Do any of you have a project that you want to start, but you don't because you don't have the time or energy to properly execute it? Well, I do. In fact, I have a ton of them.
Remember how I am always talking about how the pursuit of perfection can steal your joy? Well, here we go again...As a recovering perfectionist/procrastinator/half-asser, let me tell you that I've got the perfect project in mind. Go fill some picture albums. Go buy some random ones, don't worry about what order your pictures are in or what they say and just go print some pictures and fill some albums. I strongly encourage a glass of wine while you fill the albums, but that's certainly not required (Disclaimer: I strongly encourage wine with most activities!). Let me tell you about my experience. I bought an album on vacation that I loved and it sat there for 2 years. 2 years, people! This album of mine made it into a box during a move, then out of that box onto a shelf, and back into that box when we moved again. The entire time is sat picture-less. I kept thinking that one long weekend I would print out our adventures and have one dedicated to that. Or maybe I'd print out all the kid's baby pictures and it could be themed like that. I kept thinking of how to fill the album to make it the best thing ever and all the while it sat there empty. This is a little depressing to even type that. Anyway... If you're anything like me, thumbing through pictures is fun. In our era of social media, I think that a lot of us lose the focus on printing pictures and filling albums. But, I promise you, there is some kind of magic that happens when you print pictures and fill a picture album. I did just what I'm suggesting. I printed a ton of random pictures and just put them into my album. There was no logic behind it. There was no timeline. I'd love to say that I have perfect captions and dates to reflect the moment but I don't. I have pictures of the first week my husband and I met across the page from a picture of our dog, which is right next to picture of us fishing last summer. And as I filled my album, my toddler became very curious and started to point at pictures and babble. After a while, my teenage daughter came to join me and then my 8 year old son followed after. They began to look at the snapshots and reminisce. I heard my 8 year old say things like "Aw" and "I remember this!" while my teenager giggled and forgot for a moment that she is so cool. We spent an hour together without anything except our snapshots and our conversation. It felt magical. I started to think that I take so many pictures and save them away on a hard drive. But, for what? I wasn't nearly getting the experience that I could out of them. I shared this story with my sister-in-law and she recently told me that she was in the same boat that I was in which she never started because she wasn't sure what to do or how to plan it. It gave me so much joy to hear how her daughter and her looked at all the pictures and talked about them together. They had the same experience that I did. I walked by my living room a couple of weeks ago and what did I see? My husband, sitting on our sofa, thumbing through an album as the conversation just started flowing. I don't know about you, but these moments seem hard to come by sometimes and it makes me wonder how many other Moms are out there in the same boat and need a little encouragement to just print the pictures and go! I promise you won't be disappointed.
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10/30/2022 01:55:57 am
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