A Day in my Life

Yesterday, we (The Scrapbook Nerd online store) spent the day in Cambridge, ON at the Making Wishes Come True fund-raising crop. It was a great day - a busy one for us, but a lot of fun. There were 45 women there.  I love days like that - so many people who all share the same passion for a memory-keeping hobby - all in one place.  I always come home feeling inspired and blessed.

Yesterday also marked the closing day of the Scrapbook Nerd Monthly Challenge. This month the challenge was to create a layout about yourself.

That's not always the easiest thing for me to do - for several reasons - I don't have a lot of exciting things to share about myself, and I don't have many photos of myself since I'm usually behind the camera.  However, I recently cleaned out a storage space in the basement where I found a box of older photos that I had stored away.   In that box was this photo of myself at 17 with my youngest brother, Rick, who has Downs Syndrome. I knew I had to create this layout!!

The Summer That Changed Everything

The journaling reads:

The summer of 1979 was a life-changing one for both Ricky and myself. Ricky had lost his sight a year before that and as a result of his frustration, he had become very self-abusive. He had to wear a jacket that had wood splints in the arms, to prevent him from bending his arms and hitting himself.
I was at the end of my grade 12 year in school and had very little direction. I had applied to a summer job, which I didn't get, and so I was going into the summer with nothing to do, and no clue what I wanted to do after I finished grade 13. There was no one for me to hang around with as all my siblings and friends were away for the summer working. So ... it was just Ricky and I.
I had seen a movie that year about a family who had a boy who was just diagnosed with autism. They had decided to spend every moment with him, trying to bring him out of his inner world - and they were successful. It had a big impact on me and I decided to devote my summer to doing the same with Ricky. We spent every waking moment together, doing whatever we felt like doing. It was a summer I will always remember. We hung out in the backyard, we went for walks, ate ice cream. By the end of the summer, he no longer needed the arm splints, I had figured out my calling to work with Special Needs people, and Rick and I developed a very close relationship that continues 35 years later!





I love this photo, and love what it represents.  I'm so glad I found it!