My Birthday and The Present

I have been really under the weather for the last week with a nasty sinus cold, achy body and sore throat and I just can't seem to shake it. As I write this I am sipping yet another cup of Neo Citran and hoping it will allow me to get some sleep tonight. Sigh....

So I was actually sick on my birthday last week (October 2) which is always a downer. But we had already celebrated by going out to dinner a few nights earlier and my sweet Hubbie gave me a gift certificate for a nearby salon and spa. Bless him...I hope he is willing to babysit parent while I go and be pampered! And Grayson actually wrote his name inside the card the boys gave to me. I was delighted and it will definitely be a keeper! (Although Grayson has always loved to read he has shown little interest in holding a pencil and writing letters or his name. But after just a few weeks in Pre-K he is writing it like a pro. So much for MY teaching abilities, eh?)

But one of the best presents I got was to reflect on "The Present". Last October 1st, the fabulous Stacy Julian wrote a blog post that challenged scrapbookers to 1) capture a little slice of their "Present", 2) to carry that little album with them for a year and 3) to document the experience one year later. I liked the way it coincided with my birthday and the idea of giving yourself a present, so I made up this little album.

 

I included several recent pictures in it and lived with it for the past year. It sat on my bedside table and it was browsed through and enjoyed often. Then on October 1 of this year, Stacy wrote another post and asked us to reflect on and create a layout about the experience.  So, I pulled the pictures out of the album and made this layout:

   

                                    

(My apologies, because I can't seem to photograph my layouts for love nor money!)

I pulled all the pics that focused on the important people I had in my album and wrote about what had happened in our lives over the past year. It was so neat to see the differences in the boys and even in myself. I thought about what we all had accomplished, the challenges we had faced and where we are right now. And the cool part is that I think I have crafted a new tradition for my birthdays...from now on it will be a time to reflect not only on my age, but on the experiences I have had in the previous year and the ones I want to have in the coming year. From now on, The Present will be my own birthday present to myself.

Lots of scrapbookers took part in this project and if you would like to see their layouts check out this Flickr Gallery. Thanks Stacy for providing continuous inspiration!