It's OK to Be Out of Order

So, for days, I was looking forward to last night ~ I was going to s-c-r-a-p-b-o-o-k!!! I ordered my pictures from, sad to say, August through October of 2004......I even ordered doubles for the kids to keep them busy.....I even gave my daughter some of my punches for her to have a new toy to experiment with....I even skipped dinner in my excitement to finally get to open my huge suitcase of supplies.

I sat down, opened the bag of pictures....only to find.....August was not there.  I frantically looked in the van (3 times), sent all 4 kids searching for the missing red envelope, and, got so worked up that I found I was talking to myself as I searched.  After way too long, I realized, I did not get them from the store, and, the store had no record of receiving the order from yahoo.  Let me just admit that, it ruined my night.  My husband came home, I told him the saga, and, in his husband way he said, "Well, why don't you just work on the ones you have". 

Ahhh - doesn't he understand, my books have to be in chronological order - the 13th can't come before the 2nd, let alone September before August!!!  :)

Well, needless to say, I only got one page done ~ but, at least I got September and October sorted :)

My point?  We, well, for sure I, should not worry about if the pictures are in order.  If you don't have the next date, if you forgot to journal that moment shared between your children, or if you find a straggler picture it really does not matter.  What matters is that you put the legacy in.  Generations from now, no one will care if the fishing trip was scrapbooked before the new bike or if in the year 2004 Halloween came before the All Star baseball game.  Of course, what they will cherish is the stories and the pictures.

I challenge you ~ ME ~ to just stick those memories in there. 

~ If you find a picture of you and your husband when you were dating and you have been married for 15 years, who cares, stick that picture in between the 2005 pages, and journal of your lasting love. (If you're like me, you probably will never get to the "pre-kids" pages anyway)

~ If you find a receipt in the bottom of your closet from your child's first hair cut, but, you forgot to bring your camera, just stick the receipt on a page next to his most recent hair craze (In my house it is red hair spiked up-yikes!)

~ If you read in the paper that your favorite high school english teacher has passed away, cut out the excerpt, and create a page in 2006 around how she influenced your life in the 1980s.

~ If you already scrapbooked your daughter's 5th birthday, but, found the Barbie napkin stuffed in her drawer, make a page with a picture of her with all her Barbies and let her journal of her favorite ones.

Do you see where I am heading here?  Our books don't have to be in order ~ they just have to be done!  Don't leave something out just because it wouldn't fit in the timeline or those pages are already completed.  So, think of me tonight, I will be attempting to sit down and work on the Great Wolf Lodge pictures in September without first doing the baseball champions from August :)