Friday, March 25, 2011

Bon *viva la difference* Voyage

bon voyage: have a good journey, have a good trip. (wiktionary)
I was reminded last night, while emailing a friend and bringing her up to date with my life, that this March is turnng out to be quite a month of new directions and new trips on my journey. Do you ever have a great big project on your list that's been on there forever and just keeps getting kicked forward, until it becomes a permanent fixture, always #1, read every day until one day you simply breeze right over it and now you don't even see it anymore?
You can even remove it from the list, but your brain still knows it is there, because your memory and conscience won't let you forget it? You keep delaying it for the perfect time. But that time never seems to come, and one day someone else makes that decision for you and all of the sudden you are no longer in procrastination control.
As I was telling my friend, dear old Hubster made my decision for me the other day. The item on the list was one that he had requested, I wanna say almost 5 years ago. I guess that makes it understandable why he was a bit upset that I hadn't done it by now.
Card made for my mother in law for her recent trip to Jerusalem...
The project on the list is a huge one. Maybe the hugest project of my life: dealing with our photos. See, I had asked my dad to let me have all of the family photos when he moved down here so I could scan them. Have I done that yet, 3 months later? Nope, not even 25% of them...got started, then got sidetracked. So I guess on top of all of the photos that we have that are still in magnetic albums, photo boxes and my hard drive, that aren't printed out, in photo albums, in scrapbooks, Hubster had reached his patience point. I received my ultimatum.
From now on, I may still email, blog and add to my flickr, but I may not join or participate in any groups, swaps, challenges, or clubs. All I may do is work on the photos and make cards when needed for family.

Upon hearing this, I was seized with fear, pretty much, and blurted out...hell, begged...for permission to take the one class this year I'd sworn to take and participate fully in: Stacy Julian's Library of Memories that begins in June. (I had been thinking about this project all this time and pretty much conceded that I needed to leave it up to the higher power that is Stacy, lol. I probably shouldn't lol, I sincerely feel she is my last chance for any hope in tackling this project).
Much to my delight, Hubster agreed to the class. Further, he even said that he planned to play along with me, probably to make sure that I do indeed do the class and learn what I need to do it to our photos. (Does he know me, or what?)

So, the bad news is, I'm not in control with my life for like the next 9 months or so, and all my cute little plans and ideas will have to die on the vine or take up residency in that proverbial back seat for longer than they care to. The good news is that I'm relieved, frankly. I won't have to feel all the guilt and incompetence for not getting this job done much longer. So I'm gonna enjoy this journey that my Hubster charted for us (me mostly). And the coolest thing right now is that I'm not even responsible for the outcome, like if it's gonna work or not. I just have to try.

Sign-ups for Stacy's class begins next month, so in the meantime and before the class begins in June, I'll be getting all our photos backed up to Carbonite (I began the initial backup 3 days ago and am only about 15% of the way done...50 gigs is a LOT, I guess.) And, I'll be uploading photo jpegs to get printed so I can begin filling up several photo albums I've bought. And, I'll be breaking the scrapbooking ice and making up an album of Hubs' 20th work anniversary dinner...I figure that would make a nice present for his birthday in April. (Yup, like see? You said start, I started! winkwink)