score one for the scrapbooker

You're going to love this. If you've read my blog-- ever, then you'll know that I'm the anti christ of scrap booking. I firmly believe that it's an underworld cult, full of freaky people who, for some crazy reason, feel the need to endlessly snap pictures and then glue those pictures, along with silly stickers & captions onto expensive paper. I say 'nay' to the scrapbooking. Nay, I say.

OK, with that said, I'll drive home the fact, once again, that I'm openly and vehemently opposed to scrap booking. We clear?

Moving on. Unfortunately, my husband's 95 year old grand father passed away a few weeks back. God love 'em, the man was a saint, he really was. He lead a very active and full filling life. He was an amazing gymnast, he went to high school with and remained life long friends with President Gerald Ford, he'd visited the White House, he was board member of a YMCA camp for over 70 years and in addition to all of these impressive things, he was also just a great man. If anyone deserved to have a scrap book made in their honor, it was him.

For his 90th birthday, the wife of his oldest grandson made him a beautiful scrap book, proudly displaying all of his life's accomplishments, passions and precious moments.

Since his death, some pictures from his gymnastics hey-day surfaced and it was suggested that we add these shots to the scrap book. But wait, it can't possibly be as easy as you think. Oh. No. It. Isn't.

The lovely woman who made the scrap book was in a quandary. She lives in Chicago and the book lives with his widow, in West Michigan. What to do, what to do. I'm watching this whole exchange unfold in front of my eyes and the way my husband describes it, my eyes started doing that kooky cartoon trance thing that they do when my wheels are spinning. Now, mind you, I'd been hitting the beers that afternoon. We'd hosted a beach day/volleyball game/boat rides all in Grandpa's honor because it's what he would have loved, so of course, we had to sip a few beers. OK, so I'm a bit buzzed, I'll just put it out there. So, I hear the woman fretting over the pending status of the scrap book page. I see the words come out of my mouth and I can't stop them, "Why don't you just let me whip up a page...how hard can it be"? The whole room stifled, the music stopped, the conversation ceased and everyone turned and looked at me. So I back tracked, "Um, I mean, I'm no scrap booker or anything, but I just..". The original scrap booker said, "Well, I am a scrap booker, so I could show you... if you wanted...." Then her husband interjects, "she is. she's really good at it". In case I was doubting her scrap booking abilities. So, the minutes on the clock began to tick, pages on the calendar were being torn off, one by one and I find myself in the midst of a 20 minute instructional. She actually told me not to cut the heads off one of the pictures. "Really? No? S0 don't cut the heads off, you say?" What seemed like a funny little prank to pull on myself, turned into a nightmare. So the instructional continued as I walked out to my car. As I was buckling my seatbelt, I was still being shown how to use the sticky back tape. Thank goodness too, because if she hadn't shown me, why, I'd have made a real mess of the situation. As it turns out, sticky back tape is sticky on both sides. Who knew? Well, I guess the people at the sticky back tape factory figured there's dummies like me who wouldn't be able to handle the tricky sticky back tape, so thankfully they put a 1-800 number on the back of the plastic tab, on the back of the sticky back tape. So, I called them up (nice people) and they got me all situated.

Another tid bit about my one and only scrap booking experience is that the folks at the scrap book store suck. They were pompous, rude and I felt that they were judging me. I asked for help and the woman just peered down her glasses at me. Novice scrapbooker, she thought. Well, I decided I didn't need her help, so I simply picked out a few tasteful papers and proceeded to check out. 'What about the stickers and embellishments' she asked. I told her I was going with the 'less is more' school of thought with this particular task. She just starred at me and then said, "It's your scrap book". 'What a twat', I thought.

So, I went home and tackled my project. Just as I was about to make the first cut, I began shaking. You'd have thought I was performing a hand transplant on my kitchen table the way I was measuring, nervously sketching my design, tongue stuck to the corner of my lips... I literally started sweating. And as everyone knows, Jews don't sweat. I finally finished and I have to admit. It's not bad. I am willing to bet that if a stranger were casually flipping through the scrap book, they wouldn't say, "now, that's funny. these two pages right here, something's not right. it's as if someone who'd never scrap booked before decided to add these two pages to a perfectly good book'. No, I'm pretty sure it would go unnoticed.

Now, don't get all crazy. I'm not going to start scrap booking or anything. But, you bet your ass that whenever someone picks up Grandpa's scrap book, I'm totally going to run over, flip it to my pages and point out that I was responsible for the beauty and art that is pages 15 & 16. :-)

Scrap on.