Memories

Last month I did get back to scrapbooking, it feels good to be remembering things.  It hasn't always been that way.  It took me years to be alright with scrapbooking my children.  Time was going by so fast I couldn't scrapbook in the moment.  I found it almost painful.  Now that my children are almost grown it brings me joy to create memories for them.

This is one of those layouts that are extremely excited about.  I started with this layout from Shimelle's starting point from last week.  My journaling will be done in the hidden pocket because I want it to be a little more private.  It just makes me so incredibly happy.  I remember the day so well.  It is one of those photos that I thought I would never use just because I can't see my daughter's face.  She is now almost seventeen and her hair isn't that blonde anymore.  Everything came from my stash except for the purchase of the glittered swirls and the splatter of  Daler Rowney Liquid Acrylic in Waterfall Green.

Truth

I've talked about truth here before, it is something that is important to me and part of the center of who I am.  Most all people I have run into agree that it is an important part of one's life but hard to look at.  That is okay because in the long run it is what helps us to grow.


When you are going through a rough time and God or universe is knocking at your heart, what do you do?  My thoughts are a jumbled mess or so it seems.  I write stuff out in hopes that it will make some sort of sense.  If I don't write even a line of an idea done, it is gone.  Age or perimenopause?  I don't know what to blame but I am trying to make adjustments.  There have been a couple of people I hold dear to my heart right now because they have been writing about truth.  Check these wonderful ladies out, here and here.  May their words help you as much as they have me.  Thank you for your honesty ladies, it has brought me to a good place!!   

My reality is that my life is anything but normal.  I have gone through waves of emotions the last few months and that has been the reason for my constant lack of writing here on my blog.  Here I force myself to be real so it is important for me to be open.  When you have a difficult time being honest with yourself, how can you even consider being honest with someone else?  So I remain silent BUT what I am figuring out is silence isn't always the best thing, it can be deadly.  In this case it has brought me almost to a creative stand still.  I find it hard to get going on things I want to do, some projects get started then never finished and then the lack of motivation sets in.  You can say you want to do things and you have things planned BUT if you never do them, who is missing out?  What are you missing out on?

The list of things I have been struggling with seems to be so long.  I know if I focus on them to much it would be easy for me to make myself out to be a victim.  I don't want to be that person.  I don't want this place to be a negative one but a place full of hope.  I am facing my struggles but the amount of grief that I had to face to get here wasn't the happiest.  It surprised me and I couldn't believe I was in such a negative place again.

Today I am slowing down, listening to the birds outside, watching my Grandbabies play and tackling one project at a time.  Join me as I lift myself up out of a hole I was digging myself into.

I didn't finish LOAD but I did get quite a few pages done so I am okay with what is ready for albums.  I took  time this past month to figure out what works for me in albums, my likes and dislikes.  Over the years I put to much money into post bound albums to just up and not use them.  I needed a solution for storage for pages finished so they would be kept safe until they are put into my children/grand children's albums.  I finally found something I am sooo happy with and excited to use.......We R Memory Keepers Leather 12x12 Binder albums.  I do want to have some type of order to my scrapbooks when I put them together for my children.  This will help me to be able to keep layouts together without them being damaged.  Plus all the colors they come in make me happy too!!  Hey, a girl has got to get color in somehow!

I do have to say that even if I didn't finish LOAD it did for me what I was hoping for, it helped get me to scrapbook again.  I have been able to finish layout that have been in the works for years...yes, years.  You know the ones....you take time to gather paper, embellishments and you might even cut all the paper for placement.  Yep, those are the ones I've worked on!  I don't have a lot of layouts that I do that are the same for my children's in less it involves family vacations or holiday's.

 This is one of my favorite set of layouts I did, my daughter's first year as Drum Major.  Can't wait to work on more of Marching Band!