Perspectives on the Past

I have been thinking a great deal about life lately and how it is full of both unexpected pleasures and unexpected pain. There have been a couple of majorly painful moments in my life with my husband and at the time I wondered how we would ever go on living but here we are. We wake up in the morning and we get on with it. Years have passed and things are almost forgotten when something insignificant will cause all the memories and the feelings to come rushing back.

I am increasingly of the opinion that scrapbooking is a form of therapy for me. It enables me to revisit days both great and ordinary and really process the moment with the benefit of hindsight and sleep. There are chunks of my life which I have not scrapped but which I suspect I would benefit from revisiting with a scrapbooker's eye. Finding the beauty in the ordinary and the painful or discovering patterns that will help me to avoid foolish mistakes in the future might all be possible with a little thought and retrospection.

I guess overall it is making me think that while life is probably too short to dwell on the past too much unless you are going to learn something from it. It also reminded me of an ad that ran on New Zealand television a few years ago for the Post Office of all things. It is a really good reminder that petty squabbles shouldn't ruin relationships. The ad is a bit cheesy but it still brings a tear to my eye every time!

I have been revisiting the photos from our New Zealand holiday and worked on a very red layout of my sister Anne with Scarlett at a playground in a very small town called Geraldine. Geraldine plays a key role in our family history as my Nana in yesterday's layout grew up there and we spent many holidays with my Great Nana there as young children. 

This layout is based on sketch 96 from the Sketch Savvy blog. It is a sketch I can see myself using again and again. I love this blog for lots of single picture and simple sketches although they have some great multi picture examples too.

The papers and embellishments are primarily from my SC Elmwood Park kit along with some MME brads, Lilybee index cards and some BG paper from the new Clippings line.

I am getting really excited as Grandad arrives tomorrow for a month! My posts might be a little less frequent while he is here - or more likely activity rather than craft related.