It's My Year, and So is Yours.
Oprah’s personal trainer recently spoke to me via the back of a box of Cheerio’s. At the time I was busy lowering my cholesterol. He told me that this was my year. (Emphasis mine.) Heck yeah! And here I thought it was the year of the rooster!
By the power invested in me by Oprah’s trainer, I hereby declare it the year of yours truly,
Two-Thousand & Nate.
Normally between mid January and late August I get my butt over to Office Max and purchase a calender to write down important things like meetings and lunches with important people that aren’t really going to happen but that I like to write in red pen on days when I’m actually having lunch with less important people. The idea being that while dining with a lesser I can pull out my calendar and check what else I have going on that day and the lesser will see that I’ve skipped my lunch date with teen heart throb Bill Moyers to have lunch with him or her. It makes the little people feel big. And now that I look at it in writing it makes me feel little. Take me out to lunch and see if I’ve stopped doing it.
If by September I still haven’t purchased a calendar for the year I print one off using my big shiny computer. In the past this has taken me longer than a trip to Office Max because I can never remember how to make Sunday just as big as the other days €“ Outlook always squishes up the weekends, and when you love Jesus as much as I do you need a lot of room for all the Holy ways you’re going to make a living on Sundays.
But this is 200n8 folks. Office Max isn’t going to cut it and neither is Outlook. No, this year is bigger. Brighter. Specialer. This is the kind of year when one such as myself must fashion a calendar using only the sCraps laying around the house and his own God given ingenuity. That’s right, I made my own calendar. And I took pictures. And I’m going to walk you through the process so that you too can make 200n8 my year.
Supplies:
Lots of paper with one blank side. Reuse it dude. (A couple years ago I worked near a photocopier and made a habit of nabbing all the wasted one sided copies out of the recycling bin for printing stuff at home and projects like this. It lasted me for a year after I quit the job. Gold mine. )
Pen (s) (Number of pens/colors may vary according to your personal asthetic)
Hole punch
Metal rings or twine
Back of an old notebook (optional)
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Fold all the paper in half, blank side out.
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Place two fold pieces side by side butting the open ends together fold-to-fold.JPG
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Make a 5 x 7 grid 57-grid.JPG
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Write the Month at the top month.JPG, and days across the top, (traditionally folks start with Sunday, but remember it’s my year and you can start with whatever day you want. )
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Here comes the tricky part: Write in the numbers. A little hint, The 1 doesn’t always go in the top left hand corner. If any of you wondered why I was so unpredictable in 2004, this oversite was a major factor. That, and I was using military time. I was an imbedded chronographer of sorts. 2004 was not my year.
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I’m not sure where we are in the process. Lets see… months, days of the week, dates… Holidays. Add holidays. Lots of them.holidays.JPG
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And while you’re at it, put it a month just for yourself. Here’s what my month looks like.nateuary.JPG It works on an 8 day week (I inserted “longday” between wed and th) Natueary only has 19 days. Sure, it’s my year but lets not get too self indulgent.
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Create a title page.title-page.JPG
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punch some holes in it whole-punch.JPG That’s write, whole punch. Put something through the holes to keep it together.
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Viola. Yer donne. At this point you have the option of taking it to the next level with additional pages. At this point you’ve moved from calendar to PDA, except without the D. With it’s oldschool charm I think I might call mine a Mayberry.
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Enjoy your year! It’s mine.
