Flashback to 2009 - Project 365

I don't know if many of you were here with me back when my blog was still a baby? Pretty sure Wendy and Craig were, but not sure how many others.  But back then, "selfies" were not a thing and moms like me were realizing they were conspicuously absent from their family's photo lives (because we were the ones behind the camera).

I worked on a photography project called Project 365 and my goal was to take one picture every day and I had to be featured in it. I really only shared the project here on my blog. I was embarrassed to talk about it with my husband and friends. I thought I would seem vain and self-absorbed. Little did I know that narcissism was the wave of the future.  

At the beginning of the project, I wrote a letter. I later placed it among the pages to be discovered at a later date:

"Who am I? This is a journey lasting 365 days to answer that question.

It's so easy to lose yourself in your labels, responsibilities, relationships...who am I underneath all of that? Who is the woman who is also the mother, wife, sister, daughter and friend?

This project forces me to slow down and spend time with me each day. I hope to learn to appreciate my face and body for what they are, not what they were or what they could be.

I want to reveal to myself as the days go on and see the growth and progression by the end of the project, uncovering layers thought lost or never discovered.

I hope that if this project is discovered by my children later in life, they can look at it and understand who mom was as a woman, a person."

So, I started looking through old photos the other day and made a collage of my 2009 photo with my before and afters from the past 3 months. I was pretty astounded and happy and wanted to share:

Ugh! The lips!! Where did my lips go? I think that is the next project I'm going to see if Rodan + Fields can help with. I can only go so big on this page, so you can click on the photo to see full screen.