My Life Project & the Thing About Teenagers

Hello inky friends, I am working on My Life Project. It is a slow moving ongoing scrapbook, project life combination. The intent is to get my life photos out of boxes and into a book. The fun part of this project is reminiscing about the adventures I have had. One of the reasons for this idea is having teenagers as a parent is forcing me to be on my A game. The wonderful thing about this age group is they tend to think parents are hatched as fully grown dictators with no way of relating to their unique period in history. Just telling this most brilliant group of individuals that I can relate is oftentimes quite useless. This is where photographically evidence comes in extremely handy. More about that in a bit.

 Today is my design team post on the Southern Ridge Trading Company's blog. I made an inky, messy, fun, totally over done page. I love how it pops the photo! You can hop over there to see close-ups and a walk through of techniques & products.

I am not a pink girl but I also wanted to enter this in the Words & Paintery March Challenge. I used lots of Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist & Glam as well as Canvas Corp paper and 7gypsies paper, metal. This was a fun one but also has lots of meaning. I intend to also add a journal page with the story of how this page came about.

Therefore there is lots of pink! This challenge is what inspired me to scrapbook this photo. Their prompt is a Marilyn Monroe quote. It marinated in  my brain for a few days & the idea was planted. Funny now I look back on the quote, it has less to do with my journaling but it sparked an idea. Here is the quote "Nothing lasts forever. So live it up, drink it down, laugh it off, avoid the drama, take chances and never have regrets because at one point everything you did was exactly what you wanted."  The words that struck out at me were "take chances". The word "fearless" came to mind. The thing about becoming a parent is it brings with it a lot of fear. Suddenly it is not just you but this little person who completely relies on you for everything. Their life, health, happiness. I had no fear until I became a parent. Knowing what the answer would be I asked each of my kids if they saw me as fearless. Each of them gave me a variation of the same answer "no, you aren't much of a risk taker Mrs. Safety" was my 19 year old sons answer. Ha little does he know.

I looked back and thought of a time when I did just that, was fearless & took a risk. It would surprise my kids that many examples popped into my head. It also made me realize I need to tell them more of where I came from. This is the one I used for today's layout. I was a Canadian National Modern Pentathlete (equestrian, swimming, running, shooting, fencing) competing in an international event in Minsk, Belorussia in 1989. It was during the Soviet Union Communist Era. After the competition the team was supposed to go train in Hungary but we didn't have the proper funds. The Russian delegation invited us to come train in the USSR fully funded. They wanted to have a small training camp in preparation for the World Championships. Team Canada, 3 girls decided to go, with no coach or manager. I spent over a month Behind the Iron Curtain. It was an amazing experience.

I not only scrap booked this page but told my children the story. The word speechless comes to mind. I think it was very powerful not to just tell a story but to show the pictures. It made me realize this may be a better way to reach my kids when I am trying to impart knowledge or wisdom. Words are powerful but if my kids believe I hatched as the person they see today how can they think I have much to contribute? They haven't seen the struggle to get here. This will be an interesting experiment!