Leaving a Legacy

By:Penny Christine

I didn't think I'd ever scrapbook. I mean, c'mon look at the money that's involved. The time? Where would I find the time? But, I caught the bug like all other well-meaning women and before I knew it I found myself at the dining room table at two in the morning feverishly cropping pictures and laboring over which cardstock to use. My collection of scissors and punches grew and my children learned to expect that if I was at the table with all my paraphernalia before me, not come near if there was a pen in my hand. When friends and family call they know not to ask what I'm doing anymore. Instead, they ask how many pages I completed that day and they're starting to hide when they see me coming with my album tucked neatly under my arm.

So why do I do what I do? Is it because I can collect stickers again like when I was in 5th grade and had a sticker book? Is it because it's a way for me to be creative again other than cutting my kids' sandwiches in funny shapes to get them to eat them? Or is it because it's therapeutic and I lose myself in the pictures and paper and diecuts? Well, yes, it's all of those but it's also the legacy I'm leaving behind. I scrapbook because someday my children are going to ask a question and I'll be able to show them the answer in our family albums. I scrapbook because one day, my children will be teenagers and they'll forget how much we love them. They'll remember how much not only in our day to day actions but in the words that wind their way through the albums. And someday I won't be here at all but I'll have already told the stories that need to be told through the albums I've lovingly created.

I'm a scrapbooker -- a hopelessly addicted, sleep deprived, sticker loving, scrapbooker recording my legacy (and my love) in an album for all to see.

Penny Christine

Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: How, by Picasso