Saturday, March 1, 2008

I'm Back. Sorta. Kinda. Maybe....

Hello. Anybody out there? Probably not. I only thought I was talking to myself before. Now I know I am. lol I'm slowly coming out of the darkness, so to speak. Too many personal problems, not enough clarity to address them all. That just about describes things for me. Anyway, some things are starting to look up and, at this point, I'll take what I can get! Meanwhile, as I wallered in my cesspool of pity, my father got sick. He was hospitalized for about a week. His lungs and heart are giving him problems. It was way hard to see him down like he was. Your dad is supposed to be Superman, right? Well I guess even Superman has issues with Kryptonite, doesn't he? Still...I would give just about anything for my dad to be happy and whole. He's earned it. When I came back from Oklahoma this past Monday, I decided to work on a little scrapbook about my dad. I guess I'm just looking for ways to express how much he means to me. Sometimes I don't think he knows his importance in all our lives. I remembered a project that Cheryl over at Life with Cheryl had done for one of her daughters using a child's board book. She claimed it was a fast, easy and fun scrapbooking project and she was right! I'm posting the pictures of it for Jodie to see. I went to Goodwill today and found 5 or 6 more board books because I can't wait to make more of these. Like Cheryl, I plan on keeping them in a basket in the living room. They're small enough (this one is about 8"x8") for people to browse thru just for fun. Kaleb and Jacob got a kick out of looking at some of the older pictures of Dad, too. Great project, Cheryl. Thanks for telling about it. The above picture is just showing the side "pages". I added a ribbon so that I can tie it shut since it doesn't lay flat.
This is the front cover. I printed the picture on cardstock instead of photo paper.
See that piece of sheet music I used for the background? I found a old hymn book at the flea market for about a $1. I tore out a sheet and burned the edges. I thought it looked pretty cool with Dad's old high school band pictures.
These are pictures of my dad's brothers and sisters.
Here's dad's military pictures and a picture of our family when my sister and I were young. It's a shame that just about the only picture I could find of the four of us together shows me with my back turned. Typical of me. lol
Here's some random pictures of Dad. The long one on the far left is my favorite. Jake was looking at it and he says, except for the hair, he thinks it looks like Nicholas. That's kind of funny since Dad and Nick both think they're the prettiest things on the planet anyway. ha!
Here's a picture of my sister, me and my dad that was taken at Bricktown in OKC a few years ago and, on the last page, a picture of Dad with his wife, Wendy.
The back cover was done with plain paper and stamps. Then I stamped Dad's name on the spine. So what do you think? Not bad for just a few hours work, huh? It felt great to "celebrate" my dad in this project and going through all the pictures was an experience, too. So many memories that I'd let slip to the background. Finding them again has given me even more ideas for ways to save them via scrapbooks. I've decided that scrapbooking may be even better for me than going to a therapist! ha,ha And probably cheaper, too. Hope to be back to regular blogging soon. As I said, things are starting to look up. It's good to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Just hope it isn't the proverbial train coming down the tracks to plow me over!