Getting ready!

I have procrastinated all week (why? Don't ask me, I can't wait to go. Weird.) Anyway, I am doing laundry as we speak and gearing up to pack my scrapbooking stuff. This, for those of you who are not in the throes of a scrapbooking obsession, is a difficult task. Let me explain.

First you have to understand why I love this hobby. (And many of you, I'm sad to say, do NOT understand! LOL) It all goes back to my early childhood when I would wander through art stores with my grandma, who painted in oil, looking at all the colors, all the paper and canvases, and I would look at all of it as one giant world of possibility. All of the sheer potential of those materials -- and the power I knew I had to make them into something beautiful -- was intoxicating. I feel the same way to this day when I go into a scrapbook or craft store, an art store, even a simple craft store. I get a funny tingle in my spine when I see a blank notebook. Ahhh, the amazing things that notebook could contain!

I have a basic need to create. I live in color -- big, bold, dramatic color. I dye my hair a more vibrant, intense red than it is naturally because I want it to be MORE. (Sorry to the one person reading this who has always thought it was my natural color ...) I wear hot pink, red, bright patterns ... even though I am, shall we say, er.... a substantial woman. LOL When I was about 13 I asked my folks if I could paint polka dots in my room. (My poor dad! LOL) So they said, of course, NO. What did I do? Went to the kitchen and got an assortment of glasses, plates and bowls for circle templates, traced them and colored them -- some plain, some patterned, and then I cut them out and taped them all over my room. And they looked AWESOME. Again, my poor dad. Just not his style. LOL

I am a sentimental fool, too -- I take pictures -- lots of them. To my great regret I did not take a lot of pix when I was in the Army. Good times that I wish I'd captured. But I always kept scrapbooks and photo albums -- always saved silly mementoes that others thought ridiculous.

And then I found scrapbooking. Make fun of it, say whatever you want, but I have to say that as an adult there are few things that let you PLAY like a kid. Scrapping is one of them. I create, I make messes, I write down the stories of my life. Good, bad and ugly -- the exasperating moments in motherhood where your 1 year old has just put the toy telephone in the toilet (true story -- and I have pictures!), the proud moments where your child reaches a milestone, like the first day of kindergarten, the death of a beloved news anchor from lung cancer. All of these have inspired scrapbook pages.

So scrapbooking IS my life in a very real sense. And now I have to choose which of my myriad supplies will travel with me. Will I need the Ink Dots? What about my eyelet setter? Is it really necessary to bring all those silk flowers, just in case?

These are good dilemmas to have. After all, the real point is that I am going back to see my friends, to laugh and cry, to tell risque stories, to tell them that all their mommy troubles will someday be just a memory, and that their kids are going to grow up fine. Perfect, even. Whether it's because of us, or in spite of us, our kids will all someday be grownups with lives and families of their own.

And I'll be sitting at home on my porch, looking at scrapbooks.