Back to the "Simple Life"

I look at this layout with a little giggle. I submitted this entry for I Remember When's Fall Supplement catty and remember thinking, "oh, I just love it but it doesn't have anything "wow" to it." Well, I suppose I was wrong, it was picked up for their fall supplement catty and boom, it happened, I was published.

It was more of a personal journey, a validation of sorts to get to that point where my creativity was enough to be published. But you know what, I didn't feel any different. Maybe that's when IT happened, that lack of drive in my creativity. I guess being published wasn't what I thought it was going to be and the more I thought about it, the more I ached to be the scrapbooker I used to be, the one who created cute, whimsy pages and never once thought of what it was missing, looked at it from a "design" perspective. I mean, come on , if I created it, that should make it good enough, right?

So, off on my personal journey I began. I thought long and hard about why God saved me, why he let me celebrate victory over a disease that so many don't get the chance to do. What does this have to do with scrapbooking you say? Well, it has so much to do with scrapbooking....it has to do with telling my story and living my story. God decided I wasn't done yet, that I had more to do than be published.

Today, I posted to the IRW forums that I was leaving, wanting to tell all of my sisters goodbye. It has a lot to do with the above ~ my personal journey back to ME. It also has to do with things going on at IRW that I personally do not agree with and do not want to be a part of. Some of you know, some do not, but in January the Design Team at IRW was disbanded, per a conference call. I was not privvy to the call as I was working, but had expectations that the "news" for the DT was awesome, bigger, better news. It was not. To boot, a new program called the Weekly Layout program was enacted to replace the DT Weekly Layout program without so much as a public thank you to those of us who put in time and effort again and again to the DT. I feel a lot of instructors would not want to be a part of the WL program knowing that it replaced the DT and is IRW's way of getting talent for free.....remember the DT was paid (albeit just enough to cover our product costs) but we were paid, the WL program will not be. I personally think not telling all the instructors about the disbanding is dishonest and I do not wish to be a part of that type of environment.....I want more. I was very disappointed that I was deactivated within hours of posting my goodbyes, without so much as a warning, but that's life. To be honest, all of my concerns in this paragraph were made to Amie at the HO last week and I offered her to call and speak with me further if she liked. My message was read (i PM'd it) and never acknowledged......that was the sign that it was time for me to return to the simple life. I am loving that thought. To my IRW friends, please keep in touch! I'll still be here, kicking and hoopin' it up!