Today was the first day since I can remember that I have not had someplace to go or something concrete to do. Sure, I had homework, but I had the whole weekend to do it in, so I could structure it as I pleased. And I didn't have to do anything athletic today, because I switched my day off from Sunday to Saturday (after discovering that there is no Saturday rec swim but there is Sunday rec swim). Thus: vrijheid.

So Monique and I ate popcorn and watched The Interpreter last night; then I slept until 10:30 today and then knocked off all the rest of that online French crap in one shot (a feat of both endurance and patience). Then I read blogs for a while (the list keeps growing, my time keeps shrinking) and then decided that since it was rainy and nasty outside, I needed something constructive to do inside. So I decided that I'd finally start to work on my Life Scrapbook. I've had the materials collected and sorted for a while now, but I was afraid to start, for fear that the images in my head wouldn't turn out as beautiful once I actually started snipping and gluing. But today I finally got brave and decided to do it.

So I went to Target and bought scrapbooking materials (and a purse and a magazine, I confess... that store sucks you in!) and then came home around 4pm, plopped down on the floor, and essentially did not look up for the next seven hours. And even then, I only snapped out of it because my stomach was growling ("It's 11pm, were you planning to feed me anytime soon?!"). When I was a kid, I could literally block out the entire world - the TV, the passage of time, people calling my name, whatever - while I was reading, and every once in a while, that level of concentration comes back to me. Tonight was one of those times. And the result was that I got all the 'childhood' pages done, up to about age 10. The best page is the first one, my 'baby' page, with pink-striped paper and little pictures and my baby beaded necklace. I'm really proud of that one. After it is a page for my sister, with her birth announcement and a couple of cute pictures, and after that it's pretty much just a few 'miscellaneous' pages. I'm trying to do it in true scrapbook fashion - one page for every important event - but it's hard, especially with the stuff I was doing tonight, because (a) I don't have a whole lot of stuff from any one particular childhood event, and (b) I just don't really remember that many big events in my life from before I was ten. I know the Safety Patrol went to Washington DC when I was in fifth grade, for example, but I remember practically nothing of it, and any photos I may have will be at home in Jacksonville in my actual photo albums, not here in Gainesville in my memory box. And I know I went pretty far in those godforsaken Scripps-Howard spelling bees that same year, but the only proof I have is a pin and a handwritten note from the teacher who coached me. So I'm having to make what I'll call 'compilation pages'. I guess things 'condense' into more recognizable lumps when you get older.

So the 60-page album currently looks like this:

Inside cover: my school photo record, which I got back right before my HS graduation
Cover page: my baby page
Back of cover page: life goal list
Page 1: title page
Page 2: Catie's page (birth announcement, pictures)
Page 3: little-kid pix, Grandpa's funeral card
Page 4: Camp Immokalee group photo
Page 5: short story I wrote as a kid, about a girl named 'Merry Cherry'
Page 6: ribbons and a pin from elementary school, YMCA Shark certificate
Page 7: drawing of stairs
Page 8: note and pin from spelling bee, fake driver's license I made when I was 10, picture of my baby cousin, great-grandmother's funeral card

Still to come will be pages for, among other things:

miscellanous middle school stuff
Space Camp (another group photo)
my 'medical drama' with my heel at age 13
Camp Ton-A-Wandah (8 summers'll take a lot of space)
Gabby (our old corgi - lots of cute pix)
miscellanous high school stuff
Spanish State Conference
high school graduation
my UF acceptance letter
the 2004 election
the Netherlands (LOTS of stuff)
my 'collection' of Dutch boys
Auschwitz
Paris and Monet's Garden
the Key West swim
London and Ireland (again, LOTS of stuff)

... the list goes on, so I'll stop boring you with it and, instead, get back to it.