Photo Scrapbook

Each New Year's Eve I put together a scrapbook for the year.  Along with the photographs Gary and I take, I put in brochures, maps, and journal entries copied from this blog, or in previous years, newspaper columns I wrote.  I have forty of these scrapbooks in my living room bookcase. Every page is meticulously labeled.

This New Year's will be a little different because what a year 2011 has been!  This was a year of political turmoil in Wisconsin so I have photos from the Madison protests in March.  It was a year spent with nature from our first hike to Fanny Lake in the snows of February and ending in the final autumn camping excursion at Laura Lake in October. In between we observed flora and fauna all around the state.  We canoed, we swam. We counted cranes and guarded sturgeon. There was time we spent with friends from other parts of the country and the world.  There were improvements to this house and a garden to take care of.

Then there was my grandson Evan who lost his first tooth this year, learned how to read, flew a kite and watched hot air balloons with me.  Finally, it was the year of my six week western tour in June and July.

There were so many events in 2011 that there are far too many photos and mementos for one scrapbook. It requires two.  I knew I would never finish recording the year on New Year's Eve, so I started early.  As of today, my June-July western tour is covered in a purple bound book. I've printed out the blog entries that go with the photographs and made additional notations.

All of that work served two other purposes.  Beginning in February, I'll be presenting talks in Wisconsin libraries about my summer journey.  I need to have the photos in order on a CD so I can do a slide show. Most of that work is now complete.  Finally, I am planning on self-publishing a book on my adventures. I will work on that in January.  

That leaves the rest of the year to record. Tomorrow, I'll order some more photos printed up and then be ready to finish that second album as the year comes to a close.