O.K. I think you know that I love projects!! I do so much better when I have a large project in front of me. I am motivated! I can't wait to start! I am easily bored with the "every day"...hence, it takes everything I have to get out a vacuum or dust rag - I would rather be tackling my large project and just push the dirt to the side.
That being said, I may have met my match!
The other day, when I knew that some house cleaning could not wait another minute, I found myself blindlessly looking for something large to begin. I happened to be in my office and when I looked around, I was assaulted by the number of boxes, folders and drawers that were FULL of printed photos.
And, this is really just the tip of the iceberg - or what I am willing to share...can't keep it "really real"!!!
You see, back before I had 7 grand children, I was a scrapbook fanatic! I went to every new store I could get to. I went to scrapbook conventions. I took classes. I had "scraps" at my house with friends. I subscribed to every publication there was on the subject! I loved all things scrapbook.
But, I tend to be a bit compulsive. I had to scrap every picture I took. Many of my designs were multi-paged. It was not unheard of for me to spend 2 hours on a page full of hand cut pieces and handwritten sentiments. I had magazine after magazine and files full of ideas! I would scrap the pages, make full page copies for my husband and me and then place the originals in a book for each grandchild. Oh yes, I NEVER repeated pages within a family....so, if I was doing a 4 page layout where all of the cousins were represented, I had to come up with 12 different pages! As you can see, this very quickly became a full time and incredibly expensive hobby.
All that being said, I would still be doing this if there were more hours in a day. But there aren't and I need time to actually spend with those grandchildren. And so, sadly, the scrap booking has stopped. My heart still skips a beat when I get an idea for a page, but I have moved on.
And so we come to me looking around the office and knowing that the way things are will no longer work. All of the photos are in boxes and filed by date. But, some of the pictures are of one or two grandchildren, others are all 7 or any other number of combinations. I began by thinking that I was just going to do my best and separate them by family. I would then pass all of those pictures along to their parents and they could decide how to deal with them.
But, as I was going through them, I realized how many, many moments with us were captured in time of so many special - or better yet - every day activities. As I am thinking about how our lives will be forever changed as our first grand daughter graduates from high school this year, I am realizing just how very important all of the "little" moments are! Not just the big celebrations, but the times we planted gardens, hung eggs all over the trees for Easter, painted a wall sized quilt in her room and "signed" it with her hand and foot prints, picked blueberries, flew kites, and on and on and on.
It was then that I knew that I needed some of those pictures for us as well. I wasn't sure how I was going to do that but then it came to me. For now, I would buy a number of boxes. Thanks Michaels for having them on sale as I walked in the door:
The plan is to keep at least one photo of each of those memories for us. The rest will go to each family. We will then have a chronological file of "moments". That way, I can relive all of our times together and see each child as they grew and changed. Some day I might get them all pretty in a scrapbook again. Or maybe just scanned on to a CD. But until then I will be secure in the fact that they are right where I can get my hands on them whenever I feel the need.
I got some Mother's Day cards the other day with beautiful sentiments on them. The ones that tugged at my heart the most were the ones where the older girls wrote about so many of the things that they remember doing with me over the years and how they will always love the time they have spent with us at our house and can't wait to pass those same things on to their children some day! And, they weren't the BIG things like the expected trips to Disney, Sea World, etc. They were those little precious moments just between us! The moments that I thought had gone un-noticed or at least, not remembered. Moments on car rides, talks as we walked together, learning how to weave pot holders as we waited for ballet classes to start. Silly made up stories and rhymes. Wow! What more could a mom - or Nana - ask for! Happy Mother's Day everyone. On my way to a bar-b-que at daughter #3's house but I will be back to my projects tomorrow. Stay tuned.
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