A decade ago: 911 meant calling for the police (not a day of national terrorism); Ipod hadn’t been invented, a gallon of gas was $1.13, a postage stamp was .32, Bill Clinton was President, Michael Jordan played for the Chicago Bulls, a weather phenomenon known as “el Niño” came into the news and the last episode of Seinfeld was viewed by 76 million. A decade ago, my daughter was a six year old little girl. She hadn’t yet lost her front teeth (she just got her braces off a month ago after three years), her favorite things were her Lego’s and goofy glasses, and her favorite TV show was Duck Tales.
A decade ago…when Shanna started first grade, we were in the process of opening our scrapbook store, Scrapbook Sanctuary. In the last ten years, we have opened and sold (after four years of long grueling hours, new friendships and thousands of stickers and paper) our scrapbook store; I discovered that I had Hepatitis C and endured and triumphed over a year long “chemo treatment” (I was in stage 3 of 4 with a 35% chance of successfully beating it); my husband started working part-time at UPS to give us health insurance and is now a full-time driver making more than we ever imagined; we’ve moved twice and now live in a condo (with no yard work!); we found a church we love; my husband and I celebrated 25 years of marriage; I have embraced scrapbooking in new ways and have been published twice as a scrapbooker.
Ten years later, she’s 16 and a junior in high school as of today…she has her driver’s permit, an ITouch and cell phone, has been to Mexico on a mission trip with our church, has been to more school dances in two years than I’ve ever been to in my life and two years from now will technically be “an adult”.
A decade of blessings: reasonably good health; a beautiful, funny daughter who was baptized last year and recently took a Purity vow; I have a job I like; good friends; a wonderful husband who loves me just the way I am; three of our four parents are still alive and relatively healthy. Ten years of changes, life lessons, challenges and heartaches. and yet, looking back, I wouldn’t trade any of it…the good or the bad. I appreciate life more now than I did back then and I know that I need to treasure every crazy, wild, drama-filled moment of these next few years…to document and photograph as much as possible Shanna’s journey from high schooler to adult…because it will go by in the blink of an eye. When she and I are having a battle over homework, or her messy room, or how many text messages she has sent; I need to remind myself that this is life…our life and too soon it is gone and she will be an adult and another decade will have come and gone. Treasure today…
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