A vacation cottage within walking distance of the beach. No kids to care for. No meals to cook. No laundry to fold. Six other women to hang out with. And a house full of scrapbooking supplies.
It was my second trip away with this group for a scrapbooking weekend. Forget the beach or the nearby outlet mall. Forget sleeping in late and going out for meals at restaurants. We planned to crop and scrap as many hours as we could.
There was just one small problem: I don’t relish scrapbooking.
I have punches and papers. I own binders and bags of embellishments and stickers. I may not have collected every scrapbooking tool known to woman, but I’m not missing much. Yet most of the year my scrapbooks sit inside my craft cabinet.
It wasn’t always that way. For a few years I loved creating ingenious spreads of my children’s escapades. I labored for hours at my dining room table making masterpieces of each event. It was a haven for me from the unrelenting chores of motherhood.
The laundry that never ceased. The meals that had to be prepared day in and day out. The grocery lists and dust bunnies that kept returning. After years of schooling with final exams and semester grades, and then the business world with orders shipped and projects filed, being a stay-at-home-mom whose work had no visible result was at times soul-crushing. Yes, I enjoyed my children and the opportunity to be with them as they grew. But I missed the opportunity to accomplish something tangible, something that lasted more than a few hours.
Scrapbooking proved to be the perfect outlet. My children provided me with plenty of raw materials and my creativity bloomed. I looked forward to the evenings working on their albums while they slept. But soon my photo boxes bulged. I was four years behind on scrapbooks and then seven and then more. I hesitated to take pictures because I believed they would only add to my burden. The scrapbooks, like my laundry and errands, would never be finished.
But I still went on that scrapbooking weekend recently. I took two albums and a few dozen photographs. I told myself that the point was not to try to “catch up” on chronicling my family’s life. The point was to enjoy the process and possibly finish one project. And I am proud to say that I did both. That weekend was both refreshing and satisfying. And it has me eager to continue working on scrapbook projects in small, definable doses – ones that have a beginning and an end. I look forward to evenings at my table creating masterpieces again.
What is significant about this is that every one of us, particularly if you are a mom whose primary responsibilities involve running a household, needs a place in our lives where we can derive satisfaction from having accomplished something. And we need to be careful not to let that satisfying activity turn into just another chore. It needs to be one over which we have control to do or not do.
If you don’t have a place or activity where you can obtain that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction (and you’re even more reluctant about scrapbooking than I am), I would encourage you to seek one out. If you don’t know where to start, my book Bucket List Living For Moms can guide you through the process of discovering potential sources of personal satisfaction unique to you.
After that weekend away I can tell you it is so worthwhile to give yourself the opportunity to derive satisfaction from your accomplishments. I arrived home rested and happy. My husband and kids were happy for me. And we are all enjoying the albums I created.
Don’t you (and your family) deserve the same?
For a long time running was my thing and specifically races. I got a medal at the end and could see a finish line.