Photo Books

I have finally finished my first LONGER photo book!  I decided to give it a go by doing the year 2012 all online as a printed book.  Every year since 1995 I have done one or two family albums a year through scrap booking.  I've always used Creative Memories products and have been happy with the results.  Along with the family albums, I've kept a school album for each of our kids as well as a Christmas album with highlights from each year.  My albums started out all cutesy but over the years have become more like my personality...straight and to the point.  I love taking pictures so of course I want my albums to reflect the many photos I've taken.  So rather than fill the pages with stickers or die cuts, I opt to just use photos and pens.  I like to write a bit about where we were or dates, just for reference, but I really want my pages to be about the photos.

About August of last year I realized I hadn't completed my 2011 album and was already way behind for the current year.  After pinning a few pins on Pinterest about Blurb, I decided to give it a try for a year.  I was able to get caught up and keep it up throughout the year.  My family has had mixed reviews about this idea of mine.  They all love to look through our albums and are afraid this book won't be the same.  Honestly I have that concern as well.  I've done photo books in the past from other sites and I do love them, but haven't felt that they are quite the same as a homemade album.

Have any of you switched from a scrap book type of album to a printed book and had success?  I'd love to hear some feedback.

Sing Me Home

I just finished Jodi Picoult's new book, Sing Me Home.   It ended up being better than I thought it was in the beginning.  Let me just start by saying that Picoult is my absolute favorite author.  I have read all of her books and only Tenth Circle was disappointing.  The rest were all fabulous.  So when I saw that this one was coming on 3/1, I pre-ordered it!  I was so excited to be getting a new book since the ones I'd been reading have been pretty drab.  I was in the middle of Freakonomics, and was looking forward to a great read.  Getting back to the book at hand, I'd say on a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 6.  It came with a CD that you played at certain points throughout the book.  And while I did enjoy the songs, I thought it was a little weird.  I also didn't really like the two main characters, Zoe and Vanessa.  I liked Vanessa better than Zoe, but I felt they both were lacking something.  I thought Zoe's profession was the most interesting thing about her.  And along those lines, I really liked Lucy and I hated not having a better ending for her.  I also didn't like the ending.  Maybe I can get how she ended up with the embryos but I didn't get Libby.  It was all a little over the top for me.  But no I won't give up on Picoult.

The Shunning

I'm reading a book called The Shunning right now.  It's a book I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own, but a friend put it out there for her book club and I decided to give it a read.  It's about the Amish community, and so far I'm really enjoying it.  I've always been fascinated by the Amish, in fact I always tell my kids I'm going to become a Pilgrim.  It's our little joke, my way of telling them that I need to slow down.  I love the way they live their lives.  It's simple, yet the sense of community is so strong.  The women work together, they socialize and they value hard work.  As I've been adding more and more to my schedule, this book has been a good reminder of the things that are important.