I followed a link last week that I can’t find anymore, but I’m still thinking about. It involved someone (I’m pretty sure a scrapbooker) making a leap year time capsule (which I can find many posts about, just not the one I was intrigued by).

I really like February 29.

It’s just...a strange day. An extra day. There should be something exciting happening, even though usually, not so much. Maybe February 29, 1988 something exciting happened. That was my last winter of gymnastics—I could still do back flips and giants and had just about perfected a double full.

February 29, 1992 I was a newlywed of less than a month. (A lot of change happened in those four years!) I was working at WordPerfect (it was still at thriving company! those were the days!) and almost finished with finishing my Associate’s degree.

1996 I was a stay-at-home mom with Haley getting ready to go back to school in the summer to finish my degree.

2000 I had finished my degree and had Jacob and Nathan along the way. Haley was almost 5, Jake was 2, Nathan was 3 months old. I was still a stay-at-home mom, smack in the middle of some of my most blissful mothering days, with no clue that disaster was going to strike that year (in the form of unemployment; it changed everything for us).

2004 I was doing my student teaching. I was assigned to a school about 30 miles from my house, so it was a lot of driving every day. I was tired and stressed and anxious and sad (still; always) that I had to go back to work instead of staying at home like I wanted to. I was baby hungry (nay; baby starving; baby famished) and frustrated with the world. I was also discovering I was a pretty decent teacher and that I really, really loved it.

2008 found me as a stay-at-home mom again, with Kaleb as my only little. Haley was almost 13, Jake was 10, Nathan 8, Kaleb still just 2. I kept busy by writing classes for Big Picture Scrapbooking. I was trying really, really hard to lose the twenty pounds I’d gained. Kendell hadn’t had any surgeries yet. I didn’t know that those were my very last days as a stay-at-home mom (I started working at the library in May). Those were good days, too.

2012 I was working at the library. That was the year I had a kid in high school, a kid in junior high, a kid in elementary, and a kindergartner (lots of driving to different schools!). Good times, but also hard: we’d lost Kendell’s dad and my dad by then, and I was learning how painful mothering teenagers can be. That winter and spring, Kendell and the boys spent a ton of time at my mother-in-law’s house, helping her clean and get rid of stuff so that she could move closer to us.

Which brings me to 2016.

It’s interesting, thinking about how much changes in four years in the life of a family. As I think about each time period, there are some experiences I am so grateful are past and some I wish I could have back. When you’re right in the middle of your experiences, it’s hard to see how things will turn out, and looking back helps me to realize that life has always had a mix of good things and hard things (even though sometimes it’s felt like only hard). Mostly as I look back what I find is that I am grateful for the people life has given me. I don’t have a fabulous life in the sense of wealth and impressive possessions. But I have a fabulous life because I have so many people to love.

I wish I’d made a time capsule every leap year day since I was an adult. Maybe not in the way of that blog post—with hand written notes and receipts and tags and recipe cards. But just some details, the smaller texture of how my life felt on February 29. I do have some journal entries, but none of them are as specific as I’d like.

I can’t help wondering, today, February 29, 2016, what my life will be like in four more years. What will I miss, what will I be glad has passed?

I hope on February 29, 2020, I will have finally found some success as a writer.

I hope my marriage has grown stronger.

I hope my kids will be doing well, functioning and thriving in the lives they are creating.

I hope I am healthy. I hope I’m still running and hiking.

I hope I still have this blog, I hope I remember to come back and see. These are some of the details of our life right now:

Haley is at college at USU. She’s studying biology with the goal of going to med school. She works in a pharmacy and is planning on a semester abroad in Spain this summer. She colors her hair black, loves black clothes & chunky boots & funky outfits. She’s driving the Prism. We mostly see her on Instagram and Facebook, and we text a bit back and forth. I am proud of her feminist bent and her courage and the way she’s working so hard to be on her own. I hope that she continues and fulfills her goal of becoming an OB/GYN. I hope life brings her good friendships and strong relationships.

(Pic stolen from Instagram!)

Jake is a senior at MVHS. He’s so ready to be done with high school. Not interested in serving a mission at all. He’s got a scholarship lined up at UVU and is taking the pharm tech courses at MATC. The only thing he loves about high school right now is his weight lifting class. He drives his silver Corolla, which he just bought new tires for. He seems to maybe be coming out of his teenage angsty period...he seems a little bit happier and friendlier these days. I’m proud of him for enduring; I know he feels stuck right now, in a life that has boundaries he wants to be free of. I hope the upcoming years are happy ones for him, that he stays his course, that he grows and learns from his mistakes, that he finds real, true friends.

(A rare image of Jacob...he hates having his picture taken, so I have to sneak sometimes; this is at one of Nathan's bball games and, actually...also a rare image of Kendell. Who also hates having his picture taken.)

Nathan is a sophomore at MVHS. He just finished up the basketball season and hasn’t decided yet if he’ll do track. One of his goals is to have a 4.0 throughout high school—6 (out of 16) terms so far, he’s achieved that! He’s trying to heal from his ankle sprain and his unhappy knees. He drives whatever anyone will let him drive and would really like his own car. I think he’s learning from watching Haley & Jake; he is a pretty calm kid (although he does have a bit of a potty mouth) and likes to be involved with lots of people. I’m proud of him for persevering through a rough basketball season (three injuries and only a few wins), but more for the goodness he brings to the world and our life. I hope he stays true to himself—I hope life and experiences don’t change him.

(And #12 makes the shot!)

Kaleb is in fifth grade. I am coming to accept that he will never love school, except for the friend part. He loves his friends, but right now he is having some struggles with the kids on our street. Avery is his best friend; he spends every Friday with his cousin Jace. His favorite TV show is Hey Jessie! and his favorite band is One Direction. He’s very particular about his hair and his clothes and he can’t wait for soccer to start next month. It is so hard for me to believe that he is growing up. He’s definitely more tween than little kid these days. But he’s still sweet! I’m proud of him for being a good friend, even when his friends aren’t, and for how he always wants to help people. (Whenever we see a homeless person on a corner, he wants to stop and give them money.) I hope his heart stays like that—kind and caring. I hope he’ll always give me hugs.

(We are soda rivals but we still love each other!)

Kendell is almost (finally!) done with his degree. He has two classes left. He’s still recuperating from his heart surgery—this has definitely taken longer to heal from than the first. He’s still working at Microfocus (which used to be Novell; just last month they changed the sign on the building, which was one of the most traumatic and sad things ever) but I think he’d like to find new opportunities. He drives the white truck he inherited from his dad. I’m proud of him for continuing to pluck away at his degree, even if it’s taken him a long time. I hope he finishes and I hope he is done with surgeries for a good long while. He’s had enough.

I am sort of a mess right now. I’m seeing a PT for chronic back and hamstring pain, and I’m still bothered by my three-year-old ankle injury. Plus something is wrong with my second left toe. My finger is still swollen and a little bit numb from smashing it in Wendy’s van door. I’m running much less than I want to and I’m fatter than is healthy. I’m also struggling a little bit with depression this winter—right down in the lowest part of my black place. But spring is coming, and I feel inordinately grateful for the return of color and light and warmth. I mostly drive the FP (fat puma) because of car pool, but I think it is the waning days of our family needing a minivan. I’m still working at the library and I just started doing the collection development for the poetry & essays sections.

The world right now: American politics (if Donald Trump is the president in the future I will be so disgusted with our country), the environment (they did just manage to fix that big methane gas leak in California, but the Indonesian forest fires are still burning, the drought is still intense, except for when it’s snowing three feet, and people are still denying that climate change is A Thing), gas is at really low prices (I paid $1.49 for a gallon last week) but butter is expensive. Last night was the Oscars and I think Mad Max won a lot of awards (I HATED that movie).

Some little details: Using the Canon 60D. Samsung S6s and a big cell phone bill right now. Just replaced the furnace & air conditioner; need to replace the roof; would like to replace the counter top and refinish the cupboards & floor in the kitchen. Brooks GTS 16s. Mom just moved down the street from me; I’m still upset I didn’t get the pink rock. Snapchatting with Becky & Cindy. Watching The Vikings, The Walking Dead, and Chicago Fire. Listening to a lot of Florence + the Machine, Adele, and my old standbyes. I love my purple flowery Raybans, the jeans I bought at Dillard’s New Year’s Day sale, wool socks, long cardigans, running skirts, my silver watch. Thursdays are sacred. Salted caramel anything, especially Ghirardelli squares. Facebook & Instagram. Relief Society secretary at church (although I wouldn’t complain if they released me). The Rack is opening next week. I need to clean out my closet, get the pink chair recovered, find a spot for Grandma Amy’s old sewing machine, finish Nathan’s quilt, declutter everywhere, figure out some good options for the shade flower beds, start hiking the Y again, put about 300 scrapbook layouts into albums, really reorganize my scrapbooking & quilting supplies. My hair is the longest it’s ever been right now, but I’m getting frustrated with it.

Trying to be happy within my 40-something body. Appreciating the way that wisdom seems easier to find. Sometimes feeling like everything in my life is just too damn hard; other times feeling like I’m incredibly blessed. (Both things are really true.) Just really wanting: the kids to find happiness and to be OK. Kendell to be healthy. My mom to be safe. Myself to do.

Wondering what will change in the next four years.

Two weeks ago, I presented at Life, the Universe, and Everything, which is a writing conference in Provo, Utah, that focuses on science fiction and fantasy. This is my third time presenting there, and I think it was the time I was most prepared.

My library friend Pat and I present together. Our topic is the best science fiction and fantasy books of the previous year; she talks about picture books and junior chapter books, and I do the young adult novels.

Maybe because this was my third year and I really understood what I was doing.

Maybe because there were so many good YA books in 2015 to talk about.

Maybe because more people came to hear us than I expected.

But this year was definitely my favorite year of presenting. I managed to use my time almost exactly right and only had to rush on the last two books. Plus, at the very end, someone slipped in late and came up to ask me for a handout. She said “I was rushing to get here but I couldn’t get here in time. I heard you speak last year and I really wanted to listen to you again!” and I said “Yeah, Pat is pretty awesome” (she’s being presenting since LTUE started) and she said “no, I meant I wanted to hear you.”

That totally made up for the fact that my name was spelled wrong on my sign and that they didn’t put my bio in the program (again).

I love presenting at this conference. I love presenting, in general. This is one of my weird quirks, and it surprises people who know me well, because I am an introvert through and through. When I am sitting in an audience at a conference, or walking around, I’m uncomfortable and anxious; I wish constantly that I had the skill of striking up a conversation with people I don’t know.

But speaking to a large group of people is totally energizing to me. It’s just so fun. I always finish LTUE with more determination to be noticed as a writer, because I would like to present there not only as a librarian (who got the spot by default when another librarian couldn’t present) but as a writer who people want to listen to. So for that woman to tell me she wanted to hear me: well, that pretty much made my day!

After my presentation, I was feeling energized and excited and social. I actually talked to a stranger in the bathroom! Then I raced across the conference center so I could listen to Shannon Hale talk. I love her YA novels and I’ve heard her speak before and always enjoyed it. That hour, she was speaking with an editor, a publisher, and another author about their favorite fantasy and science fiction books. With a wider scope and much more off-the-cuff, then, it was basically the same topic that I’d presented on.

It was interesting to listen to the discussion from my librarian’s perspective. People in the audience—and these are people who are invested in these genres—were scribbling down notes and titles, but there was only one book mentioned that I hadn’t heard of. It made me realize just how much I have learned by working at the library.

But as the conversation went on, my energy and excitement started to drain away. I looked around the room and realized just how many people were there. More than double the amount who were at mine. And they had a sort of energy, a breathless, soaking-in-everything-my-idols-are-saying sort of spirit. I watched the presenters speak and their confidence and presence were undeniable. They know each other, have worked together, have a history and a camaraderie that’s casual because it is comfortable. I thought of my writing ambitions. I imagined myself in a place where I have finished my novel and it’s been accepted for publication. Even if—even if I ever manage to achieve that long-held and seemingly-unachievable dream: even then, I will still only be me. The shy and awkward lady who, when she does manage to say anything in a group setting is usually either wildly inapplicable or just sort of lame. Being a successful writer requires more than only writing—it does require that ability to integrate yourself into things, to be able to interact with people who don’t know you.

And it’s an ability I lack.

Deep down in my bones, I’m not…I’m not cool, I guess. I’m not the kind of person who attracts friendships or relationships. I can’t network. My worst nightmare is having to go to a party where I don’t know many people and I must somehow figure out how to mingle. Kendell, who is the opposite of me in this regard, thinks it is only a skill I haven’t learned yet. Maybe he is right. But he’s never felt, either, what I feel in a social situation: the rush of terror, the absolutely blank mind, the way my heart pounds and I know I look stupid and it’s just people around me but I just have no idea how to fit myself into the mix.

After Shannon Hale’s presentation, I went out into the lobby, which was full of writers and creative types sitting around together on cream-colored couches and chairs, laughing. I stood in front of the fireplace and pulled my phone out, so I could turn the ringer back on and check my messages, and just then Kaleb called. “No, you can’t have any friends over, not until I get home,” I was saying, when I noticed that Shannon Hale was walking across the lobby. Right toward me, and I think she heard the tale-end of my conversation as she walked past, “Sure, you can have a cookie, I’ll be home in twenty minutes.” And I thought…if only. If I, too, had that thing. She has kids, I have kids. If only I could just, somehow, strike up a conversation like a normal person.

I walked through the parking garage with a mix of feelings. Both deflated but still certain that my presentation had gone well. I suppose none of my anguishy angst matters in the least, not until I actually manage to achieve that first goal—to write something worth noticing. But there’s also that other tug—even if I can achieve that goal, will it matter? If I can’t also manage to market myself, to network, to talk to people, will I be successful anyway? Or am I doomed from the start?

Today is my oldest sister Michele’s birthday.  Her fiftieth birthday.

When you turn fifty, you should have a big party. Your husband, who’s getting pretty grey by now, should plan it, clumsily perhaps, but with love and an extravagant gift. Your friends should be there, the new ones and the old ones that go all the way back to junior high. Your family should be there—not just kids, but nephews and nieces, sons- and daughters-in-law, grandkids and cousins and their kids. Your parents, if you’re lucky enough that they’re still alive. And your sisters—your sisters should definitely be there.

Instead, my sister Michele is spending her fiftieth birthday in jail.

It’s not her first time in the slammer. She’s been actively alcoholic for more than twenty years now, in and out of jail for DUIs, in and out of rehab. On and off the wagon. Each time, she loses something more. Her house, her marriage, the respect of her children, relationships with her grandchildren. The efforts of her sisters to help her. The work of her mother. Time with her dad before it was too late.

She was too drunk even to come to his funeral.

(The last picture of all six of us together before Dad died: Becky, me, Mom, Dad, Suzette, Michele.)

I read a meme somewhere that said something like “all an addict is is a person to be loved, and if you are not loving her, you are part of the problem.”

That has weighed on me since I read it, because I haven’t been actively loving my sister for years. I think about her; I feel the lack of her in my life. I pray for her and I wish her life was different. But I rarely see or talk to her, and I haven’t tried to help her in years. I wish I had the emotional capacity and the financial ability to help her more than I have, but I don’t. Sometimes my own problems feel larger than I can bear, so also undertaking hers seems impossible.

Maybe that is an excuse. Maybe that is me revealing my weakness or my inadequacy at loving well. Maybe I am selfish and cold-hearted and unforgiving.

But I also know that I am not the answer to her addiction. I can’t be. Neither can her other sisters, or her parents, or her children or her husband. All of the people her drinking has sloughed from her life.

She is the only answer to her addiction.

It makes me really angry, to look at her life, to consider her thought process. She has alienated everyone who wanted to help her, and then she is mad because she is alone. It confuses me, because she drinks to deal with the hard things that have happened, but so many of the hard things have happened because of drinking. I want to tell her: everyone has hard things. Isn’t one of the roles of being a grown up is that you have to figure out how to deal with your hard things? And isn’t that one of the functions of alcoholism: to let you feel like you can sidestep dealing with them? Why does she think that her hard things are too hard to bear, while the rest of us are here, bearing ours in yes, clumsy ways, failing and falling but trying to go through instead of around.

It pisses me off that she thinks she can go around them by swimming in a bottle.

I know it’s not PC of me. I know addiction is a medical condition, that her brain is an addictive one. But I want to shout at her. To yell at her that she needs to put on her big girl pants and deal with her reality. Instead of running from it. I want to scream at her to get her to see that her drinking doesn’t only damage her. It hurts everyone else in her life.

It makes me so, so sad.

My mom sent me a text this morning: I hope none of you have to think about your beautiful baby in jail 50 years later on her birthday.

And that is it, the core of all the emotion. The anger, the hurt, the sadness, the frustration, the disappointment, the disgust. Fifty years ago, she started her life. She was my mom’s beautiful new baby girl, with her dark hair and pink rosebud mouth. She could’ve done anything. She could’ve had a happier life. But her addiction ruined everything. An entire life, swirling away, dragging everyone else’s heartache behind it.

I keep going back to that idea: “an addict is a person to be loved.” But what, after half a lifetime of alcoholism, does it look like to love an addict? It looks like this: loving from a distance. It is the ache of a person missing from your life, it is this sadness I always carry, the hesitation when I talk about my family. I had three sisters, but for all practical purposes, right now I only have two. Loving an addict means you are always at least just a little bit angry at them, too. Loving an addict means feeling trapped, hopeless, manipulated, betrayed, even though you keep hoping that person will change. It means have to figure out how much of their mess you can absorb into your life; it means finding a balance between wanting to do more and knowing the limits of your compassion.

I wish she could hear that it also means forgiveness. Because: if she could just stop. If she could choose something different. If someone in her life meant more to her than drinking. If she could come back to us, the people who loved her her whole life. There would be scars and the relationship would never be perfect, but we would forgive her. We would build something new—if she just stopped drinking.

(Even as I write that, I know: it’s not as simple as “just.” But in a sense, it is.)

As I’ve thought about writing this, and as I have written it, I have tried to remember something good, some sweet memory of Michele and me. What my memory kept giving me was the Sunday afternoon in 1992, when I was almost 20 and a newlywed and she showed up at the apartment where I lived. “Let’s go to WalMart together!” she said. So I went to WalMart with her. She kept trying to have me buy all this weird stuff, Easter bunnies and baby clothes and soup I don’t like. We laughed and pushed our carts, but I was a little baffled, and it was only weeks later that it hit me: she was probably drunk.

That is another sad thing, how her drinking is a thread running through every experience we had together as adults. She hasn’t recovered, not really, not ever. Not for decades. And I wonder, whenever I think about her, how different it would be, to have all of my sisters in my life, to have a whole other person I could laugh with, send goofy texts to, ask for advice, go to for wisdom. How my kids might be different with another healthy aunt. How much of the weight in my mother’s heart is the sadness over her lost daughter. How my nieces and nephew (Michele's kids) might be happier as grown ups if their mom had taken care of them.

Addicts are people to be loved. And I do love my sister, but it isn’t a joyful thing, this feeling. It is built on regret and on wishes, on nothing more substantial than family ties. But the responsibility cannot be only on us, the people who love an alcoholic. It also has to be on the alcoholic herself. If she isn’t willing to change, I cannot change her. I cannot save her.

But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.

Last week at church, I sat for a while in the chapel, after everyone had cleared out. A few people came to make small talk with me, but mostly I just sat and thought.

My heart was troubled, and I was mostly trying to gather up the tattered scraps of my usual tent of self-preservation. (You know how to get through the day, to be able to look like you’re normal and everything’s fine and all of your troubles aren’t just whipping around in your psyche, you pull yourself together and put on your “everything’s fine here” face? Or is that just me? The image I’ve made of that process is putting up a springbar tent, right around my softest bits, to keep them from the storm.)  I kept thinking no one better say anything nice to me or I’ll just melt down into a crumpled bawling mess.

I just feel so…uncertain, I suppose.

I thought when I got to this time in my life, with teenagers and adult kids, I’d feel more grown up. Like I had the answers and knew how to do things correctly. I thought I would be successful at things I feel like I am failing at. I never imagined just how heartsore I would feel.

So I sat in the quiet chapel and tried to tape up my tent and get functioning again. A little while later, people from the other ward started coming into the chapel. One of them is my across-the-fence neighbor, Hugh. (You’d think that I would be in the same ward as my across-the-fence neighbor, but this is Utah, so: no.) Hugh has a beautiful garden and hands me zucchini and summer squash and acorn squash and tomatoes over the fence all summer. He has an enormous family with who-knows-how-many grandkids, and sometimes on Sundays I hear them outside, all playing together. He is a kind man and always takes the time to have a conversation with us.

Plus, he once killed the mouse we found in our blow-up swimming pool. (We caught it in a bucket and handed it over the fence to him. A few minutes later, he gave us back the empty bucket.)

Hugh didn’t come and talk to me, thank goodness. No one wants to witness an Amy meltdown. But he did wave at me, and smile, and as he did I had, at last, a name for one of my aches:

I want a dad.

I want a wise and comfortable old man in my life. Someone who knows me and knows what I need. Someone who I could take my troubles to and who would have advice for me. Advice that would do more than comfort my aches, but actually help me.

What’s strange to me about this realization is that the wanting is for a father. For a man. Because I believe in women sharing their wisdom with each other, and being a resource, and a source of generational knowledge. I feel and love my women ancestors so much it is like they are all knots on a rope that I am climbing, and their knots keep me from sliding. My women friends bring me joy and comfort and advice I couldn’t find elsewhere. A life without my sisters and my daughter and my mother is unimaginable. I have lived with knowing that I don’t need a man to complete me or to save me for so much of my life that I am startled by this need.

But it’s still there. I want a father.

And it’s not, exactly, that I am missing my dad, even though I do miss my dad. I love my dad and he was a great influence in my life. He did the best he could with who he was and what life brought to him. But he wasn’t that kind of dad. The one who watched out for his daughter’s emotional needs, or who offered advice. He didn’t have a lot of answers for his own life, so how could I ask him for answers to mine? And who knows—maybe that’s exactly the kind of dad he would have become for me, if he had had the chance. If Alzheimer’s didn’t exist.

But I don’t think so. I think in a way, I always felt like my dad was a person I needed to protect from the world. From my mom’s quick anger. From his sense of failure. From debt and unemployment and a bad back. My dad had a kind heart, and the world is not kind to those, and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel like I needed to shield him. (Even though, of course, I never really did that.)

As I have moved around the edges of this discovery, I am learning about myself. I don’t think I ever really realized, for example, that I did feel protective of my dad. That I wanted to keep him safe from the world, and that I couldn’t is a sort of failure that is different from the other ones I’m quicker to see. But what a piece of knowledge to finally understand: I wasn’t ever fathered. Not really. The part of me that wants to go back to a time when I felt safe and protected—I keep going back and back in my memories, but I can’t get there. Maybe I never felt that.

I’m not sure how I lived this long, lived for decades into my adult years without realizing: I want a father. I want a dad so badly. And I must have been feeling this all along, but I couldn’t name it until now. It is something—to name that ache. To know it and start to learn what it means.

Life, I’m pretty certain, is not going to give me a father. And I will be OK, because I have been OK. You can live your entire life without having a father like the one I want and be OK. Just like my friend Chris is OK, even though she grew up without her mom. Just like Haley will live her entire life without a sister, and she will also be OK. The not-having will shape her, but it won’t be a bad shape. Just like my shape is OK. Not many people get the archetype.

But knowing this—knowing I want a father. Understanding this about myself helps me understand some of my choices better. Some of my failures and successes. It helps me see my children in a different light. It helps me feel like I need to be braver, to try harder to be a good mother, because I don’t want any of them to feel this. To want a mother.

Because it’s pretty raw. And unsolvable.

So I just sat there, in the chapel. I waved back at Hugh and I felt like I was sitting in a puddle of light. Just for a second—just knowing. I want a dad. Being able to say it makes the lump in my throat a little easier to swallow around. It would be nice to have a dad. To have someone tell me how to fix what I am doing wrong. But I also know the other side. I want a dad, but I don't need one. I can't need one because I don't have one, which means all I can do is continue bumbling through, continue trying to bumble less, continue trying to love and protect my own children. I want a dad because I want to feel like someone beside me is responsible, is going to fix things or at least tell me how to, and of course: there's no one else.

Fatherless, all I can do is continue trying.

I almost didn’t exercise at all in January. I just stayed inside, eating chocolate and drinking sweet, hot beverages and getting chubbier and chubbier. I’m struggling so hard to give up sugar (day three of emotional eating coming right up…I’ve had less sugar but still too much, which doesn’t feel like success but just like failing a little bit less) and resolving to exercise more in February.

I made it to the gym on Monday, and then again this morning, when I had an appointment with the track.

The track at our rec center is in the basement. It’s an oval that’s built around what I assume is a storage room—so there are solid cement walls on both sides of the 0. There are a few tiny little windows up near the ceiling, and some optimistic paintings of trees and joggers, but mostly it just feels like a cement track in a dark basement.

The floor is painted orange.

And one mile—if you’re on the outside lane—is 6 1/5 laps.

You do the math on that one. Actually, what I do is round up: it’s 7 laps for one mile. Which makes a mile feel like an eternity.

It’s pretty awful.

But somehow, I have a strange affection for running on the rec center track. (I once did a ten-mile run there, when I was training for a spring half marathon. That’s 70 laps. Actually, I only think I ran ten miles, because how do I know I really counted correctly?) I like it for knocking out intervals, usually—one of my favorite winter workouts is to sprint a lap, jog a lap 14 times (so…four miles. ish.) It helps with the counting to count to two 14 times instead of just counting 28 laps. Plus, there’s just something…mindless about it. My thoughts wander all over the place. Nowhere brilliant or insightful, but my internal conversations sometimes catch me by surprise.

Today, since I’m almost starting from scratch again on my fitness levels, I decided to do a workout of walk 1 lap, run 1 lap, run the next lap a little bit faster, 7 times. I’m always super careful when I walk onto the track, because it makes me nuts when other exercisers just walk right out in front of me. So I looked both ways (even though you can only run clockwise on Wednesdays) and started my laps.

And my internal conversation.

That girl in the white t-shirt is a fast walker. She might even be faster than me. I’m totally going to catch up to her.

(didn’t catch up to her until I started running.)

Seriously. If you’re going to bring your adorable 3-year-old twins, you have to keep them out of the running lane. I fall on good days. What do you think will happen to me—and your toddler(s)—if I mismanage my swerve?

OH. MY. GOSH. I just ran through that old dude’s fart. gah.

In twenty seconds I can stop running.

I count each interval like this: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. It helps me to keep track better. It’s remarkable, though, how easy it is for me to get to the end of the third lap and think but did I really just run two laps? (I would rather run an extra lap than be short a lap.) The people-watching really helps, because it gives me a frame of reference: no, I passed the slow walker who's wearing dress shoes and a shirt at the start of 2.2, so yes, this is the end of 2.3.

At the end of the two running laps, my thought is always I’m so happy to stop running.

At the start of the running lap, I always think wow, that walking lap went by so quickly. Here we go!

At 3.2, maybe, I came around the first curve and there was another runner in my lane. That girl runs like her feet are glass and she’s afraid they’ll break, I thought. And then

That’s rich, coming from a girl who runs like she has enormous boobs and doesn’t want them to bounce. (That is the only part of my body that isn’t enormous, so I don’t know why I run like that.)

Still, I’d better pass her.

So I did.

At 4.1, I walked past a girl whose left leg was covered in tattoos and whose right leg was completely blank skin. It made this interesting sort of pattern in the air as she walked.

At 4.2, I passed my neighbor. I waved and thought I just shocked her with my tank top. (Well. It is bright pink with polka dots.)

Halfway through 5.3, when I got to the straight away, there was another runner in front of me.

Hey. Her shorts are cute, I thought. I wonder where she…oh no. Stop looking. Stop looking. Because I have this weird running quirk. If someone’s in front of me and they have anything unusual about their gait or movements, my body’s like, hey, let’s do that too! and then my stride gets all wonky. The girl in front of me in the cute shorts (and by “cute” I mean “long enough to cover and prevent thigh chafing, but not dowdy”) ran with a little flip to her lower legs. An outward flip of each leg.

I almost had to close my eyes.

Thank goodness 6.1 came up, so I could walk and she could get farther ahead of me so I didn’t adopt her flip. I’ve got enough problems.

At the start of 6.3, another runner got on the track. She was just in front of me, and to the side, and I thought look at that lady, she’s grey at the temples and her tricep skin has that softness. I hope I’m still running when I’m her age.

And then I nearly stumbled because I thought stfu, Amy, you ARE her age. WHEN DID I BECOME MIDDLE AGED? So then I worried for the rest of my intervals about what will happen as I keep getting older. Will I be able to keep running? Will I have to stop? Will it be ridiculous when I’m out running (very, very slowly, I imagine, and as if my joints were made of glass) when I’m 76? And if I have to stop running what will happen to me?

Just as I finished 7.3 (with my worries about aging still going strong), I noticed the white t-shirt girl. Still walking faster than my very fastest walk.

She’s fast!

I’ve almost scrapbooked all of the photos I printed from December, and what I have left I’m either not inspired to scrap or just not ready to yet. My recycle bucket is full of little Christmas-colored scraps. I’m feeling anxious to use different colors and focus on different topics. I think, in other words, I’m just about finished with scrapping Christmas for now.

Since I’ll not likely be getting into my Christmas scrapping supplies for a while, I like to put it all away in an organized fashion, so that in December if I have some scrapping time, I’ll be ready to go. I do this by:

• Making notes for the photos I’m not going to scrapbook right now. This January (remember, I’m ignoring the fact that is February!) these are mostly just photos of my own Christmas. I have some of the journaling written, but I’m not feeling ready to scrapbook them yet. So I made some notes about what I want to do with them, and tucked them away. I’m hoping I’ll make these layouts when December rolls around again, and having a little refresher about my ideas (and a note about where I saved the journaling!) will help.
• Doing a brutal purge. I thought I did this last year, but I was surprised when I opened my Christmas drawer and found it brimming with stuff. It’s all good stuff—but it’s the “all” that becomes overwhelming. Even if a paper is useful and my style, this brutal purge I’m going to force myself to also acknowledge this question: Yes, but will I ever really use it?
• Photographing and processing all of the layouts I made in January. (I haven’t shared all of them on my blog. I think what I didn’t share I’m going to use for a blog post in December. Stay tuned!) I HATE photographing layouts. It just doesn’t seem to matter what I try, I can never get the angle right. It doesn’t help that I need to take my camera in, because it doesn’t seem to be able to get the color balance correct. But I’ve been trying to do this—keep a digital record of the paper layouts I make—for a couple of years now, and I find it to be so helpful. Partly because sometimes I’m not sure whether or not I actually made a layout with a set of pictures (lol…please tell me I’m not the only one who does this!) but also as inspiration for when I’m feeling stuck. It helps me get my mojo back to just look at layouts I’ve made.

I tend to do a ton of two-page layouts when I’m scrapbooking Christmas. I guess in theory I could just pick one photo that represents all of Christmas day…but there are always so many of them. Plus, I’ve learned from looking back at photos from my childhood Christmases that a lot of times, it’s not just the people in the forefront that give the photos meaning. It’s also the little details in the background.  So I like to include quite a few pics on Christmas layouts—and thus, two pagers!

This is the one I made for Nathan (please note that in real life, the lines actually meet up correctly and the color of the background is the same!):

So today I’m sharing a list of tips for making two-page scrapbook layouts that feel cohesive.

1. Think of the layout as 12x24. Literally: lay the two background sheets together, and then start designing. The layout will feel more cohesive and balanced this way, more so than if you design each half of the page separately. 
2. Create a visual triangle with text items. In theory, most pages have two text items: the title and the journaling. There can also be embellishments with text (these tend to be my favorites!) but there is another corner to the triangle that sometimes gets overlooked, but can give your layout a sense of balance, and that is the date. It’s a little thing, but the date can be a good spot for some cute embellishments, a little extra note, or your own handwriting. It can reinforce the design by repeating the font you used in the journaling or an embellishment from the title. (Lots of my layouts have the subject’s first initial with the date, using the same lettering type I used on the title.) By turning the date into a small embellishment, you give your layout three pieces of text—and then when you arrange them in a triangle, they both lead the eye through the layout and help it feel balanced.
3. Cross the middle line with at least one thing. Sometimes I do this with a photo, especially if I’m using one that has a lot of white space on one side or the other. Usually I do this with border strips of some sort. On today’s layout, the striped paper strips and the little strip with pine trees each cross the middle line. This makes the layout feel more like one piece, even when you put it in a sheet protector.
4. Repeat embellishments on both sides. For me, this is easiest to do if I’m using the same brand of embellishments. In this layout, I used a bunch of Elle’s Studio product, some on each side. The consistency in color and feel of the embellishments helps the two sides “read” as one large piece.
5. Repeat one design element, even if it’s switched up a little bit. Here, the things I repeated were the line with two 2x3 photos (even though it from vertical to horizontal) and the red border on a major element (the journaling on the left, the focal-point photo on the right).

And with that, Christmas 2015 is all wrapped up! Are you finished with scrapbooking Christmas? What are you moving on to next?

Happy scrapping!

Yes, I know: it’s February! But I’m so close to completing my scrapbooking-Christmas-in-January goal that I’m going to push on and finish.

Unlike the (seemingly) rest of the scrapbook world, I don’t do December Daily. The thought of it gives me hives. I am always so stressed and busy in December that the thought of trying to find something scrap-worthy every. single. day. just seems like a nightmare to me.  (Kudos to those of you who can do this. It’s just not me.) I just scrapbook Christmas and December like any other topic in my traditional albums. I always do a layout about Christmas day for each of my kids. Depending on how the pictures turn out, I’ll make one about Christmas Eve. This year I meant to make a layout about how much I love the week between Christmas and New Year, but I realized I took hardly zero pics during that week this year.

Next year!

In fact, that’s something I do: While I am scrapbooking Christmas photos, I keep a list of pictures I want to remember to take the following December. Mostly this list comes from that feeling when I’m scrapbooking and I think “I really wish I had a picture of ____________.” I set it up as an email that I delay delivery of until December 1. It is so helpful to be reminded of as the holiday season starts.

But I’m also a big believer that you don’t HAVE to have a photo to scrapbook a story. Take this layout:

The story I wanted to get down was the one I wrote in my journaling, about the snowy morning with Nathan when we bought blood oranges at the grocery store after his wart-removal appointment with the dermatologist. Not the most festive topic, maybe, but it really was one of my very most favorite mornings all December. I wish I would’ve taken a selfie of the two of us, but I didn’t. So I just gathered some other pictures from December and then told the story.

font tip: contrast. I really, really love script fonts. The more swooshes the better! But with mostly boys in my life, I don’t use them very often. If I’m making a layout that is about a boy and a girl, though (if it’s about one of my sons and me, for example, or a teacher, grandma, sister, aunt, or friend who is also a girl) I tend to get scripty. To keep it from feeling too feminine, however, I always pair a script font with a straightforward, simple, and bold sans serif font. Not only does it help the layout feel a little more masculine, it establishes some contrast. Use the script in small doses.

Silhouette tip: cutting thin fonts. Some fonts are constructed of really, really thin lines. The one I used for this layout—Bellweathers—is one of those. I liked the shape of the swooshes (especially that long on the “d” in “December”) but it was so thin it would’ve been nearly impossible to get off of the cutting mat and glued down onto my layout. To thicken up thin fonts before you cut them on your Silhouette, use the Offset button.

1. Choose the font and type the word you want to use.
2. Select the word, then right click and choose Ungroup. This makes each letter into its own object. Spread the letters out so that they’re not touching each other and have some space.
   
   
3. Select all of the spaced-out letters by dragging a square around all of them.
4. Right click, then choose Offset. This brings up the Offset menu on the left side of the screen.
5. Click on the Corner button. This keeps the closest shape to the original font, while the Round button curves the edges.
6. Enter a small number in the Distance box. I usually put something like .025. If you put in a number that is too big or too small, click on the Cancel button and start again. Depending on the distance you Offset by, the inner parts of the letters might go away.
7. Click on Apply. Each letter will now have a wider copy. Drag the thinner ones onto a spot on the screen and then delete them. (I put mine like this so you could see the difference in width.)
8. Arrange the thicker letters in the way you want them, and then weld them back together.

After you’ve done this a couple of times, you’ll find it’s a really quick process for making your words just a little bit thicker.

Are you a scrapbooker who does December daily? If not, how do you document—if you do at all—the other days in December?

Happy scrapbooking!