OhMyDamn. As you probably remember, I am a student. That means I get financial aid. That means I pay my bills about every 6 months. This may *seem* like a wonderful thing, but trust me, it is actually a week-long headache as I scramble to get everything caught up in between the time my disbursement hits (usually the day before classes begin) and the day the money I gave everybody last time runs out and they start sending nasty-grams. Guess what? Classes start tomorrow, and I have a headache, no clear idea of how much money I have left in the bank and several more bills to pay. I think I better call it quits for today and let the account settle. Luckily, I get an e-statement every morning, so I will be able to tell what cleared overnight. I’ll finish paying stuff on Thursday.
Are you guys tired of knitting books yet? I hope not, because we have 5 more to go. Not feeling it today? Ok, me either. What I am feeling today is an urge to scrap. Getting “paid” every 6 months also means new craft stuff every 6 months, and I spent money on scrapping supplies this time.
When I moved my desk to its new area, I was forced to confront 2 bins of photos. Plus the trunk in the living room that I use as a coffee table. Plus the one I use as an end table. Yeah, it’s time to get that dealt with. So far, I have purchased 4 scrapbooks (all at steals–A.C. Moore was having a 2 for $10 sale), and 380 sheets of 12×12 paper (for a grand total of $30). I am ready! I still have a lot of 8.5 x 11 paper, but I haven’t been able to find a scrapbook in that size for quite awhile. Of course, I haven’t really scrapped in 10 years, so…..yeah. The good news is that I made three pages the other day, and I fell in love with it all over again.
I’ve given myself permission to do things a bit differently this time. When I scrapped before, I had far fewer children. Those kids have very complete books up to the time I stopped scrapping, because every time I got prints made, I scrapped a set for each kid AND a set for myself. Holy crap, right? I’ve doubled my kid count, and that’s….the mind boggles: EIGHT sets of prints, plus papers and books and adhesives and cutouts, and NO.
From now on, with rare exceptions, I am doing one scrapbook. Ok, two. One family and one personal. (Yes, I have to do a personal one because I still can’t remember stuff. If I don’t record it, then it didn’t happen. Yes, that’s still very frustrating. Yes, I am learning to adapt.) When the kids get older, they can copy whatever pages they want. Otherwise, I am not going to scrap at all, and that means the stories I know die with me and that is not acceptable.
Don’t think I am morbid, I am just realistic. When Grandmother died, and we cleaned out her house, there were a lot of pictures. Mama knows who is in some of them, but not all of them. Grandmother kept them in boxes, and some have names written on the back, but not all of them. The ones that have names and/or people we recognize have no dates and no stories to go with the images. So that’s the motive behind my scrapbooks. They will tell my stories to my children when I am no longer able to do so. And not just the stories behind the pictures wedding photographers raleigh nc took. The everyday, nothing-special-is-happening pictures that I make myself, mostly because something DID just happen, so I took a picture to remind myself to write that story down for my kids.