CARDS

My hobby for the last 30+ years has been scrapbooking. Yes, I have pretty much scrapbooked every.single.detail of my children’s lives. As an example, when Brett was a preschooler he was briefly lost in a store for about 10 seconds. As I was headed toward the front of the store a call came over the PA for “the scrapbook lady”. Yes, that is what my child responded when asked “what is your mommy’s name?”  Little dude didn’t know my name, but knew what I did. 🙄 There is probably a lesson to be learned there. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anyway, once my kids grew up, became surly teens and stopped doing cute things that matched my cute stickers, I scrapbooked less. And discovered card making. I love making cards. Sometimes I even send them. LOL I’m not so good at keeping up with those things on a timely basis and by the time I get around to sending a get well card, the person is well. Clearly, I have focusing issues. Birthday cards are so frequently late that I actually bought a stamp for the back of the envelope that says something along the lines of “sorry this is late. I suck at mailing things.” 😂

For the past several years I have been involved with a ministry at church for our widow ladies. We have a large number of widows in our congregation and I make about 90 Christmas and birthday cards for them each year. Other than making around 120 Christmas cards to send from our family, it’s my biggest project each year. And I’m already behind on that (was planning to work on those at an upcoming 10 Day Retreat that I had to back out of. 😢). But ya know what….its okay. It’s okay if I don’t get to them this year, though I might. It’s a good “stuck at home” project. The good thing for me about making cards for the widow ladies is that all I do is make them. Somebody else is in charge of mailing them. That’s works really well for me and my ADD brain. 

Anyway…..often, I don’t send a card that I made because I think it doesn’t look “good enough” or because I think people will think I made a pitiful little “homemade” card. (Ok, some self esteem issues here, too. I see how in the course of this blog we are going to analyze me. LOL) 

These past 2 weeks while Kevin has been in the hospital I see things differently. He LOVES getting cards (at home, under normal circumstances, most of the “good mail” is mine.  So he loves getting mail.) And he loves ALL THE CARDS. All of them. We have hung them on the walls of his hospital room, as they come in. When we were packing up to head to rehab on Monday he asked me to make sure I got his cards. I assured him that I did, and today I hung them on his wall here. 

What it has taught me is that everybody loves mail and it doesn’t matter in the least if it is perfect or has an ink splotch on it (sooooo many of mine have inks splotch oopsiees) or if it is handmade, or store bought or colored by a child. They are all fabulous and loved. And go on the wall. 💖 Everybody loves mail!

And once we get past this hiccup, I’m going to be a lot better about sending cards. Even the messy imperfect ones. Especially the messy imperfect ones.