enJOY it by Elise Blaha Cripe

5.

Yesterday, my blog turned five.

I started a free trial with typepad on Christmas Day in 2005. I was 20 and home from college for Christmas break. I had just finished my year-long term as president of my sorority and was so excited about going back to school without the monkey on my back of being in charge of 150 college girls.

I was a junior at USC and I lived in a house with my best friends. I was majoring in Business with an emphasis in marketing. I combed internship websites looking for a job everyday. My career goals changed with the wind. I was the most single I'd ever been - meaning I had been out of a relationship for almost a year and didn't have a boy I was interested in. Marriage was something I had decided to consider when I was twenty-eight.

I was 20! So young and new. I wrote about my girlfriends and our adventures to the neighborhood bar. I wrote about my classes, homework assignments and favorite lectures. I wrote about books I was reading and ideas I was having.

Five years later - I've graduated college. I've fallen in love with the boy next door. I've moved across the country and back. I've started a business. I've gotten married and contemplated having little ones. This blog has played witness to the most life changing moments I've had.

This blog has become such a big part of me. It is my resume much more than a black and white word document could ever be. Other than eating, putting on sunscreen and watching TV on DVD, it's only hobby I have stuck with consistently.

Blogging has helped me make friends with people all over the world. It has helped me keep in touch with people I already knew in real life. Without this blog there is no way I would have an online business. There is no way I would be able to work from home and do what I love. The best thing I ever did for my career was decide to start typing. (How odd is that?)

I am honored that so many people have stumbled on to this blog and were interested enough in what I had to say to come back again. I put a lot of time and energy into this space but it never feels like work.

Thank you for reading. And happy birthday, little blog. You're a keeper.

she & he in december.

They got their Christmas cards out this month with way too much fanfare.

She realized early in the month that newly-married couples are quick to get cute holiday cards mailed out.

And they like to share wedding photos on them.

But alas, she had already decided their cards would be neither early nor with photos.

He started seeing all the photo-ed cards they were recieving and was all about including a picture in their card.

Unfortunately, he made his opinions known after she had already signed, sealed, addressed and stamped the cards.

She thought about it, and he was right.

So she ordered 50 honeymoon photos, re-opened envelopes and redid the whole event.

Next year, she is asking him in October if he has ideas for their holiday cards.

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And in all seriousness, Merry Christmas from the Cripe's! Paul managed to get today and tomorrow off so we are laying low and then heading up to Sacramento to see our families tomorrow evening. Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the whole season and I'm glad we'll get to spend it with everyone we love. We're looking forward to a few days away ... I'm not even bringing my computer in my suitcase. I hope you have a wonderful & warm weekend, whatever you celebrate. Look for a special post on Sunday and then lots of jam-packed posts next week. We've got a brand new year to usher in and I've got about 20 resolutions to make.

a blaha (and now cripe) family christmas tradition.

Growing up, we had a few holiday traditions. One of our favorites was filling in and reading through the family Christmas book that my parents had received as a wedding gift in 1981.

The book has 25 two page spreads which have a place to share a family photo from Christmas eve or day, a place to journal what you did during the holiday season, a place to share the holiday card you mailed out and a place to share what happened to the family during the past year.

My parents took a lot of film photos of us as kids, but they did not do any memory-keeping or documenting with words other than this book - which, as it turns out, is really all you need. The book was packed away with our decorations every year and only came out each December. Reading back through the entries and seeing the photos change was always sweet & hilarious. When we got older, Robbie and I would help my mom make long lists of what had happened to each family member and then she would transcribe it into the book. My parents are now onto their second album and my mom types the journaling and tapes it in - too much happens each year to hand-write it all into the small space provided.

When Paul and I got married, my parents bought us our own book. I filled it in one night last week and added our Christmas card (the photo is on the back and the card flips up). I will adding a Christmas photo we take in our apartment before we fly up to Sacramento on Christmas Eve. I want to be sure the photo shows where we are living as that will change so often over Paul's military career.

I remember reading about the four Christmases my parents spent together before I was born with fascination - it's always so hard to imagine your parents existing before you - and I love that our little ones will grow up with the same feelings.

Seriously, best tradition ever. I am so thankful my mom took the time to capture our family every December and passed the idea on to me. And thanks Mom, for snapping the some photos of the Blaha family book for me to share.

holiday book update #5.

Holiday cards, Paul's 28th birthday, finding out we're moving to Ventura, holiday parties, Christmas flowers, the Nutcraker & filling in our family Christmas book. Busy week. click any image to enlarge.

See more pages from this book here, here, here and here.

experimenting.

I've been playing around with paint today and "practicing" my handwriting. Getting a paint brush to work like a pen is much harder than it looks.