Memories

This morning I ran across an advertisement about creating story books of your life and I was reminded of a book DD gave me several years ago, called, “The Story of my Life”. It has prompts for me get the story inside me flowing. I haven’t written in it in probably a year.

When I first got it I felt like I couldn’t answer any of the prompts! I felt like I had NO memories! I worried something was terribly wrong with me. I cried!

Eventually, I decided to not just start at the front and go, but to let the book fall open and write there. It helped, a lot. I was able to write more and to remember. I just had a hard time starting in the beginning and remembering anything!

Recently, while visiting my family back home, I gathered old photos from my childhood and also my kids. We had a pipe burst in the basement a while back and I lost so many photos so this was such a blessing! So I’ve been looking though these photos a lot lately and remembering.

Now, I’ve started pulling out old albums and looking through them remembering. It’s fun! Somethings I don’t remember completely but it’s still fun to look.

We don’t print photos as much any more, they are just on our phones, computers, the cloud, Facebook… But looking back at all these makes me realize how important it is to remember! To look back and smile, laugh, cherish old memories. It makes me want to get back to scrapbooking! I used to do a lot of it on the computer with some software. I had so much fun! I often made pages and gave them to my parents as gifts as we didn’t have much money and this was a way I felt we could share our lives together from afar.

Then I went to one of those creative memories parties and made a page and that was fun but I hated cutting my photos. I eventually got over it and started making more pages and books, especially as more stores carried the paper and tools at more affordable prices.

But eventually I stopped… Now, after looking through the old photo books and scrapbooks and all the old photos just randomly lying around I want to get back to it! I’m looking at software… we will see. I want to preserve these precious memories! I want to be able to go back and look at them and remember those times, the laughter, the smiles, they bring me such joy! Even ugly photos from the crazy hair days of the 70’s and 80’s or the BIG glasses.

Seeing those photos of my daddy again brings me such joy! Seeing the smile on my mom’s face again as she smiles and laughs! Seeing my little sister and I as the best friends we always were… seeing the sweet smile of my babies as they grew up… so much joy and don’t we all need a little joy in our lives these days?

Anyway, these are my thoughts for today as I prepare to make lots more memories this week as we celebrate Thanksgiving and being thankful for all we have and have had throughout our lives.