Wow! I've managed to go almost an entire year since my last post. That's insane! It's truly insane how fast the time goes. I won't even try to catch up on all of the things we've been doing over the past year. Suffice it to say that blogging has NOT been one of them. Quick update: M is 12.5 yrs old, G is 11 yrs old and S and C are 4.5+ years old and rapidly closing in on age 5 for which we are very excited and grateful simply because we all made it this far and I'm still married. Whew! Moving on... So every summer for the last few, I've set up a Summer Projects List for myself. I learned somewhere near the beginning of my homeschooling journey 9 1/2 years ago that I can barely scrub a toilet during the school year let alone actually get anything organized or cleaned out (including the refrigerator but I'll spare you the details of that fun job). So far this summer, I've cleaned out and organized every single one of our closets, Tim did the garage, I did all of the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen, have sorted through my closet and the twin's closet (kind of), sorted through books and toys and started planning school for next year which really shouldn't be considered a "job" because I love it to an embarrassing degree. Today, I cleaned out my scrapbooking corner. Once upon a time, I had only 1 child. He was young (less than 1 year) and I got invited to a Creative Memories party. I was immediately sucked in. I loved it and spent as much time as I could over the next 10 years scrapbooking. I even became a CM consultant for 10 years. When the twins came along, I was all caught up with journaling and my albums and vowed just to keep up with printing and sorting photos until I could get back to my addiction...well, those twins are almost 5 now and while they do both have albums, I don't think they're even born yet in those albums and I haven't done much of anything with any of it for a very long time. And I have an INSANE number of photos printed and organized (yay for that at least!). I ceased to be a consultant nearly 2 years ago and everything has been sitting in my corner taking up space and getting dusty as most things tend to do in my house. Meanwhile, I've taken up knitting but we don't talk about the knitting around the scrapbooking supplies because they're prone to jealousy and they just can't compete what with being all immobile and everything which is why I took up knitting in the first place: you can take it places and it can fit in your purse and you get to wear it. As I was putting away all of my scrapbooking supplies (just into storage for a while. I will return to it at some point...another summer project perhaps), memories aptly flooded me. Memories of all of the countless hours spent cutting, adhering, artfully planning, writing, drawing and creating my beautiful scrapbooks. All of the hours I spent with friends and family talking and making memories together as we preserved our precious memories. I got to spend lots of time with both of my grandmothers: one while she scrapbooked her own family memories and the other while we created an album of my grandfather's life together (we're still working on hers and we WILL finish it!). Those were precious, precious hours and I will cherish them forever. I remember how much having my business meant to me. I spent all of my time with my 2 young children and doing daycare and it was a huge adult outlet for me that I desperately needed. It allowed me to connect with people in a different way: To be mothers and daughters together. To create priceless gifts for people and to express things in albums that aren't always easy to say. It was an amazing time in my life and I'm so grateful for it. It seemed like it would last forever and yet, it didn't. As my children grow and life takes me hither and thither I'm reminded of how fleeting everything is. We often feel like things will always be this way. We'll always have these friends, our kids will always be here and we'll always be doing this - whatever "this" is. And yet we know that's not true. Whether things change so slowly that we hardly notice or so quickly that we can hardly keep up, change they do. And hopefully we can look back and recognize how precious those moments were and how precious these moments are now. Right here. In this moment. We are exactly where we're supposed to be doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing. Right now. And in a moment from now, it's all going to change. And I am grateful for all of it.