One Christmas gift that I forgot to talk about was the book I made for Andrew:
This link should allow you to see the finished project, a labor of love, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed putting together bit by bit each week as he emailed me updates and photos. I used Mixbook to create the scrapbook because it allows you to copy+paste text from an email right into the book so it's all in his own words. After my own semester abroad in college, I had to print photos and start scrapbooking my adventures from what I could remember, and I never even finished the project. I'm so glad to be able to give my kids this finished book right after their semester is over that they can cherish forever.
JP sent me a TED Talk that both validated our family rules re: screen time and social media, and also made me think a lot about what I'm doing with the time I have on this earth.
I think the issue is that we never know how much time we have left in life, and if we did, what would we do different? If I knew I had one year left to live, I would quit my jobs, eat whatever I wanted and travel and spend all my time with family and loved ones and volunteer. But if I knew I was going to live until 100 years old, I would eat as healthy as possible, exercise daily, save money during my working years, etc. Since we don't know "the day or the hour" I'm coming to the conclusion that we have to find a balance between those extremes. Which leads me to a question - would you want to know your last day on earth?
(The planner in me would want to know, but the anxiety in me would probably have a terrible time living with that knowledge.)
