Virtual Scrapbook Festival

 Well this is a fun week for me! I am getting ready to start The Awesome Ladies Virtual Scrapbook Festival. I'm so excited about all of the great festivities. This group of ladies don't realize it but in the past three years, they have saved my life. It has been a rough three years and they have been such a support to me. The are a like minded caring group of feminists and I don't know what I would do without them.

I will be making a lot of art and learning some new techniques. I'm mostly excited about the connection with the community. Go to the website to join in on the fun. There are two levels: group members which is free and VIP upgrade at a small cost. We will be:

• learning
• sharing
• taking classes
• interacting
• playing games
• doing documenting challenges
• hanging out with people all over the world

Everyone who loves to create and document is welcome; join in the fun!

Perfectionism

 What is up with me? Why can't I start something and finish it? Why do I feel like I need all of the right things and everything has to be perfect? 

Today I have been thinking a lot about this and why I haven't started some things. For example, I think about my family history book about women. I do research and have a vision, but I just can't get started because I want to find the right album and I want to do these women justice. What colors do I want to use? Does there have to be a format? Ugh!

I just need to take the Nike attitude and do it!!! Write the damn story and decorate it! Get on the road and move forward.

Photo by Tim Hüfner on Unsplash

Impact of being exposed to history

 Last week I posted about diaries I've read that have made me a better person, but also about women, their thoughts and what they were experiencing; good bad or indifferent. 

When I was a little girl, I lived in a small town called Connell, WA. I believe in 1976, the population was 1979. I remember this because everyone wanted three people to move so we could be 76 in '76, the year of the United States of America Bicentennial. In elementary school, we watched the historical fiction movie Seven Alone (1974) in the theater which made me think about the Sagar family and moving West. I actually obsessed about the Sagar children, who were real and their experiences as they lost their parents on the Oregon Trail and moved  in with the Whitman family. As a child, for school field trips, girl scouts, family trips I visited Fort Walla Walla and the Whitman Mission or Waiilatpu often. This and some other experiences that I will share later made me start thinking about westward movement, church history and the importance of women in that story. For example, what what it like to lose a child in a creek for Narcissa Whitman? What was it like to leave New York in a wagon or have to marry a man so you could participate in mission work?

On the flip side, I then asked myself questions about the Native Americans. What was it like to have children die from measles? How did they respond to the loss of the young Cayuse men who were hung? These women's stories are important!

On my bookshelf in my office is The Shallow Grave at Waiilatpu: The Sagers' West by Ewin N Thompson (1973), one of the first books I had to help me find answers to my questions.

Photo by Grianghraf on Unsplash

Documenting is important

 Today, I am posting about an incredible group who align with my ideals about the importance of women and women's stories. Last week, I spoke a little about the Awesome Ladies Project and my trip to East Lansing, Michigan. The trip was to Awesome Ladies Live and was part of an annual event run by Kristin or @rukristin who started and is owner of The Awesome Ladies Project. 

The reason I resonate with Kristen is because of her feelings about intersectional relationship and the importance of women's stories and women documenting them. I have always felt that women for years and years have passed down their wisdom and listened and shared with one another; often through isolation from men, quilting bees, garden groups, sewing guilds, salons, homemakers clubs and church ("the church ladies"). Many of these everyday trials were not written down or shared except verbally and this has always been frustrating for me as a reader, historian, genealogist and documenter. 

Over the years, I have been the girl looking for stories of the women of the past. What were their lives really like? Why are they swept under the rug? How hard was it for my great great great grandmother to drag her two young daughters half way across the world to North Idaho where people only spoke English? I have read the few diaries available by women; mostly women who are "important" in history whose thoughts and ideas do not align with mine today. Through those writings, I have been able to develop who I am today and have an understanding of the past and move forward into the future.

Kristin's ideas behind documenting your everyday life and making art is important for everyone, especially today. She is asking us to document our everyday lives. She has a Monday documenting practice called Currently where you can can document the things you are doing and feeling right now. On Thursdays, she asks you to document a selfie and share three right now things. I love to read through my Instagram and the Awesome Ladies Project website and see what people are doing and watching. It has helped me connect with people all over the world. 

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash