A Smile to my Face

By:Jan A.

As a mother of five children, my life has been often a blur. My family has always been my priority so for the past 25 years it has been filled with the everyday activities of infants, turned preschoolers, turned school age children. I always would put off things that I wanted to do for when I wouldn't be as busy. Each stage in my childrens' lives brought new activities replacing the past ones. As the pace slowed a little, I went baqck to school full time and that was followed by a full time job. On franticaly paced days I would often wonder if the time for myself would ever come.

Finances were tight as my children grew up and often film and film developing was not in the budget. I would take a few pictures and if I remembered to develop them, they were quickly shared with friends and relatives and thrown in a box for the day when I would have time to put them in an album. Infrequently I would look atthe pictures only to quickly put them away because another "duty" called. Occassionally I would find a photo stuck in a book as a bookmark and smile at the memories it brought.

A few years ago my friend commented to me how she had started this new hobby called scrapbooking. She would telll me about the scrap vacation she went on and the trips to a neighboring city to shop and go to crops. She had large Tupperware containers filled with photos and had a hard time sorting them. I was envious of her financial means to pursue this hobby and wondered how she had the time.

The I saw an ad in the newspaper offering a class on how to scrapbook. I decided to go. Armed with only six pictures I walked into the room in awe as I saw woman chatting ansd sitting at tables with all kinds of photos andscraping supplies. I was overwhelmed. I was greeted by these strangers as an old friend and immediately help was offered. I went home with a high that only a scrapbooker can relate to.

I've been scrapping 1 1/2 years now and halearned so much. I am a regular in the dMarie chat room as well as frequenting other sites daily. I feel closer to some of my cyber friends that others in my life. I force myself to allow a little in my budget for scrapping and always find the time to do a little scrapping here and there. I met a group through the dMarei Friend Finder and now go to a monthly crop.

A smile always comes to my face when scrapping. Scrappers is a special breed of people and just the word, brings memories of my photos and their memories. Scrapping is synomynous with a big smile. Ask an scrapper and they will agree.



Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: The importance of scrapbooking, by Angie M.