Today is our 30th wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. It’s also kind of amazing to think we knew each other for 10 years before we got married (we met in 7th grade) which means we’ve known each other for 40 years. I literally can’t imagine my life without this wonderful man and I’m incredibly grateful to have him by my side.

Today is my birthday! I’m turning 52 years old today and that is a very good thing because that means I made with through the last year. Birthdays are blessings! This one feels extra special because I’m also getting my Covid-19 vaccine today. Such a great gift!

I finished my February 2021 roundup and it feels good to have a new page for our family records. This is a great format for me, but there is no right or wrong way to do a roundup. I even shared a GIF template in my Instagram stories the other day and quite a few people enjoyed using that for their roundup. I’ll share that later in the post.

I think this was the most difficult roundup I’ve ever done. Life has been hard to document over the last year, but this was a particularly scary month in the United States. I couldn’t exactly leave political events off of my recap and I wouldn’t want to do that. I also needed to be sure they were recorded in a way that will be suitable for all viewers of my album. I plan to do more journaling of the events that took place, but won’t be sharing those publicly.

I hope that by sharing my approach, it will make it easier for you to decide how you want to do your own documenting.

I finally got all of my Christmas decorations put away yesterday so it feels a bit bare around here, but also fresh and clean. So far, the first few days of January have mostly been about working on unfinished business from last year. I cleaned up Christmas, cleaned out the fridge, and completed my December roundup. I also tallied up our stats from the year (husband’s travel, Jazz games attended, etc.) which didn’t take me very long since most of that all stopped last March. I also put together a year-end recap page. It feels so good to get these tasks done!

Coming out of the year that changed everything, it’s no surprise that I’m feeling a little different about setting goals than I have in the past. I’ve always been an avid goal setter and that has helped me accomplish and achieve a lot in my life. I still believe in the power of goals and will continue to set them, but I’m going to embrace some new attitudes that I think will be beneficial and more satisfying.

Before I get scrapping December moments and memories, I told myself I would get my November roundup completed. It helps me to set these types of mini-goals or conditions to hold myself accountable. November was definitely a tough month, but I’m so glad to have it documented!

Since it feels like we are already 10 weeks into November, I figured I should get my October roundup done. October was another crazy month for us as the numbers in Utah have spiraled out of control. We voted by mail-in ballot and took them to an official dropbox. We watched way too much news and lots of tv shows and movies. The weather was pretty nice most of the month so we took a lot of walks. We did have a record-setting cold spell and even a little bit of snow. We all got our flu shots and I got a pneumonia shot since I'm at risk with all my sickness last year and having diabetes.

I finally got my September roundup done! For the record, I'm already worried about how I'm going to do October's roundup since so much has already happened this month. I think I'll start my template now and add a few details and then revisit it throughout the month.