       iv) No
c) Phone or tablet is lost or broken
       i) Yes photos are backed up elsewhere
       ii) No

10. What do you love most about your photo organization?
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________


11. What do you hope to improve about your photo organization?
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________

12. Who is in charge of your photos?
a) You
b) You and your partner share the same collection
c) You and your partner have separate collections

Although my digital photos are sort of organized, I feel that my system needs improving and be more time efficient. I feel that there is a better way to organize, curate and maintain our photos in the digital age.

Ten years ago, I posted this on social media:

I love my enthusiasm and hope that I would declutter our photos. For the past ten years, I have been feeling the weight as more and more photos were added to our collection.

Don't get me wrong. I looooove our photos and videos. I am very happy I have them.

For years, I kept thinking that my focus should be on decluttering. I spent hours deleting thousands of photos but then thousands more were added and the original number of photos I tried to decrease is surpassed again. I would get discouraged and at times give up trying.

As I see that message from 10 years ago, I recognize that I don't want to feel this way for the next 10 years. I also recognize that I should focus my time on the photos I love (a joy) not on the photos I don't want (a chore).

I think that the way of the past isn't the way of the future.

At the moment, I feel like I need to let go of my past collection. I don't want to spend the time required to delete unnecessary photos. I have used PhotoSweeper to find duplicates but even that application is time consuming to ensure I keep the edited version or the better version of the original or HDR one.

I want to let go of past mistakes and create a new way of capturing memories with photos. That's what I will focus my time on.

I would love to get feedback on where your photos are to see if most people are happy with the way things are or are looking for a better way like I am.

Thank you for reading and your feedback.

Suzanne

Here are my answers:

1. My physical photos are in photo albums and mostly organized in photo boxes.
2. I'm fairly happy with the state of my physical photos. I have a couple of years worth of printed photos that still need to be added to photo albums.
3. My digital photos are in multiple organization programs, in dated folders on my computer, on my phone, on an external hard drive, USB drives and in the cloud. Sounds overwhelming!
4. I'm not completely happy with the state of my digital photos.
5. I have deleted thousands of photos but keep most.
6. I try to rank or heart my best photos but there are lots that are not.
7. On my phone I have 46455 photos/videos (same as iCloud and Apple photos that are linked).
   In Photoshop 69929 (pre-May 2014) and in Lightroom 61908.
8. I can easily find a photo if I have an idea of the date or it's organized in a themed folder eg. a place, a person or activity.
9. My negatives and photo albums are in my house (I have had negatives elsewhere at times but they're back here). I have scanned a lot of my childhood physical photos but there are still tons that I would lose. My computer and back up drive are in our house so if something happened to them physically, I would only have icloud, Flickr and Lightroom app photos. 
10. I love that my photos are organized by theme (places, people, activities, etc.); that a lot of photos are ranked or marked with a heart; and that they are backed up.
11. I hope to better protect in case of disaster; I hope to find a less time consuming way to organize and curate my collection and I hope to be prepared for change in technology. For example, what happens to my Photoshop collection organization (with rankings, albums, tags, etc.) when the application is no longer compatible with newer computers. I think it's no longer available for purchase and possibly no longer supported. 
12. My husband and I share a collection and I have a separate collection.

Memorable Songs Playlist

What's your time machine?

Is it Springsteen or Teenage Dream?

What's your takes you back?

Your first falling in love soundtrack

(A Song for Everything by Maren Morris)

As I was making a playlist of my favourite songs from 2019 that included A Song for Everything by Maren Morris, I was struck by the number of them that had lyrics about memories. Maybe every year it's like that, but I was super aware this year with my Revive55 Project.

Listening to the songs and hearing these lyrics, made me think of making a memories playlist. It's like the memorable photos folder I wrote about a couple of months ago. You can read that post by clicking here.

The new memories playlist includes songs that remind me of a special memory, a person, a place or event.

It's an extension to the playlist I mentioned in my post "Playlist of my Life". In that post, I was talking about my childhood and university days. I had made a playlist of my favourite childhood songs and I could remember where I was when I used to listen to them.

Taking inspiration from another song from my 2019 playlist, I decided to go one step further. What about moments throughout our life?

I'm a record collection, a dedicated section

I'm a memory of everything you've ever seen and ever done

(Record Collection by Kaiser Chiefs)

Our wedding song is an easy one to remember, but with music being a major part of my life, there are countless more.

For example, whenever I hear a song from Lauryn Hill's album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", I am walking on the beach in Jamaica. When we were there in 2000, that album played over and over at our resort. Even twenty years later, the song still takes me back.

In 2003 when Toronto was in a SARS crisis (and events were being cancelled) Coldplay performed at the Molson Amphitheatre. At the end of Clocks, the lyrics were changed to:

Home where I wanted to go

I went home home where I wanted to go

People told us to cancel the show

but how could

yes how could they know

that the one place

that we love to go

is to play-ay-ay in

To-ron-to

That song always reminds me of that night and attending my first Coldplay concert with my sister.

Hearing Katy Perry's Firework takes me back to our daughter's Grade 6 Graduation performance when the whole graduation class sang and performed a choreographed dance.

Whenever I am reminded of a song that is attached to a special memory, I'll add it to my memories playlist.

Another example is to be conscious of a song or piece of music that is playing when you experience a special moment. It's a great time to pause and be in the moment. Two years ago, I took a video when I was struck by the song that was playing while we were having lunch outside at Alpina Hütte in St. Moritz.


We had seen Rodriguez in concert a few years before after seeing the Sugarman documentary. Hearing that song surprised me because it's not a song I would expect to hear anywhere in Canada. Rodriguez was more popular in Euope and Africa than he was in North America.

Research has shown that music, memories and emotion are stored in the same part of the brain and that musical memories are stored in the last part of the brain to atrophy in Alzheimer's patients.

Connecting songs to moments can help us remember them. By making a new playlist (or choosing a song) to listen to while watching a sunset or sitting by a fire or going on a trip, we can be reminded of that moment when we hear the songs in the future.

By making an album of memorable songs, we can keep those memories alive. I don't hear Lauryn Hill or Rodriguez played much anymore, so adding it to a playlist that I will listen to will keep taking me back to those moments in time.

Dream of Future Memories

I began my Revive55 Project to preserve my past memories, to remember the stories, to recognize what was meaningful and to declutter what wasn't.

I considered "taking care of the past" as a project. After the project, I planned to focus on present and future memories which would be a process.

Catching up is a project. 

Keeping up is a process.

With the new year however, I feel that it's a good time to look forward. What do I want my days, months and years to be like?

The New Year is a popular time for resolutions so why not add memories-themed ones to the list?

Dream of Future Memories

There are three aspects to memories. We want to preserve our past memories, we want to enjoy our present moments and we want to dream of our future experiences.

With the start of a new year and a new decade, it's a good time to dream of the future and start making plans to act on those dreams. By writing down our hopes and dreams, we can create more memorable moments.

Choose one or more of the following challenges:

55 Second Challenge

1. Make a Future Memories list. What experiences do you hope to have in the future?
2.  Keep it handy and add to it whenever you think: 
• "I wish I ..." 
• "I hope to ... " 
• "Some day I want to ..."
• "I love it when..." 
• "I loved it when..."
3. Write your ideas in a journal or enter it in an app or document.
4. Bonus: Review it on a regular basis and take steps to make things happen.

55 Minute Challenge

1. Start a Day Zero Project: 
• Write a list of 101 Things you want to do in 1001 Days
• or 52 things for 52 weeks or 12 things for 12 months
2. Follow the Day Zero Project website as is or create it "your way" like I did it "my way".
3. Write your ideas in a journal or planner or enter it in an app or document.
4. Bonus: Review it on a regular basis and take steps to make things happen

Day Zero...My Way

When I first started the Day Zero Project, I made a "safe" list of 101 things I thought I could accomplish. By the time I finished my list, I wasn't too excited. I saw things that I would do because they were on a list. What if I didn't want to do them anymore on day 900? Would I force myself to do something just because it was on a list? How would I feel if I failed to complete the 101?

That's when I decided to change the rules and do the project "my way".

I started the project with two lists. The first list is numbered from 1 to 101 and is blank. The other list is all kinds of things I would love to do whether they were realistic or not. It consisted of hundreds of things: places I dreamed of visiting, events I wanted to attend, people I wanted to meet, bands I wanted to see, activities I wanted to do, etc.

As I did something on the list, I added it to the numbered list. I continued until I got to 101. If something was on a list that I didn't want to do anymore, I removed it. If something came up that wasn't on the list but it would have been easy to not do or I couldn't even have dreamed of, I still added it to the numbered list.

Read the full blog post on how I made the project my way ten years ago by clicking this link: https://dayzeromyway.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-zero-projectmy-way.html

5.5 Hours Challenge

1. Create a Vision Board or Revive55 "Time Travel Board".
2. Find images or sayings of moments you have loved in the past...moments that you are amazed have happened.
3. Find images or sayings to represent future moments that will be worth remembering.
4. Paste them on a poster board.

When I have attended a vision board workshop, the instructions were to go through magazines and cut out anything that "speaks to you", that you love or that inspires you. I like to keep my vision board more specific. I search out what I want to include and cut out or screen capture things as I come across them.

Choose a size you're comfortable with. If you want to keep it simple and focused, choose a smaller one. I have done smaller ones before and decided to expand to a larger one. I chose a fold-out poster board. I have different themes on each surface.

I used removable tape on it so that as things changed, I could edit it which I have done a few times.

Researching more about vision boards to broaden the tips I could give, I am seeing many ways that I could improve mine. To start with, I read the following in a post about making vision boards more powerful:  "Keep it neat. Avoid creating a cluttered or chaotic board - you don’t want to attract chaos into your life."

Well, you really can't say that my vision board is neat.

I still love this one so may "retire" it rather than edit it any more.

For 2020 I will start a new one. I will write a separate post with tips and ideas in more detail.

Time Travel Board

I am calling the Revive55 Memories-themed board a Time Travel Board. Travel back in time to special memories and look forward to creating more memories.

I have been thinking about this since I started the Revive55 Project. The first part of the Memories Board includes experiences you dream of and would create memorable moments. The second part of the Memories Board includes past experiences that are meaningful and proof that amazing things can happen. If you ever doubt that things won't happen, you just have to look at your past memories to believe that lots can happen to make your dreams happen.