write.

Welcome to write. Saturday on this beautiful (Inter) National Scrapbooking Day! Today's journaling prompt is quite near and dear to my heart. Why? Because my self proclaimed non-scrapbooking sister, Katherine Willis Pershey, wrote a book. A beautiful memoir about her life as a wife, pastor, and mother; and really, what is a memoir but a very large scrapbook? Her book is called Any Day a Beautiful Change.

I am also very excited about the cover, as my sister used a photo I took of her sweet family, not knowing one day it would be on the cover of a famous author's book!

Katherine borrowed (giving credit where credit is due) her title for her book from an Innocence Mission song. The song begins: “Oh I’m going to find some peace of mind. At any time I could change, any day, a beautiful change.” I see how she was so heavily inspired by those words.

So this Saturday's prompt is to write about a beautiful change in your life. Some of these beautiful changes can be monumental, like the birth of a child and the life chosen as a stay at home mom.
  (by Erin Sweeney)

Or believing in something greater that can bring such beautiful inner change like in Emily's layout here.

And another beautiful layout by Emily, recapping the last four years of change-because change can be more than just one moment; it can span time.

Beautiful changes also occur in relationships, like with Amy and her now teen-aged daughter.

Here is Amy's beautiful journaling:

I remember the first time Haley and I had a teenage-esque argument. She was about seven, and she wanted me to buy her a belly shirt. "Britney Spears wears shirts like these!" she insisted (not ever guessing she was ruining her case). Looked at from this distance, it seems cute, but it wasn't cute then. I was stunned. Floored. Utterly taken aback: where had my Haley gone and when had she been replaced with this girl who was actually mad at me?

That day our relationship began to change. And really: don't get me wrong. When I remember the relationship I had as a teenager with my mom, I am more than grateful for mine with Haley. But no mother-daughter relationship is ever perfect. In fact, I have a theory: the closer you are when your daughter is young, the bumpier the relationship will be during adolescence. This is because it has to happen—the severing. A daughter cannot be young forever. She has to become her own person and to do so has to cut some of the ties.

 

Of course, having that theory doesn't really make things a whole lot easier. I confess:  I've shed many tears, out of frustration and hurt and disappointment. I have wished for things to be less antagonistic between us. I've known deep in my soul the many ways I've failed her. I've made mistakes & apologized & shouted when I shouldn't. I've learned some truths about myself and how (hopefully) to be a better parent. And I think it's all been fairly average. Painful, but ultimately OK.

 

Despite all the storminess I had with my own mom, something strange started to happen when I was 17: my animosity began to fade. She could say something like "did you do your homework?" and I wouldn't immediately spike with annoyance. I started talking to her about stuff I'd previously only talked about with friends. I started realizing that she was a person, and that I was a person, too, not a child.

 

And now here Haley is: 17. And while I've learned to assume nothing and to just see what happens, I'm also letting myself think about how things will change during the next year or so. Some of the changes will be tough because they will put distance between us. But I also believe that good changes will happen, too, as she continues to grow. The rocky parts will perhaps be less frequent and we will start to have a more grown-up-people relationship.

 

Not all the changes may be as powerful and tear inducing, some changes can be ever so slightly silly, like my excitement about getting an iPhone. Finally.

I have been so inspired by this prompt, that I plan on creating an entire album of my beautiful changes. It will include the moments of great significance, like this layout I made years ago which informed my husband that baby #2 was on it's way.
Yes, I took the test, gasped, and immediately ran to my scrap room to modify a layout I recently completed. I believe that is what we call a slightly neurotic scrapbooker ;)

 

I did this layout about the day my camera died. On National (Inter)national Scrapbooking Day. In the middle of my 365. It didn't seem like a beautiful change at the time, but ended up being the catalyst for learning even more about photography. Loving photography even more. It certainly turned into a beautiful change.


All of these layouts didn't necessarily have a perfect place in my albums, but now will have a permanent home in my Beautiful Changes album. Now I am finally going to take the time scrap the stories of my wedding, the birth of each of my children, and all the little changes in between. MY beautiful changes in my own words. I just keep thinking, wouldn't it be wonderful to know about the birth of my mother, in my grandmother's own words. Or how my grandfather proposed. I would love to know that. Isn't that what this day, this site, this hobby is all about? Recording life's beautiful changes. Scrapbooking has become my beautiful change indeed.

Be sure to come back on Thursday for a giveaway of Any Day a Beautiful Change. You definitely need your own copy. If you can't wait, you can purchase the book or ebook edition at Amazon or Chalice Press. Now start writing about the beautiful changes in your life! Enjoy yourself this (Inter) National Scrapbooking Day!