do this.

If someone were is ask me "If you only had time to make ONE photo album this year, what would it be?"  My answer: Make an in-a-nutshell album about your life.  Where you live, what you do, what your house looks like, what your kids look like, and then add some nutty facts about yourself. 

When we went to Ireland four years ago, Mike is the one who said "You should make an album about our day-to-day lives to take with us.  Even though there isn't a language barrier, a picture is worth a thousand words and it might help us connect with more people."   Did it ever!  We were amazed at the number of times we whipped out this little album and made a conversation more interesting.

The fun (and fascinating) thing about this album project is that "ordinary life pictures" are sometimes something we don't even have in our possession.  The advent of the cellphone camera has helped, but ask yourself --- do you have a photo of the outside of your house?  Your car?  Do you have a nice photograph of where you work - and spend hours everyday? 

I grabbed our "Made in 2009 About Us Album" when I headed out the door to a 125th Anniversary Celebration of Delta Gamma recently.   While conversing with sorority sisters, I was shocked by how out-of-date our little book was - in just 4 short years!  There was no mention of our 2+ year house renovation... or Mike's cancer journey... or the addition of 6 grandchildren!  Below are some of the pages from our REVISED About Us album.  You can view the whole thing on this link:

Revised ABOUT US StoryBook

If you meeting someone for the first time and only had a few minutes to tell about yourself --- what would you say?  These are the sorts of things that go in an ABOUT US album.  

I always try to grab this little album when we are going out of town.  I was glad I had it in my purse when Mike was having his cancer surgery in St. Louis.  It turned out that Mike had to be on a ventilator for three days... the nurses that tended to him day and night knew nothing of the man they were caring for.  I made sure to leave the little ABOUT US book on the tray table next to his bed each night so that when he couldn't talk or communicate --- the book could for him.  I wanted the nursing staff to know about the fine man they were caring for.  Because of this simple collection of photos... they did.