Who would have thought...Looking back at the beginning of the year

Now that Distance Learning is in full swing in Minnesota, I am busy all day long, setting up my classes, assessing student work, emailing (lots of that!), and Google meeting. As a result, I'm not scrapbooking as much. I'll share what I make as I finish.

In the meantime, I thought I'd go back to two pages I made for Simple Scrapper in January to start the year:

This page is actually really important right now. I looked back on the last year and some struggles we went through and reframed them as positives. I'm finding myself doing that a lot nowadays, of course, taking small sips of gratitude as the day progresses.

Craft-wise, I love the stitching template. It comes from a misting mask from Studio Calico, but you could achieve the same effect with a ruler and a paper piercer.

I used some flowers that I tore off a greeting card to use. I like the effect.

Next is a page about an event that broke my heart last year, the sudden death of my dog Lola:

For me, pages about loss are also pages about memory. I want to remember them, so I like recording the great things we experienced. In this case, my dog Lola in December stopped moving and eating, so we took her to the vet, where we discovered she was suffering from blood inner chest cavity, more than likely from a heart tumor. There was no end available that did not include terrible suffering, so we said her goodbyes. As she passed, I reminded her of all the terrific adventures she'd been on as a part of our family. The journaling here basically recounts what I said. That is what I want to carry in my heart.

Craft-wise, I ended my journaling with perhaps my favorite memory, one that the right hand photo shows. I think ending with the best memory is a good way to commemorate tough things.