Yearbook Project Revival

Back in 2007 I made the decision that as a Christian I needed to start spending my life doing things that mattered and were less self-centered than my yearbook projects.

Now those of you who have never seen one of my yearbooks let me explain. It's a 6 inch 3 ring binder filled with pages of autobiographical stories, photographs, and pictures of things that happened to me during a specific year. I also created a "soundtrack" CD which had up to 2 dozen songs on it. The songs were reminiscent or symbolic of incidents recalled in the yearbook. My completed yearbooks cover 2001-2004. There's also a Disney yearbook with details about our week-long trip to Walt Disney World in January 2004. They are very detailed and usually took about a year or more to complete.

As I said some time around the middle of June 2007, I realized that God had some important things He wanted me to to do. As I soon discovered teaching Children's Church and performing ventriloquism were just two of them. I had to set priorities with the use of my time and abilities. I decided that my Yearbook projects should be at the bottom of the list and that they "didn't make the cut." My 2004 yearbook was my last completed project.

However I did continue taking pictures of people, places, and events that were special in my life. I always felt compelled to do so but a little frustrated that I had nothing to do with them but store them on my computer or print them out and put them in a dull photo album.

Just last week I believe I found the answer to my "picture" problem. The answer begins with the Christmas present my oldest son gave to his mom (my wife): A photo memory book. The book is a cloth bound album of reprinted pictures taken at his wedding last October. It's really nice. When I asked him where he got it he told me it came from Wal-mart. He up loaded pictures onto their photography website, created and customised the book, had it delivered to the local store. Hearing that I experienced a "Eureka!" moment.

I visited the Wal-Mart website and looked at the types of picture books that can be created. What I had found was an answer that would allow me to put my pictures into more accessible format and feed my on-going desire to preserve the memories of each year. I can do them both with the creation of a relatively inexpensive product from Wal-Mart.

I have started working on my 2005 "Pictures of the Year" book and I should be finished by the end of next week. It really doesn't take that much time but I have to make sure it's organized and formatted the way I want it to be before I finally order it.

Don't worry I have this all in perspective. My new Yearbook projects aren't going to suddenly move back to the top of my priority list. I will continue to put my best efforts into the things that are in direct obedience to what I know God wants for my life. In addition creating the books will take less time than before because they involve just a fraction of the material I used to put in my yearbooks.

So there you have the first thing I'm really excited about in 2009: the revival of my Yearbook project but in a different form. I'll let you know when I get the 2005 version completed. Wait, I probably won't have to let you know. I'll more than likely have it with me sometime when I see you and I'll come up to you and ask you if you'd like to see it. You'll say "yes" because know I've at least made you somewhat curious.