Family History Fair and Keeping it Real

This past Saturday I attended a Family History Fair at the church that turned out to be way more awesome than I thought it would be. There were some really great classes, one of which was titled "Not Your Mother's Scrapbooking Class." The presenter showed us pictures of the evolution of her scrapbook pages on a large projector screen. Her scrapbooking styles changed the same ways mine did, except I didn't spend a fortune on embellishments when those became available. I used to scrapbook with a friend every Wednesday when we lived in LA. I actually completed a baby book for Leif AND a baby book for Sabrina. I had started on another album when we moved away and that's about when I stopped scrapbooking. I intended to start again eventually, but through a series of unfortunate events, those baby books that I had spent HOURS and HOURS putting together had been water damaged. The pictures survived well enough and my hand-written words were still readable, but the colored scrapbooking papers bled and wrinkled. I dried out the papers and have had them in a large stack ever since. I was so sad about the whole thing that I have used that experience as my excuse for not scrapbooking since. My children have had unlimited access to my collection of punches, scissors, and papers. I just figured someone ought to be using them and they've really enjoyed it!

Anyway, back to the scrapbooking class, the presenter stated at the beginning of the class that she was not getting paid to talk about any of the products that she uses. She showed us a scrapbooking system called Project Life that has really been amazing for her the past few years. All you need to get started is a 12x12 binder, a "core" set, and the plastic pages. The plastic pages have a bunch of pockets that come in two or three sizes for you to just slip your pictures into. The "core" set is pre-cut (and totally cute) cards for journaling that also fit into those pockets in the plastic pages. She said the Project Life products are sold in all the craft stores in town (use your coupons) and online. As I was seeing all this, I thought of that stack of water-ruined scrapbook pages that I needed to do something with eventually. Yep, I went out that night, coupons in hand, and bought what I needed to put Leif and Sabrina's baby books back together. I've already started and I feel really excited about it. I believe that when children see that their parents are making the pictures of them available for viewing and enjoying by the family, then they feel and know that they are loved...a lot!

It gets better. The presenter then said that a few months ago, this company that makes the Project Life products came out with an app for the iphone. If you have an iphone and this $2.99 app, you can use pictures on your iphone to create scrapbook pages in the same kind of style as the plastic pages with the pockets and little cards, but it's all digital and then you can export the page as a 12x12 or 8x8 jpeg and have them printed somewhere individually or upload them to one of the many book printing companies and have a book bound. She made a scrapbook page right in front of us and I think it took about a minute! Awesome! I don't happen to have an iphone, but it's an awesome app for those who do!

She also talked about other ways to record and preserve your family story. She talked about blogging, facebook, and instagram. There are companies that will print books or pictures from all three. She also mentioned making sure you keep it real. I think some people make their lives appear to be nothing but bliss because those are the only moments they record. I wonder if I am like that because I don't feel like blogging when I'm depressed, you know? And I certainly don't announce all my problems on facebook! I really don't think people want to hear about all my woes, plus it's none of their business. Some people like to share a lot, some people just a little.

Okay, so here's me keeping it real:

My house is big mess most of the time and half of the time it drives me crazy! I can spend a whole morning cleaning up the living room, dining room, and kitchen areas. The children and I play, do homework, read, cook, eat, etc. We LIVE, for crying out loud! By the time Jeff gets home, it looks almost the same as it did before I spent the morning cleaning up. True story. Sometimes I wonder if he's thinking, "What does Sara DO all day?" Once I saw a cute little sign for sale in a store that said, "Excuse the mess, we LIVE here." Ha! I would have bought it, but I don't have any good place to hang it.

What else...I probably spend too much time using the computer on some days and on other days I don't use it at all. I try to stay away from it as long as I can because it's easy to be distracted by one thing, then another, then another, and next thing I know, a whole hour has gone by and I hadn't even started doing what I had intended to do in the first place, like send an email or something.

Oh! Here's a good one: I am overweight. I've been exercising since January and lost 16 pounds, but then I put 8 back on and now just keep losing and gaining the same 5 pounds over and over. I am trying to watch what I eat, but this is how it goes: I do really great for about four days and then not so great for 3 or 4 days. Repeat. Yea, I think I have a sugar addiction. This time of year is especially difficult because everyone seems to be a sugar pusher, you know? Even me! I want to bake cookies and give them to my neighbors, but then I think that wouldn't be very nice because maybe they're trying to lose weight too, you know? Should I take a veggie tray over instead? Then they would think I am trying to tell them something like, "Um, you all need to slim down a bit over here!"

Speaking of food prep, Elijah has been my little salad chef lately. On Monday night he asked if he could make the salad to go with our chicken and dumplings dinner. I must have answered in the affirmative, but I don't really remember, because he got out the spinach and a can of pineapple. He drained the pineapple and announced (just like I do when I drain the pineapple juice into a cup), "Who wants to drink some pineapple juice?" I think Dacia took him up on that one. Then he dumped the pineapple on top of the spinach, which is his favorite way to have a salad. He didn't find any cans of mandarin oranges so he peeled an orange and put the segments on top of the pineapple. I didn't mind his food prep, I thought it was really cute. Then last night while I was cooking the taco meet, he made ANOTHER salad. This time he used iceberg lettuce, a baby carrot, celery, and a cucumber. He loves cutting up vegetables! Then he made a fruit bowl with cut up apples and oranges. He put a pair of chopsticks on each bowl and called them Chinese salads. So cute! I would have taken a picture of him, but the counters were too messy, you know. I've got an embarrassing stack of papers and junk at the end of the counter top. How do I get rid of that for good? I guess I have to clean it off EVERY day and I don't so it grows larger. See? I'm just keeping it real. :)