I would like to write about scrapbooking. I would like to find out how to make different styles of scrapbooks based on themes and the longevity of products used to make them. My questions about the topic are: 1. How to get started? 2. How to make a scapbook personal to the person it is meant for? 3. How to preserve the scapbook and products in them for the best wear over time? This subjects connects to my life in that I would like something to give my daughter and her children to follow the path of my life, and to follow the path of their own. I want them to be able to follow the connection of all our lives. Reasons I like the topic are: 1. I want to organize a lifetime worth of stuff into something meaningful. 2. I want to create something personal. 3. I want more than just a photo albums, I want something spectacular. My life might change once I research this product by: 1. Organization of boxes and suitcases that tell the stories of lives of my family and friends. 2. I can sit with my grandchildren and tell the back stories to pages in the scrapbook. 3. I may remember events that I have forgotten as I put this together, whether good or bad. It will give me a chance to look back over my life and I am in a good place to do that now.

L is the type of person I least expected to love in my life. When I first met L, it was just a common every day meeting. No fireworks, no fainting, certainly not love at first sight. L can wear the same jeans days in a row, I can't wear the same pair for a full day. A bad hair day makes me barely tolerable, to say L is not intimately familiar with a hair brush is an understatement. Chaos should be L's middle name, I am the picture of anal-retentive meets OCD. L is the unkissed frog, I am the princess. L is one of the funny little twists in life. It doesn't matter how diferent we are, all that really matters is we found love, are smart enough to realize it, and care enough about it to make it work. Bad hair days don't seem quite so traumatic now.

As I read through the Isearch samples, my first thought was cool. Old word from the eighties, I know, but that was it. I was going to be able to write about something fun and not boring. People were allowed to write about things like home brewing and trapping. Was I really going to be able to research something that would have meaning to me in the end? It certainly seemed like it. I was actually going to have some pertinient knowledge at the end of this project, not read articles that would make me want to poke my eyeballs out with a fork. I mulled over possible topics, but the idea of scrapbooking kept popping up. I have a lifetime's worth of pictures and mementos from every adventure in life, big and small. What a great way to preserve these things for my daughter and grandchildren. I will be able to preserve my life's journey into something tangible. A little sappy I know, but once again, COOL.

On the fourth finger of my left hand is a ring. It is beautiful, rubies and diamonds set in a gold band. It is an object by definition, but it is so much more than that. It is the symbol of a road hard traveled to a place of contentment. I could trivialize its' significance by saying it represents a lifelong committment with the giver but that would be such an understatement. This ring came to be even after all the losses I've suffered over the years and the others I've caused to suffer. I was hard, unfeeling, and certainly felt undeserving. But despite that, someone took the time to really look. Look at the fact that I'm compassionate and funny, despite the bitchy exterior. An exterior that is well earned, but not always flattering. The giver of this ring had full disclosure to my past and decided I was still worth the risk. To this day, I am still amazed by that. This ring softened me, not in a bad way. It made me remember to enjoy sunny days, just because they are sunny. So this ring is important, but is it an object? Maybe, but an object of hope, love and a reason to be.

Graf 4 Unique

I am a short and quite large (no, not pleasingly plump, just downright fat) woman. I have a killer smile, I'm not too modest to tell you it will light up a room. I have a biological mother, who was just that and had a stepmother who was my father's wife. I have one biological brother and sister, one half brother, and six stepbrothers and stepsisters. I even have a stepsister named Sally, talking about taking the fun OUT of dysfunctional. I have a Dad I love, and who I know loves me, but wish he would demonstrate or say it occasionally. I have a daughter I love endlessly, but will freely admit, there are times I do not like her. I am the grandmother to two little boys and wish I had more time to spend with them. I love being a grandmother, age does not scare me. Pink is my absolutely favorite color. When I open my closet to get dressed, it pukes pink. Music is my passion, not particular about the style as long as I like it. I grew up in a small coastal town that is beautiful (now that I am in my 40's), that I couldn't wait to get out of. I was in the in-crowd in high school and a bad girl when I got out. I have been to bike week and was the ultimate biker chick. Tattoos and naked pictures prove it. Followed a loser boyfriend all over the East Coast drag racing Harley's for a while. I have been married, divorced, and oh my God "lived in sin." Even put some time in an orange jumpsuit at the local crowbar hotel. I have lived the good middle class life, and at times had a dollar in my pocket to make it through the week. I have waitressed, done office work, cleaned and cooked for people, and held people's life in my hands. I was in my very late 30's before I grew up and finally figured out who and what I wanted from life, but I wouldn't change the thing that came before. That's what makes it so sweet now.

Graf 3
Crew quarters of ambulance base at midnight

4 people in the TV room in a mixture of grren and blue uniforms
A movie playing that they are only half watching
3 laptops opened
portable radios lined up
toughbooks stacked up
batteries charging for the toughbooks and the computers
1 guy in a green uniform sitting at a desktop
phones and fax machines lining a table
books, manuals, and forms lining a multitude of shelves
stacks of magazines
lockers in various colors of blue, some with locks some not
coats and pillows thrown on the lockers
pictures on lockers
newspaper articles on lockers
coats thrown on chairs
a black boot shining kit
board games
memos posted in various locations

Ok, she thought looking around the room, this is really quite a unique place. People dressed almost exactly the same are in that little room to the left. These people didn't look alike, so she didn't think they were family. But, they sure as hell were acting like a family. They were lying on couches and in chairs, shoes off, even putting up with some ocasionally obnoxious snoring. Wait a minute, families don't have lockers and keep things locked from each other do they? She was really confused now though, because there are pictures of kids, dogs, and other important life events all over the place. Those are certainly things family members share with each other. She thought to herself, is it a big family? They have all those radios, so they must get lost alot or have a need to be in constant communication. Well that would explain all the phones. They must have fun at times too, because there were games, movies, and some pretty good books lying around. Wonder if they fight over them? The stern notes she read led her to believe at times they were a handful. Whoever the person in charge of this family was must really care for them, because she also noted notes of thanks and recognition. As she continued to look around, she decided they must be a smart family, some of those magazines were pretty heavy duty reading. No McCall's or Field and Stream here. She picked up a magazine and flipped through it. Prehospital C-PAP, vital signs, airway management, then it hit her. These people worked together and they were emergency medical technicians. The stuff she had seen on tv was not complete fiction after all. These people really were a family.

The worst teacher I ever had was a substitute chemistry teacher my junior year in high school. The guy had a well deserved long reputation of being an ass, and I never saw him do anything to disprove it. I was the unusual female of my generation who loved science of any sort. I had discovered it in grade school and man was I good at it. In my freshman year, I had taken freshman science and still loved it. As my sophomore year approached, I had to decide which biology to take, "the jerk's" or the "loony lady's". I choose the loony lady and it was a good choice. She was a little odd, however, she really knew her stuff. She loved biology and she inspired me to share her passion for it. So, as my junior year rolled around the choice seemed easy. She was the junior chemistry teacher and I actually looked forward to going back to school to have class with her. On the first day of class she looked nothing like I remembered. Her hair was gone, and she had red lines on her head. Brain cancer was the cause of these changes and six weeks into the school year she was gone. Teaching was too much of a drain on her. Taking her place for the rest of the year, was "the jerk". Things inevitably went downhill from there. He was arrogant, felt women had no place in science, and was quite vocal about it. He made fun of questions the girls asked, but gave very long technical answers to the boys. He didn't even have the courtesy to call us by name. "You in the pink sweater" is what I came to think of as my name in his class. The rudeness and the arrogance made me decide it wasn't worth it and I dropped the class at the end of the first quarter. My "loony lady" never made it back as she died by December of that year. With her died alot of my dreams, for my career choices were science based prior to having the ass for a teacher. However, I would love the worst teacher I ever had to know, that it may be many years later, but I am in a profession where my love of science serves me well.

My Hands

I looked at my hands tonight and the first thought I had was when did they become old hands. They used to be soft, smooth, and have a nice manicure. The years of life are not supposed to show on them. I get a chuckle as I look at some of the history on them though. The scar on the back of my hand caused by putting my hand through the glass in the bathroom door when I was irrationally mad. I have no idea what I was even mad about, but it must have been pretty important at the time. Another scar from dropping a stretcher on my hand so we didn't drop the patient. At least I can be a little proud of that disfiguration. Small hands and short fingers are a link to my grandmother who has been gone for many years, but had hands exactly like mine are right now. Dry skin and hangnails are a constant reminder of the fact that I have spent many cold winters in Maine and make me wonder if I will ever be somewhere where the winter will be kinder to my hands.