so this weekend, i got to see one of my older sisters at work. it was pretty cool, i must say. i mean, we talk about her work a lot, and i know she knows all kinds of good stuff about what she does. but watching her do an actual presentation on it was different. she is really passionate about it and really believes it. she also really likes that she is helping other people acheive their goals. i was so impressed! throw any problem at her, and she can solve it! give her any excuse, and she can combat it!!

now, you may be wondering what it is that she does. well, i'll tell you. she is a creative memories consultant. if you're not familiar with them, they are a company that creates photo-safe albums, inks, mounting paper, etc. anything you could need for scrapbooking. they are really a lot more than that, though. they also provide an extensive community for those of us who are interested in preserving our photos, and they have millions of hints and tips for getting this done quickly and attractively. anyway, the stuff is really awesome. it will really protect your pictures and help them last way longer than you or i will.

and for some people, that might not be such a big deal. but, see, we come by this scrapbooking fetish honestly. our mother currently has some 36 photo albums. not only are these albums a fairly complete photo record of the life of our family, they have also been indexed thoroughly. so if you want to find the album that has your 6th birthday in it, just go to the index and look it up. it's really really crazy. but it's so awesome! i mean, we get those albums out just about every time we go home. they just never get old, you know.

but here's how freaky my mom is about these. you know when you're a kid, and your parents make you do the fire drill so you'll know the quickest way to get out of the house in the middle of the night in a fire? well, my mom's fire drill route took us all past the big bookcase with the photo albums in it. we each grabbed as many as we could carry, and then we fled for safety.

i mean really, those albums can't be replaced, you know. you can always have more kids.