Scrap Happy

Whenever I see the warning signs for addiction, I can’t help thinking about my relationship with scrapbooking. Not to minimize the challenges people face in overcoming their demons, just to acknowledge the similarities between all kinds of fixations. As I talk to my students about the secret codes groups develop in their communication, I use scrapbook lingo and insider knowledge as examples. When I mention photo split squares fluttering out of your clothing and a few students non-verbally react with knowing glances at their friends, I know I’ve found a scrapping sister (or maybe brother someday). When I tell the story of seven year-old Keilana dragging a friend back up the stairs to slide down again in sleeping bags because “you can’t make a decent page with only two pictures,” the croppers get it. But the biggest connection seems to come when I admit to having staged my kids’ activities to match stickers or paper I want to use. Sad, but true. Also very common in scrapbooking circles. We’ve tried to get our children to eat popsicles adorably. We’ve draped our babies over pumpkins. But more than anything, we’ve dumped our kids in giant piles of leaves raked just for picture-taking occasions. I don’t think my kids have ever spontaneously played in the leaves, but I have many pages of pictures of them doing it--because there’s lots of really cute autumn paper. In Betsy Franco’s Fresh Fall Leaves, the kids are having fun. I wonder if it was their idea?

http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Fall-Leaves-Betsy-Franco/dp/0590962965

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Betsy-Franco/1941168

Before The Fall

The air is starting to carry a bit of that fall feeling…and I don’t like it. I’m a So Cal girl, summer is who I am and what I love. When autumn begins its not-slow-enough march of death toward summer, I feel restless and panicky, wanting to hold onto every moment of long days and sultry nights for as long as I can before the time changes, the season changes, and everything changes. Fall is my least favorite season because it heralds and hastens the end of summer, yet still permits torturous backward glimpses of what summer was like--a few unseasonably warm days, an extra weekend of camping or barbequing, an occasional night of needing the window cracked open just a touch. The ghost of summer lingers to remind us of what was. I realized this year as the air turned a little too crisp one morning and I loudly protested that it was too early for fall, that no time would be acceptable for summer to wane, and thus any autumn is premature. To be fair, lots of people love this time of year for many reasons, not the least of which is Halloween. Pumpkins and full moons and spooky costumes seduce them into forgetting all about summer and lure them away from the light…and the sun. In Lauren Thompson’s Mouse’s First Halloween, the little guy gets introduced to new experiences by overcoming his fear of the unknown and embracing the season. He’s young, he doesn’t know any better.

http://www.amazon.com/Mouses-First-Halloween-Lauren-Thompson/dp/0689831765

http://www.laurenthompson.net/