A little moment to share

It's rare for me to spend more than a few minutes checking out other blogs. A year ago it was just the opposite. I'd visit and hop and soak in all the artwork and stories. Over time it's dwindled and it's gotten to the point where I'm only on the computer when I feel I need to be, so basically no surfing, hardly any shopping, and no blog hopping. Well it has been one of those rare moments where I can actually sit down and do what I want for an hour or so without too much interruption.

The girls have been entertaining themselves quite well in their room, playing ponies and now I can hear them pretending to cook up stuff in their toy kitchen. Yet instead of doing all the other things I know needed to be done around the house, I felt compelled to look around online. So I peeked around on some of the blogs I love but don't get to visit often. I started with The Scrappy Side of Me and from there found a new scrapbooking sketch blog called Inspired Blueprints. They are so new that they just debuted on Oct. 1st and only have 2 sketches up so far.

Somewhere along the way I read on one of the designer's blogs for the sketch site about this woman, Aleida Franklin. I never knew her, I had never seen her blog before, but I have been affected by what had happened to her. She died at only 41. You read through her blog and life was just happening like it always does. Posts of her art, posts of her darling kids... and then suddenly she's gone. Someone runs a red light and that's all it took to take her away from her life. She scrapbooks, she makes cards, she blogs, she has kids she adores, she takes lots of pictures and I thought, that could be me. I pondered what would I leave my girls, what would I leave my husband with if suddenly I was taken away?

The last post she made was about 9/11 and how she would never forget what happened that day in her own life and I wonder now that she's gone how many people will never forget her or the day they visited her blog to find out she had passed away. It's truly amazing how the internet connects us. I can be touched by someone I don't even know, someone who's left this world because her story reminds me of how short life is and how terribly unexpected it can be. Her story reminds me of why I scrapbook - to preserve precious memories. And more importantly her story reminds me to live each day in the moment, to treasure the memories I am making with my family first, and then to preserve them second.

As I look through my scrapbooks there is very little of me in them, though. How would my girls know me if something were to suddenly happen? They would know that I love them from all I tell them so in the pages about them, but would it be enough? There aren't stories about me in our scrapbooks except when I'm pregnant. And I don't journal about my life or my feelings or dreams. If I take anything from this, I want to be more active in scrapbooking about myself and more persistant about having my picture taken with my girls. I am always the one behind the camera and I think I've grown too comfortable with that position as the documentor and never the documented. I want to try and journal more and not just on the pages I complete. Life is short and I find that I remember plenty about myself even as I get older. It's the people close to me that need to know more about me and I hope I can start doing that a little better. Anyway, I thought I'd share this and let you all know that I love having you as readers (or just lurkers ^_~) on my blog. And thanks for reading my little moment in time today.