word count: 787.
My journaling challenge is usually keeping it UNDER 250. *I'm going to fix my journaling for my own page to print, but I just looked it up - I received my digital program in 2011 for Christmas, so I'm almost 10 years into digital. wow!
Here is the journaling for easier reading, though I guess a 12 point showed up ok online!:
I started scrapbooking back in 2001 as something to do. Carey and I decided we were going to try it so took a class at a local store. We then continued to meet there a couple times a week for a couple hours and she worked on her wedding and honeymoon and I worked on Eric’s and my trips and dating life. We loved the girl time together. After my wedding, I decided I wanted to do a wedding album too. I did it because I wanted to remember the wedding as I did it. That was one of my biggest draws to scrapbooking; the fact that as I was scrapbooking something, I got to re-live it. I also really loved the paper and elements! LOL. I absolutely loved to stand in the aisles of a scrapbook store with my photos in hand and find something that went perfectly with what I wanted to do. Eventually she stopped scrapbooking, but I continued. I just went by myself to scrap nights.
Once Asher came along, scrapbooking was a way to get out of the house. None of my friends were scrapbooking yet, but that didn’t matter. I went every couple Fridays and enjoyed some Mom time. They served food at the store where I went, I listened to those who had friends with them talk about themselves and I just threw myself into my memories. I was thankful to be alone for a few minutes.
After we moved to Texas, I used scrapbooking to try to meet people. It failed. Unfortunately, the hobby can be cliquish. When you attend an event, usually people attend with others and therefore the single person in the corner was not usually included in any conversation. But just as I did in Omaha, I loved the time away from home, with my memories, walking up and down the aisle and shopping. It was still a great hobby for me.
Eventually friends in Omaha started picking up the hobby and exclaiming how they wished they’d tried it while I was there. So a little less than a year after we moved here, I used scrapbooking as a way to get away for entire weekends! I would meet Teri & Michelle in Wichita for scrapbooking weekends as we stayed in hotels for 2 nights. This has now extended to 3 or 4 nights and the accommodations have upgraded to AirBnBs. Then Christie & Rachel started scrapbooking, so they and I started doing the same thing, so now I was getting away twice a year!
Unfortunately, by the time Ada came, scrapbooking had become time consuming and cluttery. I had purchased too much, and I wasn’t able to find the time to get away like I had when we only had Asher. I tried to stop buying new items, but my pages suffered. I tried to scrap at the table Eric once bought me, but I couldn’t find the energy to pull everything out if I only had 20 or 30 minutes. For a while I only scrapped when I went to Wichita and found myself falling behind and becoming upset. I realized that I missed re-living my memories.
This is when I thought I’d give digital scrapbooking a try. I thought maybe that was what a busy, tired, mom needed. I asked for a copy of the Creative Memories software for Christmas, received it, found someone local who would teach me in person, and within a year had busted out more than 100 pages of memories. I had found what I needed – something I could take out while the kids watched a movie, or while Asher was at a practice, or while we were just doing something but I wanted to be with them, but didn’t need to BE with them.
I now scrap to keep not only my memories alive, but my children’s memories. I am still behind, but I try. I attempt to print a book a year for the family as well as one book for each child every year (most years I’ve been successful – most are at the verge of being printed). I also do one book for each large vacation. I love to watch them look at the books and share them with people. This has changed as they’ve become older; they share with fewer people. But I hope someday they look at them and remember that I made these books for them with love. And if my memory ever goes, then I hope they can use them to show me that I made them for them with love.
Socially I have scrapbooked over the years for many different reasons, but in my soul I scrapbook to preserve the memories.
