Emotional ties

I am not sunshine and light.  I am reality, cold and harsh.  It kind of sucks, and I'd change it if I could, but it seems that after 43 years I can say with a considerable amount of certainty: This is who I am.  So it's not like I sit around thinking "I think today I'll air my dirty laundry on my blog!"  However, I am going to be more open than maybe I would if I were one of those sunshine and unicorn types. Why? Because we all go through crappy times, and whether it's because of pride or discretion we don't typically talk about it, and the result is that every time we hit a hard patch, we feel more alone than we should.  We feel that we're up against something that no one else has to deal with. It makes us a little pity-party-ish.  Bring on the cupcakes.

I mentioned in the pig card post that we recently took a trip to RIT for Maggie to visit the campus. I'm sure you've put 2 and 2 together, but this mini-album is about that trip.  I took about 20 photos on my little Fuji Instax camera, and I have pictures that both Maggie and Kerig took during our visit.  One of the things that I was so excited about was how this was really a collaboration with all our efforts and all our points of view.  And it will be.

But scrapbooking is emotional.  When I was a mother of young children, sitting down at my scrap table after putting the kids to bed was therapeutic.  Looking at those sweet faces reminded me just how much I loved my kids.  Yes, chasing them, cleaning up after them, feeding them, bathing them, laundering their clothes was exhausting, but when you catch your breath you realize there's so much joy in there.   For the past 7 days Maggie and I have been butting heads.  She did something wrong and she did it willfully.  As a mother I can't look away and act like it's didn't happen.  There are plenty of worse things that kids can do. But until she's ready to have a mature discussion about what she did, accept some responsibility, express some regret and sincerely apologize, until then she's grounded.  It's really eating me up, because I know she knows better.  She thinks she's right, but she's not seeing the bigger picture.  At any rate, the point is this: It's slowed down my desire to work on this book.  I've kind of busied myself with the title pages, because I'm not really ready to tackle pictures and journaling.  And that's a real shame.  This is going to be a really fun project when it's all finished, I just hate that the process has been sullied.  Hopefully it's just temporary.

At any rate, this is a really crappy picture of a very potential-filled project.  I don't know what it is about mini-albums, but I my normally clean and cardstock-based style takes a backseat to a cluttered, funky and (hopefully) fun approach.

So that's what I've got to share today.  I promise that when this is all done I'll take decent photos so you can actually see it.  For now, I hope the glimpse works for you.

Can you believe August is done?  Hello September! I'm happy to see you! I brought #2 pencils to the party. ☻ I even have some cupcakes left over from my pity party...  ;)