LOAD512 progress report

It's official. I'm out. My streak ended on Monday. I am not mad or upset though. It came down to a decision to make my LOAD page or spend time with my husband. Time with him wins, always. I then spent the day on Tuesday with my son. I may not have scrapped on either of those days, but I did give my camera a workout. Since then, my creative endeavors have been involved in photo editing and printing. Just that alone is enough to make me excited to scrap some more. I have some cool photos of my son as we explored a small local cave. Some fruit bats also star in some of these photos. I must say that it's one thing to see an animal in the zoo and quite another to see them in their natural habitat. It's so awesome to see a creature as they were meant to live. I think my son was moved in the same way I was.

As far as LOAD goes...it's much more than the number of pages you create. When I started participating in the layout a day experience over a year ago, I did focus on the number of pages. Frankly, that often stressed me out. Somewhere along the line,my experience with Layout a day changed. It has become a way to peek into my creative methods. I experiment. For a little while, I stop worrying about taking the perfect photo of the layout itself. I concentrate on what I do and how I do things. Some of the pages are wonderful. I am now plan to go back with the intent of getting a more crisp photo of those pages. Doing so inspires me to continue onward.I am a little worn down, as far as making pages, but I feel the creative spark there. Figuratively, I may have banked the fire, but I can add more kindling any time I am ready. That's the wonderful thing about LOAD. I can take what I learned about myself and then use it to move forward.

So you may wonder why I keep track of the layouts I have made in the sidebar of my blog. It's not for bragging rights, I assure you. Last year, I tracked the number of pages made for a competition on Club Ck. I realized that just knowing how many pages I make is gratifying. It seems to help me feel like I am not behind in my scrapbooking. I have so many photos to document that at times it can become overwhelming. It's easy to look at the glass as half empty. Looking at the number of pages I have made helps me see things as half full. Sometimes, I forget to update the number on the sidebar. That's ok. Again, it's not about how much you were able to create, but rather, just knowing you have created.