Day 28 - Memory Lane

There was no way I was going to scan in my senior high school picture - no offense - it was BAD BAD BAD BAD, what I did do was take a photo of one of my favorite senior year pictures. I leave this picture, and one other in with my diploma so that I always know where it is.

Graduation day and my two closest friends, Blanche and Rose. For a long time Blanche and I lost touch with Rose but thanks for Facebook we were able to reconnect with her and within moments it was as if we had never been apart - although it had been several years since we had last spoken. Now, we speak almost daily and the only bad part of our new relationship is that all three of us live in different states and are unable to pop over for quick visits just to relax and hang out.

I pretty much look the same nowadays - I am blessed with good genetics that means we age really well and never look as old as we are. I am also very overweight but thanks to those genetics I carry my extra weight so it is hard to tell that I am 100 pounds heavier then I should be - in high school I was even heavier.

Thanks for reminding me that it is ok to look back at the past and recall some of the best memories a person can have and how close my friends and I were and thankfully still are today.

Day 24 - Togetherness

I've mentioned before that I love taking photos, this is just a small sampling of my photos before I went digital. One box are my panoramic pictures while the other box is sorted by various subjects. Each mini album contains one type of subject and makes locating my photos a lot easier. Although you cannot see it in the photo, the two boxes are sitting on a file box which contains older photos sorted by subject as well.

Most of these photos are photos of my family and I cannot think of anything else that represents togetherness more than that. I have always believed that family comes first and that spending time with my daughter - be it just watching tv or creating art projects is more important then cleaning the house or doing laundry. I try to balance this out since the birth of my daughter so that she can learn good habits - as my habits are not the greatest ones and I want her to be a better person than I am.

Although I am not the neatest person, when it comes to finally putting something where it goes or organizing my papers I am borderline - ok no border I am downright anal about how it goes. As I mentioned, each mini album has one subject inside, the front of the album carries a title (ex. Caves, Towns, Sisters, names of the individual pictured inside). The file box below has one section where I store the negatives in file folders labeled with the date and subject and then another section with the actual photos with their date and subject matching the negative folders. Even my photos on the computer are organized in a manner similar to this. I once came across a hint (and it may have very well been on Gotta Pixel) about labeling my photos with the YEARMONTHDAY_SUBJECT_ORIGINALFILENAME.JPG/GIF/BMP - I go farther then that and often have file names that look like this 2010January20_365Challenge_Day20_picture1.jpg --- if I have the time I am even known to fill out the properties including comments I have about the photo... how anal is that??

Day 18 - Grandparents

It's hard to recall memories of my grandparents as we didn't often see them, I decided to pay homage to three Grandmothers (two I knew and one I did not).

My Mother's parents both passed away before my Mom was very old and she was raised by her grandmother, my Great-Grandma Ruby (pictured in the bottom photo cooking with unidentified male). I can vaguely remember my Great-Grandma and my sisters and I just called her Grandma Ruby; it did not register with us for many years that although we knew our Mom's mother was dead that Grandma Ruby was actually our Great-Grandma. I can mostly remember her being a very tiny woman who was a lot of fun to be around. I can remember bowls of candy on her side tables and doilies all over the place, and she cooked - all the time.

My Mother's mother is pictured in the the black and white photo off to the side with my mother, aunt, and uncle as children. The story I can recall being told about her death is that my Aunt I. was caught in the ocean and my Grandmother and Grandfather went out to save her. My Grandmother did not make it and my Grandfather and Aunt were in the hospital for awhile - my Grandfather longer then my Aunt. After this incident my Grandfather left his three children with his mother and father and eventually passed away within a couple of years. (I'm not sure of those facts as I can recall the story being told to me many years and it is just something we didn't/don't discuss in our family.)

The above photo is a picture of my Father's mother with my older sister and me. I carry her first name as my middle name so I have always felt a sort of closer kinship with her. I can remember her being tall and stately and it was a shock to see her as I grew older and suddenly she seemed smaller. She was a big smoker and when her health started to decline and she had to quit she also started gaining weight and the image in my mind is still overridden today with images of her being a tall stately grandmother who loved watching college football. I can remember looking through our family photos and finding one of her doing a handstand in the backyard and that is an image I carry close to my heart even today.

I often wonder how my life would have been affected if we had lived closer to our grandparents and gotten to know them even better. I was often jealous of my Uncle's children and how they knew our Great-Grandmother so well. I thank God every day that my daughter is able to know and love her grandparents.

I strive hard to make sure she knows all of her Grandparents by making them a large part of our life even though thousands of miles may separate us. We are always in touch via e-mail and teleconference several times. My parents live close enough they are able to come up and visit and my husband's parents take the time to come visit as often as they can. My daughter has photo albums of family members that we go through almost weekly, daily before trips to visit them. We did this enough that the last visit we had she knew her Great-Grandma B. was and was able to go up and give her a hug and call her Grandma. This made her Great-Grandma's day as she is able to see my daughter so infrequently, yet my daughter knew who she was.

Exactly what I want for my family. A connection that lasts and makes an impression!

A New Year - A New Challenge

The first new day in a new year always brings with it reflection over my life; it's direction, my goals and ambitions, my social life, and the events that have taken place over the last year and sometimes even further back. The regrets I may have, which are honestly very few, and the actions I should have taken and the path they may have created in my life.

My life was changed when I met my best friends, Blanche* and Rose*. It changed again with the meeting of my now husband, Jamie* and the birth of my daughter, Emily*. With my marriage and birth of my daughter my family became the major focus of my life. I have never completed college, even online at home programs because my focus and time is spent with my daughter, as it should be!

One of the hobbies I have always enjoyed over the years and has been a secret dream of mine is photography. I love looking at pictures, taking picture, sorting through them, and in fact I am a picture hoarder. I will take hundreds of shots and throw 99% of them aside (but never out!) as being inferior. I will print photos I'm not happy with because somebody wants to see the picture I've taken. As technology has grown and advanced over the years I moved into digitally scrapbooking items and photos; however, with the birth of my daughter this also fell into the when I get to it slot. My photos became photos of my daughter - being under 6 years old we already have several thousands of photos and hours of video of her. With the technology of cameras in my cell phone - it only increased the number of shots I took of her and raised the level of "No Picture!", "No Video!", "Are you recording me?" and "NO!" because she often gets tired of being the center of this attention.

One of the sites I used to scroll around on is Gotta Pixel, a digital scrapbooking website. I loved their artists, their forums, their downloads, and their step by step instructions on how to accomplish some of the same looks with the tools you had.

This year they are starting a new thing - 365 Challenge. The challenge is to take a picture every day this year. This is not a difficult challenge in and of itself as I mentioned above I take thousands of photos. I am adding a different spin to this challenge for myself - I have to take a photo a day that does NOT include my daughter, and to some extent my husband. I will review this particular challenge if the prompt for the day is about families, however I am going to strive to have no photos of my daughter for this challenge.

Wish me luck and let's find out what I learn about myself during this coming year and what strikes my fancy when my family is not at the center of the activity.



* Names have been changed