The missing picture book

Most people take lots of pictures. And this is where everything we have in common ends.  What we do with those pictures goes something like this:

Pre-digital camera days:  (aka film)

Take lots of pictures.
Never get the filmed developed.

or

Get the pictures developed.

Put all pictures into shoebox.

or

Get pictures developed  (double copies)

Give one away

The other goes into a scrapbook.


I guess that could be described a personality type 1, 2 or 3


Digital age:

Take lots of pictures

Immediate gratification - can see them on the computer.  Heck, now we can see them instantly.


1)  Leave them on the camera.

or

2)  Upload pictures from camera to computer

Then they may stay on the computer FOREVER.  Unless of course, you think your computer is about to die, then you spend HOURS, putting them in another place (from the drawer to the shoebox so to speak) - www.shutterfly.com; www.mypictures,com   etc.

You may upload them to a site - publish them for the world to see....

or

MAYBE print them out

or

Put them in a nifty scrapbook - NEVER having to print them out.  Putting them in order, cute comments and good pictures - then POOF you have a cute picture book that arrives in the mail.

Truth be told - I'm a combination of all of the above.  I upload pictures, I print some out, I leave some on the camera and some on a share site.  AND with a deadline, I will make a picture book.  I LOVE my picture books.

My Granny and I started a tradition 7 years ago.  We took a trip together - a cruise up the Mississippi river.  Her 75th birthday, my 35th birthday.  For our 80th/40th - we went to Vegas.  She had never been.  I couldn't WAIT to make our picture book.  In fact, the last picture was blacked out "to protect the innocent".   Because, we all know "what happens in Vegas,......."

The picture books are fun, easy and also easy to replicate.  (Simple to give as a gift).

And yes, sometimes it takes me a whole year to make those books.  Beach vacations - I have the best idea too for a "First Day of School Book"  - the boys every first day of school........

There is one book I'm having trouble starting.

The Hawaii Book.

Yes, there are 214 pictures.

Yes, they are all on the share site.  All off the computer. 

And yes, I made a cute little video with pictures and songs - only it needs to be edited.  I just can't start the book.

I don't know why.  Maybe I don't want the feeling to end.  Maybe I feel it was real, and day to day life you just can't capture.  Vacations you can capture.  Special moments you can capture and put into a book.  This one just doesn't want to go into a book yet.

Don't get me wrong, I have procrastinated other books before - thinking "LATER".  This one is different.  I don't even want to start it.

The book might make it a vacation.  A trip.  A moment.  Somethings to look back at and remember.

Denial might be the correct word.  I'm still thinking it was a journey.  Part of the passage.  Say, for instance, 7th grade.  And I wouldn't put 7th grade into a picture book. 

At least they are uploaded.  And it's not edited, but there is music to it.  Some of the pictures are duplicated, it's not in order.  I DO love to look at it.  So do the boys.

In fact, we love all our picture books.

This one is just not ready to go into the books.  If I put it in the books, the journey will be over?

Nah, Carolyn and I thought that for years.  There are tons of our pictures AND books from our vacations and beach trips - they still continue. 

In the front of my mind, I'm not ready for this moment to be over.  Part of history.  After all, we talk about Hawaii at least on a weekly basis around here.  There is the hesitation.  Once it goes in the book, it becomes the past.

This picture book might just have to live in our head.  Once again, things are usually better in our heads than anywhere else......