Stories in Hand

I reluctantly did an online class led by Jessica Sprague who I like to read her blog http://www.jessicasprague.com/ . She is a digital scrapbook teacher for Creating Keepsakes, and she has begun her own online digital scrapbooking classes. Anyway... the class was free so I thought what the heck. I am not a writer, but maybe it will help me to remember some of those forgotten stories I have hidden away in the dark recesses of my memory. It started last week, and I still haven't completed the binder that we were supposed to have printed and bound, and looking all cute, but I did get to the memory triggers. She compares getting our stories out to snorkeling and scuba diving. First you kind of flit around on the surface looking and remembering, and then you dive deep and find those stories. It worked! I started last night writing about the greatest life lesson I learned from my mom, and ended up writing about clothes that my mom made for me and even the time she really challenged herself and made down filled "puffy coats" for my sister and me. This was way before internet, so I am not sure how she ever found the resources for the down filled coats. This was in the 70's. My mom could make anything I thought, including down filled coats. Jump forward a few more years to when I was in junior high. My mom made my jeans. Unfortunately the jeans were harder to duplicate to the real designer thing. Even though she studied the pocket stiching and everything. She really tried, but the unappreciating teen that I was they weren't close enough. I wore the jeans until a boy brought attention to those jeans and caused me mortal embarrassment. I'm not sure what he said, but I remember the feeling I had. Isn't it funny that we can remember emotions like that so well.

Anyway hats off to mothers that do the very best they can for their children even when it can never be enough (according to the kids). I understand now that I am a mother how much you just want them to be happy.