Finally Out of the Closet

Hello world!

I resisted the idea of creating a personal blog for so long. Everyone does it nowadays, right? They put out their thoughts and feelings in the world wide web hoping what they write is interesting enough to create followers. I am old-fashioned in many things. While the rest of the world do not hesitate to share via blogs, I still keep a diary. Yes, yes...I do. It's supposed to be called "journal" now because I am old-er and I no longer write in a red Hello Kitty notebook. However, I still find myself referring to many events in my life as, "dear diary moments", so I am not ashamed to admit that at the ripe age of 40, I still keep a diary. 

I fell in love with the written words in second grade when our Religion teacher, Miss Mendiola assigned us to keep a "Good Deed" diary. Our project was to do good deeds each day and write them down. I was pretty naughty as a child and doing good deed daily was quite challenging to say the least. So, what would a naughty little girl do when forced to do good? I stole canned goods from my grandma's pantry and gave it to the old lady who used to beg every day by the gate of our school. I even gave her rice and a little bit of my allowance. It made me feel good to know I was helping her. I am sure a part of me knew I was doing a "bad deed" by taking from my grandma because I don't remember writing that part down in the diary project. This Robinhood crusade went on for a few weeks until one day I saw that same old lady walking toward the church and there was a little boy who asked her for a piece of the bread that I gave her and she was completely mean to the boy, didn't even share. I was eight years old at that time and realized she didn't deserve my good deed. Heck no! That was all I needed to stop playing Robinhood. I turned in the project and kept my love for writing and reading and everything else that has made me the odd person that I am today. Haha.

So, here I am joining the millions of bloggers sharing their hearts, thoughts and talents with the world. Perhaps this is why I also love to scrapbook because it is my way of marking the special events in my life. I love to stamp and make cards for friends and relatives. I love the feel and smell of paper and the ink stains on my fingers after I pull an all-nighter working away with a bottle of wine while everyone are asleep. I love cutting and making tiny ribbons and adhering beautiful embellishments. I often imagine what the recipients would say when they get my card in the mail. Do they gasp when they open the envelope and see my card? Do they feel happy to be remembered? From time to time I encounter very strange individuals who ask me (and unbeknown to them I want to poke their eyes with a glue gun) why I go through so much trouble to make a card when I could just walk into a drugstore and buy one for a dollar. My answer is always this - I love making them and I love to make people smile. Just the thought that I brightened someone's day or lifted someone's spirit up is reward enough. Surely a sincere thank you is always nice.

I put a lot of work on the cards I make and I hope that I can keep doing this for as long as I can because it really has been a very healthy therapy for me. So here I am, finally out of the closet and hopefully, this is just the first of the many entries I will have the courage to share with the world.