good life with vanessa quigley
Part of cultivating a good life is seeing the amazing in everyday.
I remember many days as a young mother feeling lost in the monotony of the everyday: sippy cups, diaper changes, hours of Nick Jr., and loads and loads of laundry. Add a fair amount of sleep deprivation and I swear I was barely surviving. And often at the end of the day I wondered what I had to show for my efforts.
Mothering young children is hard (and exhausting!), but it also flies by so fast! That sounds so cliché I know, but now I’m starting to feel like I’m coming out on the other side. My oldest is 22 and only 4 of my 7 children still live at home. The blur of babies and toddlers is now a blur of tweens, teens, and young adults and their homework, soccer games, music lessons, and demanding social calendars. Life is everything but monotonous! It is still messy and can be hard, but it’s really so amazing. Instead of wishing the days away like I used to, I’m desperately trying to freeze time and hold on to these fleeting moments by snapping pics.
When I was a young mother I was a hardcore scrapbooker and now I’m a diehard Chatbooker! I love documenting everything about our family--the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between. Yes, I cherish the milestones and moments that I’ve preserved in my books, but I’ve also discovered an extra bonus along the way. Something magical happens in the moment that I take a picture (that may or may not end up in one of my books).
Time that usually furiously flies by seems to stand still and the amazing in everyday life comes into focus. In that still moment behind the camera I feel gratitude for this life of mine -- even when I’m documenting that pile of shoes that’s always at the back door or the empty ramen packages left on the counter after school. One day my house is going to to empty and quiet (and clean?!) and I’m going to love looking back on these memories. And until then I’ll be here with my iPhone taking in all the amazing around me!
a note from becky
As Vanessa mentioned, she was a scrapbooker for years. That's when she became familiar with me and my work through Creating Keepsakes magazine, and ultimately Project Life® and the work I've been doing for the past 8 years. Vanessa and her husband Nate launched Chatbooks, which is an automated (and inspired!) way to get those pictures off our devices and into little books. I personally use Chatbooks as a supplement to my Project Life® memory keeping. Check out these couple blog posts about family history (it's part of a larger blog post about how I do my memory keeping) and building our house and you'll see some of my Chatbooks. Vanessa and I have met a couple times, stay in touch regularly, and enjoy supporting each other in our quests to help people preserve their memories.
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