Calendar Girl

There's a big orange box on my front table.  

It holds the future.

Open it...and you'll find 2015.

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Our 2015...birthdays, anniversaries, holidays both major and minor.

Highlights gleaned from the thousands of photographs taken in 2014.  

It took me more than a week to work my way through the scroll of people, places and things that is my Google plus, collecting a birthday cake here, some fireworks there, a bouquet of sporting events and more family get togethers than can be counted.

 I finally stopped when:

1) Shutterfly made a sale offer I couldn't resist for the twelve calendars required..and

2)  my selections exceeded the 500 pictures it is theoretically possible to include in twelve months of daily photos.  

Why be content with Twelve Days of Christmas when you can celebrate all twenty four before and continue right up to New Year's Eve? 

How can I pick and choose between Levi digging in some dirt in June and Lizzie turning a cartwheel in May? An arabesque by Abbie, some intense concentration by Aaron....

....... Gabe's poolside acrobatics....

and an entire month's worth of physiognomy by Joshua Blake.

 Making a calendar is a great way to assess the past and anticipate the future.  Like the sun dial in my garden, it counts 'only sunny hours'.  Storm clouds, skinned knees, disappointment and loss; none of these have their day of the week in my 2015, even though we realize they are certain to follow us from 2014 into this new year.

 Our baseball games are red letter days. 

 We not only celebrate Kenzie's birthday on February 19, but the arrival of pitchers and catchers at spring training. May Day sprouts impatiens

 and Holy Week is celebrated by glorious daffodils, a rainbow of dyed eggs and the little children our Savior loves.

Lizzie wields the jobbers on Arbor Day

...even though she's digging a post hole and not planting a tree. Independence Day 2014 was commemorated by four photographers...and more than 700 pictures!  Tell me we don't throw a Fourth of July extravaganza!

Here is our treasure; this is what we hold dear.  Here are the coins we stack up against those rainy days and Mondays that will pop up on our calendar from time to time.  Here is our blast from the past, our time machine: Hey! Remember this!  A marshmallow, a party dress, a barbeque....a black cow.

Lest we forget....

No wonder I love the TimeHop app; my calendar is the analog version.  It is my year-to-year comparison, a balance sheet counted in  the currency of photos.  By that measure, I'm rich. If every day with a photo is a day to celebrate, call me a party animal.   If my photo album exceeds my allotted daily requirement of calendar days, my cup overfloweth.

 Maybe "eight days in a week"?