When I envision my perfect self, which is (at the moment) easy to do because I'm sitting in my house which has (a) been cleaned today and (b) is currently neat and organized (i.e. no messy piles of anything lying around), I see myself as of a highly productive producer of projects, channeling the grace and nimbleness of a Martha Stewart.
If you have read some of my blogs, you may believe I often channel the likes of Martha - just stop to consider the re-covered living room chairs, the gardening, the trip to Mary Jo's Fabric Shop, the drapes, the whole chicken (which I did take out of the freezer, but haven't cooked yet - my twitter friend didn't tell me how long it needed to cook, so we're back to square one essentially). One might observe these domestic projects and say, "wow...you sure have it together. You are the living image of a domestic goddess, pure tranquility." Cue the birds and harp.
My approach to projects does not conjure up such images of birds, harps and tranquility - instead it's more of a stumbling, clumsy approach, knowing that sooner or later, I am going to start bleeding, sobbing or talking to myself - none of which would make me the ideal Martha, although I might fit right in on a reality tv show. There's always going to be something that occurs, such as the fan I purchased that came packaged with the wrong part (twice - seriously, I swear this happened) or the self-rising flour gets used instead of the regular flour or fill in the blank - it's like Mad Libs over here.
But back to my point, when I think about my perfect life - I envision one project above all other projects - the SCRAPBOOK (using my Barbara Walter voice for hushed emphasis). Scrapbooking to me is the epitome of "you have it together."
Organizing photographs among color coordinated paper and neat stickers - hard edges that are completely straight, no jagged cutting (and no paper cuts). Photos aligned both horizontally and vertically to perfection - that is it, perfection. That is true perfection to me.
I'm an organizer at heart, but I have to have the time and stamina. On a Christmas break from college, I took letters, mementos and photos from my childhood (ages 0-18) and sorted them, organized them and archived them in letter boxes. It took two days, but I did it. That is a glimpse of how organized I used to be or maybe, just how bored.
I walked into Micheal's the other day and was suddenly overcome by the desire to scrapbook - it was as though I had inhaled the aroma of the silk flowers and was just carried away by a primal need to do some crafts. As I walked up and down the aisles looking for a desk organizer, I found myself smack dab in the mecca of scrapbooking (unless you count a precious memories party). It was the scrapbooking aisle - all the tools were right there, the stickers, the pens, the scissors, the paper and the organizer systems! I was in pure bliss...for about 10 seconds and then I started sweating, waves of inadequacy fell over me. I had to scoot on out of there. I'm only a wanna-be! Geez, this is starting to seem like a daily occurrence.
Don't get me wrong, I did a great job scrapbooking when I was growing up - my great grandfather was a printer and was a good source of sample books from stationery companies. My mom told me that when she was growing up, she and her cousin would take those books, rip out the samples and then turn the bound, empty book with its thick, rich pages into the foundation for a great scrapbook. I can remember flipping through some of my mom's scrap books of her trips with my dad - Greece, Turkey, California graced the perfect black pages with my parents and scenery of the world's seven wonders staring back at me.
So I took the inspiration, got my own sample book from my great grandfather, ripped out wedding invitation upon wedding invitation, and created my own scrapbook - I think it spanned from 1986-1987, a banner year. I had pictures from New York, several trips to UNC football games, a zoo trip, trips to the North Carolina mountains and some neighborhood pictures - I was busy with my LeCliq camera, a little too busy after taking three rolls of film at the state zoo - my parents cut me off (I was a passionate child). I can also recall a Disney World scrapbook, a Hurricane Hugo scrapbook (one for the archives, complete with weather reports) and multiple high school scrapbooks.
I even continued to make the occasional scrapbook in college, cataloguing my study abroad semester in France. But, that's about where it ended. Since then, there have been several failed attempts at scrapbooking.
There was my trip in graduate school to Europe. I planned to create a scrapbook - I collected lots of trinkets, matchbook covers, brochures, and so on - all the time thinking,"this will be perfect for my scrapbook," going above and beyond to make sure I had everything I needed. You have to plan in advance for these sort of things. Stored them up in a folder, which I labeled "scrapbook." That's as far as that got.
I remember packing that scrapbook folder up when I moved from Chicago. Then I packed it up when I moved out of my apartment in Charlotte, encountering it when I moved out of my condo in Charlotte...all the while, taunting me like a misspelled word. Sitting on my list of to dos for almost eight years, never getting checked off - and I hate not checking something off my to do list! I finally moved it into storage, thus simultaneously removing it from the list of things to do permanently (or at least until it resurfaces to mock me).
Then there was a scrapbook I was going to make for a friend's wedding - I collected lots of little mementos from her girl's weekend in New York. This time I bought a scrapbook that was color coordinated to her wedding palette, along with some cute city stickers. Where is it now? Under the bed in the spare room where I sit right this moment. Maybe I'll make it for her second anniversary. And, the most aggressive scrapbook of them all - my wedding/honeymoon. I bought the super fancy scrapbook for that, complete with lettering, stickers AND an extra pack of pages. I thought, "I'll just throw some money at this thing and that will motivate me." Nope.
So there it sits, right beside the other failed attempt, if you can even call buying supplies an attempt (to be fair, I guess you could). At least it's out of sight, out of mind. And now, these photo websites have their own photo books - let me tell you - those are just as much work as the real deal. I started to make one for my parents, but gave up after hours had passed and I was still on the first page. But, I made sure to save it for good measure.
One day I will get to these scrapbooks, I'm sure of it. I know that it's worth it -- I can remember how much I loved to look at my mom's, imagining her life before she had me, which is hard to conceive when you are that young. But I had so much fun, flipping through those pages again and again. I hope that I will have more than just my tween and high school years available for my children to peruse (let's face it, the tween years are really those awkward years that are best not remembered too much). But let's be honest, if I don't get to these things before I have said children, it really will be just a pie in the sky kind of idea.
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