Thursday, May 12

Anniversaries, the photo method

Recently, my husband and I celebrated 15 years of marriage. I swear we were just college students the other day. Where did that time go?

As I started pondering that question, I pulled out a photo box and sifted through it. There, captured on film, was the last 15 years. Or, as it turns out, mostly the holidays and trips of the last 15 years.

Being in a sentimental upcoming-anniversary mood, I decided that I would create a scrapbook of our life together. Not our family, just us. We have tons of pictures of our family, but not nearly as many that celebrate us as a married couple. This, I thought, would be a lovely anniversary gift.

So I began happily organizing the photos, jotting down funny notes about the trips that I happened to remember (which I should have done LONG ago because I'm sure I've forgetten most of them). And then I made the critical, bubble-bursting error... showing them to my husband while he sat watching a Nascar race and reading email on his laptop.

ME: Look, honey, remember when we went to San Francisco?
HIM: Mm-hmm. (not really looking)
ME: No, here. See? This is one of my favorite pictures of us. Look how young we look!
HIM: (watches cars go three wide into turn 2 then glances at the picture) It's nice. (gives me a kind, patient smile)

What I realized, other than my timing was perhaps not ideal, was that he wasn't all that interested in seeing the *process* of my scrapbooking. 50 miles to go in a big race wasn't egging on his sentimental side. :-)

So I've taken on this monumental task: scrapbooking our first 15 years together. It feels monumental to me because I've never really scrapbooked before. Zoikes. But I've got the pictures organized, a friend to scrapbook with (who, unlike me, actually knows what she's doing), and some basic (and, ok, not really necessary but SO COOL) supplies. My goal is one 2-page layout a week. Two pages celebrating events from the last 15 years of our life together. It's just two pages, right? That seems doable. Two pages that should capture the magic of those 15 years because they deserve to be honored and remembered.

No pressure. :-)

What about you? Do you take lots of pictures during the holidays and at other big events? If you do, what do you do with them after you take them?

1 comment:

Lauren Baratz-Logsted said...

I'm afraid I'm not much of a picture-taker. When my daughter was young I was, but I'm such a tech-not that once everything went digital, I fell off the turnip truck. So now I mostly rely on my visual memories of events. In a way it's a good thing, because I live in the moment more than I would be if I were always trying to get the perfect shot. That said, it would be nice to have more pictures!