Happy 4th of July!

I got some time just to relax yesterday and it made an enormous difference in my outlook. (It was either that or finally having some time to make a dent in the laundry.) I will have to work later today but it won't be in that panic-stricken, not enough hours in the day kind of way. Fascinating, no?

I reflect again that the day to day minutae that make up our lives (and specifically, I mean OUR lives as in my little family - I don't know, maybe the rest of your lead fascinating lives!) just isn't always that blog worthy. Charlie gathering all the coat hangers and empty Diet Mt. Dew cans (way more than I'm willing to confess to) to make a robot. Grace in a mad kissing phase - she might win the world record for the number of kisses she can dole out in a day. The bickering at the dinner table - "I'm not going to eat that" "Eat your pork chop or go get ready for bed" "This one takes a long time to chew", etc. etc. All little moments that I savor and gather into my heart but that don't translate well into this forum.

I think the real confession (and problem) is that I'm not scrapbooking. Not any of these moments. And I haven't been for some time. Somewhere back around the beginning of the year I hit a wall and I've not found my way around it yet. I play a little bit; some days I manage to actually throw a few things together but I'm not doing it in the way I always have to preserve the story, preserve those moments. It's become an enormously frustrating endeavor for me - I sit and stare at the pictures and then put them away and just move paper around. But do you ever have one of those moments when something clicks? Like literally you're walking and you feel like the idea hits you in the head? That happened to me yesterday as I walking downstairs to do the umpteenth load of laundry. I keep trying to invent the wheel. And after 3 years of doing this hobby, no wonder I feel like I'm out of ideas. But why do I feel like that? Why can't I just find ONE style that I like and stick to that? Who cares if the paper and title are in the same place; in fact, wouldn't the whole thing make more sense if my pages have a coherent style?

Okay, so that is really a "duh" moment. I know it. All my favorite scrappers have a defined "style" but I never really thought about what creates that and I finally realized it is consistency of design. Not trying to re-invent the wheel everytime they sit down to create. So the point to this very, very long-winded soliloquy is that today, for the first time in a very long time, I'm actually eager to get out my stuff, gather up those pictures and tell a story. Not out of a sense of guilt that I've spent so much money collecting all these supplies. Not out of a sense of obligation to keep the family records in order. But because I'm truly feeling the urge to create. To look at the stuff I've done before and identify the ones that make me happy and then go with that.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!