This Is Why

I have always been fond of the New Year. I love the ritual of making new goals, because I enjoy sticking to them. I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes when you complete something you started. At the beginning of 2009, I set a simple goal of taking one picture a day. My intention of doing this was to help me jump start my own habit of taking photos of our life. I completed this goal and I can not tell you how happy I am that I did. Looking back at our year, I have documentation! I have proof of what we did. Some of my photos are lame, like the one that I took of something random on my desk, but the point is that I documented something. This goal played a big part in my jumping in to the world of scrapbooking and paper crafting over the past year, and doing so has been so rewarding for me. The process is creative, which is very therapeutic, and the result is a record, a story that I can show to my children and their children. I'm preserving our mark on life and it leaves me feeling so wonderful!

I did this layout 2 weeks ago to solidify the real reasons of why I do what I do in my free time. I do it because I love it and because it means something to me to tell our story.

On more than one occasion I have caught Jordan looking through Liliane's scrapbook over her first year. (One of those times he was reading from it to Liliane right before he put her to bed. Cute.) He's told me a few times that he hopes that I do the same for all of our children, to tell their story and to capture their moments. I am so thankful for his support. I know to him, paper and glue and all that stuff is boring, but he supports me in my passion and I am grateful.

Over the past few months I've enjoyed reading other blogs and gathering bits of information from here and there. One of my favorites to read is Ali Edwards blog. She's a pretty well-known name in the scrapbooking world and I love her work. I love the emphasis she puts into words + photos. She'd been talking about how for the past few years she has taken one word to live her life around throughout the year. I wanted to play along so for this year I chose the word TIME. This word means so much to me. Time is something we don't get back, so it is important to me to make sure to spend it wisely. I want to give more time to the things that matter: my family. I love them so much! I don't want to miss a second with them. This whole focus on the word TIME has to do with my roles as a wife and homemaker too. So I'm up for the challenge. I think this will be a good year.