The possible, sort of, end of an era. Maybe.

I'm headed to the US for a business trip next week. (Two nights away from my kiddos, sniff sniff.) So, as I do whenever I head Stateside, I've been figuring out what I need and what can be procured there that I can't get here, or for less money. Case in point: earlier this year, a limited-time-offer school years scrapbook kit went on sale, and I picked up 2 of them. They come with all the pages, inserts, etc. - I just needed binders to put them in. I wanted to get some faux leather binders which are about $40 in Canada but only $19.99 in the US via this link. So I ordered some up, shipped them to the hotel I'm staying at, and I will pick them up at the concierge desk when I arrive.

(I also ordered a smokin' new lens, and I had planned to ship it to my hotel, too, only when I went to check out I discovered the camera store has a policy against shipping to hotels/motels. (I guess I am not the only one to perform this trick!) The good news is that they do ship to Canada, so I sent the order to my house, will suck up the fact that I'll have to pay GST and PST on it when it arrives, and still saved a bundle compared to buying the same lens at home.)

Anyway. All this shopping for stuff, and for scrapbook stuff in particular, got me thinking about what else I might need in the coming months that I could save on by buying now, and I started thinking about my 2009 family album. (My 2008 family album is bursting at the seams right now; I am just hoping to be able to finish off the year without starting a new one!) These faux leather binders are such a deal and come in so many beautiful colours - I was thinking maybe I should get one for 2009 too.

And then I considered giving up scrapbooking in 2009.

Gasp! Horror!... right?? Well, I don't know. I exaggerate when I say 'give up'... more like, scale back. I will still have a book for each of the kids (though Liam's feels sadly neglected lately; it seems to me that there's a lull in life during that time when you've passed all the babyhood milestones, but have not yet started school), and still keep up with an annual page in the birthday books/Christmas book/Halloween book. But as for a 'family book' that covers everything else, the everyday nitty gritty, I am thinking of simplifying a bit. Still documenting life through photos + words but maybe doing it in some sort of hard-bound book that leaves the emphasis on just that - the photos and the story - without the extra design aspect that goes into a scrapbook page. It's a more cost-effective way to go, certainly. But it also strikes a nice balance between still having the creative outlet I enjoy of designing pages on an occasional basis, and getting the documentation that is most important to me done on a regular basis.

The point I've come to in life is making it more apparent than ever that this is the way to go. I have a huge (for me) backlog of pages I want to get done from this summer, when outside pursuits were shelved in favour of building and moving. And now that we've moved, I'm still not finding the time to get to them. The kids are going to bed later, which cuts into our free time at night, and when they do it's usually just a flurry of getting ready for the next day: putting away skating gear, getting a head start on tomorrow's dinner, setting out clothes for the morning. I'm trying to get back into shape. We have all kinds of around-the-house projects to tend to. In short... hobbies are taking a back seat.

So... no 2009 book was ordered. I'm going to pare back a bit. Wish me luck... for a hoarder/packrat/sentimental sap like me, it's going to be hard.