Project Life - scrapping the "non" fun things

Like you, I documented when a tooth broke. I didn't want to use a photo, but I finally found a use for my Studio L2E stamp sets which feature "colorful language"...

I've had plenty of pictures of my kids having meltdowns, my face all numbed up at the dentist's office, my dad's passing (I included a beautiful sky photo I took that week before I knew he was going to pass and while I have pictures of him in his final moments, I only included photos of my hand with his...I couldn't bring myself to include photos of him looking the way he did), and now I'll be including a lot of journaling related to my husband's recent job change. If his job change had just been a job loss (he was offered another position he applied for about 26 or 27 hours after he was 'laid off' from his prior job) I probably wouldn't be scrapbooking at all...I'd be way too stressed about money and prepping our house to sell. Obviously, I don't have pictures of him leaving his job...I wasn't about to snap a picture of my husband when he got home with tears streaming down his cheeks, my aim was to give him a hug and comfort him. He found out right after he started that he was going to get business cards (not something he's had in years and initially thought it wasn't meant for him but they made him fill it out because he's the primary first contact for certain things) and he received them yesterday. I took one and inserted it into a pocket for the week he received his job offer. I do have a photo of him from his first day, but to record the bitter ending to a 16 year career that he absolutely loved until about 4 years ago when management tanked, I picked up the Dreamer themed kit on a resale group from Kelly Purkey. He's been wanting to leave that job for a while but there was never anything in his narrow field of expertise out there...when he knew he was being targeted there was ONE opportunity for him that would work perfectly if he managed to get a call back and even more of a long shot (it felt anyway) a job offer. Turns out the job he applied for was written for someone specific (he had a friend who told him about that person and said the person declined the position...apparently not the case) but there was another opening he was unaware of when he applied that they asked him if he wanted to interview for when he went in to interview for the first position (which means they loved him on paper and didn't want to lose him, so putting him in a position he was vastly overqualified for was better than losing out on the chance to hire him at all).

Just a few facts I plan to discuss:

He found out last week that there were over 300 applicants for the job(s) and with the one position written for a SPECIFIC person, it meant that the 300 other people who applied were all after the job he now has.

His prior job relocated their office from about 7 minutes away to a 30 minute drive, crossing the worst freeway in the state during MAJOR expansion back in November.

His skill set is so specific that there were literally less than 6 jobs that we could find that we could make work in the ENTIRE country.

The chances of us not having to relocate were insanely slim and most were in larger cities that would have made his 30 minute commute a dream.

And yet...somehow, with everything working against us, his new job is 5 minutes away from the house, not clear across the country.

All of this is hard to record with a photo...but I have major plans to say a lot and I will include photos that I feel are applicable, in addition to his business card. If he didn't have a business card, I probably would have stolen a copy of the organization's logo or had him take a picture of the front door (when we went to take him lunch one day he was asked not to make plans to leave for lunch, I took a picture of the exterior of the building).  The Dreamer theme fits perfect to record this change.  During the entire process, after everything that had gone wrong in our lives recently, it seemed impossible to think that he'd end up being able to get a job that wouldn't mean drastic changes for our family.  I would walk through the house and look at the stained walls (gotta love having young kids and flat paint) and get teary eyed at the prospect of leaving the place where their childhood memories have been formed.  The number of things that had to go right after everything that had gone wrong felt insurmountable...and yet, here we are.  Feeling the most comfortable we have in a long time.  I feared making plans to buy something as simple as a can of paint or building the bed we picked up for our room in case we needed the cash and now we feel like we can have a life again.  And he loves his job.  Something he hasn't been able to say in years.  There is a lot of reflection that will happen regarding our fear and worry before we got to where we are now, though, that's for sure!  It's as relevant to our lives (we were at a stand still for weeks, I struggled to eat because I was constantly stressed out and panicky) as anything else and the uncertainty at his prior job was absolutely terrifying in spite of his lack of fulfillment in being there.

All of that to say, there are ways to record things without having specific photos. You can swipe a business card from the dentist's office, you can take a picture of you sitting at the steering wheel about to go in or of the front of the building, or even include a receipt for your financial responsibility for the work being done or just include a picture of you when it's been corrected and write about how you felt during the entire process. I like the idea of finding an appropriate meme, too. Or even something along the lines of what you'd see in a yearbook when kids miss picture day that is essentially just a grey box that says 'no photo available' set up on a 3x4 card to look like a Polaroid so you can journal underneath.

I scrap the good and bad. When my DD broke her front tooth many years ago, we have pictures and pages on that. We have pictures of various injuries and ice bags being used. When she was younger, it would also make her laugh if we took a picture of whatever injury she had at the time, even through her tears. We have pages with my wisdom teeth surgery, and then DD's. We also have emergency room pages of my hubby having to go there 2 days in a row this year. We try to highlight what our days are really like around here. I like the Perfectly Imperfect mini Kit by Becky Higgins. It has cards like -Seriously, Not My Most Favorite, and things like that. Great for some of our pictures.