Sunday, February 18, 2007

I probably spent more hours this week scrapbooking than I did eating and sleeping combined. And I got extra eating and sleeping time this week – if that tells you anything. Since I got my first (and potentially last) snow days ever in the working world, I decided to use them wisely and scrap to my heart’s content. Those adventures were followed by an all day scrapfest yesterday.

I know, I know. You wonder why it matters. What’s the point of spending so many hours and so much money on books that are just going to sit on the shelf? Well, they don’t just sit on my shelf. In fact, I just got done looking at them – all of them. I decided to honor my hard work and go back through and see just what I’ve been up to since I graduated from college.

There are many laughs in those pages. Crazy moments that I’d have long forgotten if it weren’t for the pictures. And while most of them are not significant to who I am as a person, they remind me of many happy days.

Some of these days you’ve heard about. Some you haven’t. But let me just give you a glimpse into the crazy days of Bekahland, captured forever in my books –

…Like the time I stopped at my then-boyfriend’s house after I’d gotten a little too fried in the tanning bed (don’t lecture me about tanning beds – I quit going after the wedding I was in that summer) and he wrote on my leg “I asked for medium, not well done.”

…The time I decided David Phelps and I had the same hair going on, so I posed with my autographed picture of him just to show how much alike we looked. (We really didn’t.)

…Then there was my friend Lynette’s pajama party where I wore my hair in pigtails that stuck straight out like Pippi Longstocking’s.

…One of our student workers and I ended up getting “matching” Ford Focuses within a month of each other. Well, hers was red and mine was white, but otherwise they matched. We pulled them into the grass on campus and took pictures with our matching cars. Some guys gave us some funny looks for that. What! Is the Focus not a cool car?

…The office threw me a birthday party when I turned 25, and they made me don a tiara and kiss a stuffed frog – one of my more unflattering pictures – but still funny!

…I’d like to forget this one, but it’s scrapped in stone. I went miniature golfing with a bridal party one time and every single girl got a hole in one but me. So for the “hole in one” page, there are pictures of everyone celebrating, and me pouting on the sidewalk. Hey, isn’t a hole in ten just as good?

…The “Thanksgiving” when half the family was gone, half of the remaining half got sick, and during the meal for the few that showed up, my three-wick candle overflowed down the front of my buffet and onto my carpet. Did I mention the candle was red and the carpet was beige? I spent a good hour ironing wax out of the carpet while everyone else relaxed after lunch. Chipping wax off the buffet was fun too.

…There’s the famous Christmas picture where I’m sitting next to a guy I brought home to meet the parents (it didn’t last), and I’m holding up a black v-neck sweater with a white shirt underneath. The only problem is, you can’t see the black sweater – all you see is the v-shape of the white shirt, and it looks like I’m holding up underwear while sitting next to this potential boyfriend. This did not lead to the demise of the “relationship.” I don’t think…

…I learned my electric mixer was not high quality while trying to mix up the filling for a fruit pizza for my roommate’s graduation open house. There’s a picture of the cream cheese concoction climbing all the way up the beaters – to the bottom of the mixer – and nothing left in the bowl.

…I have seven pictures of various stages of fright while I signed paper after paper during the purchase of my home. The more I signed, the more scared I looked!

…There’s the night I had a face-off with my sister in an Andy Griffith trivia game. I was so engrossed in trying (in vain) to win that I forgot to sit like a lady for the pictures. I had to censor a few of those before I scrapped them!

…And then there’s the monumental day when I painted my living room ceiling red and found myself under a rain of red drops. Bad enough…but then I ran out of paint and had to go to the store while looking like I’d been through a bloodbath.

…My Rudolph-esque nose in a Christmas party picture. I’d invited friends over for dinner and a movie and the main dish didn’t fit in my crock pot, leaving me upset to start with…but then I ran dessert over in the oven and smelled up the whole house like burned sugar. Did I learn nothing from the Food Network?

…The priceless day of serving as a toilet paper bride model during a wedding shower. My first and last strapless dress. With my first big sigh, it split right down the front.

…And rounding out the scrappable moments was my picture taken just last summer with Ronnie Booth. (He’s a singer – I know, I know – you all don’t know your southern gospel.) Anyway, I was so nervous to meet him, I actually developed a stutter and said nothing of any coherent nature during our “conversation.” That picture is topped only by the one taken the next day after I happened to see him out and about shopping. The sighting so unnerved me that I had to go sit down outside the store. Apparently I don’t handle celebrity sightings well.

So this is part of why I love to scrap. Though many of my pages only save humiliating moments, I’m glad I’ve got them captured. They were still good memories…even if I only appreciated them after the fact!