My {enough} quotient

Before the twins were born I started a class on Big Picture Classes by Stacy Julian - Finding Photo Freedom. I had purchased the book years prior, but had trouble converting the ideas into my digital scrapbooking life. She only offers the class every 2 years, so when the opportunity arose, I banded together with my good friend Brandi and we took the class together - spurring each other on.

Well, as things usually go for me, I got stuck and sidetracked and then the twins arrived. I didn't finish the class. You aren't surprised, are you? Well, I decided to restart the class recently and one of the first things we are to do is come up with our Enough Quotient.

Stacy quotes Jennifer Louden in the handout that she gave us to describe what she wanted us to do. I know nothing about this Ms. Louden, honestly, but these are true, smack-you-upside-the-head words right here.

"Not declaring satisfaction or "enoughness" is underneath all the shoulds and have tos and draining comparisons that are exhausting you." 

Jennifer Louden

We were supposed to come up with some realistic scrapbooking goals based on our current life situations, schedules, and demands. Well, with twins, 6 other children, homeschooling, yadda, yadda, yadda, you can imagine how much time I have for scrapbooking. Stacy describes scrapbooking as anything you are doing with your photos. That means you can count blogging, posting a picture on facebook, texting your teenager, organizing and tagging your photos, or the actual act of putting pixels to paper (digital paper, in my case) as "scrapbooking".

Here is how I am defining my "enoughness" for scrapbooking right now:

Weekly

• upload photos to Memory Manager 4.0/Historian
• Spend 100 minutes organizing photos (may cut this down)
• Make 2-4 layouts
• blog including a layout with my post

Monthly

• 8 layouts
• 1 Pixels2Pages challenge
• upload to Flickr
• Craft/Scrapbooking night

So all this thinking about Ms. Louden's quote got me to thinking about the rest of my life. The non-scrapbooking stuff. I started realizing how stuck I get because so much stuff in my life I compare to others. I never seem to measure up. Not based on anyone else's spoken opinions of me, but because of my opinion of myself. My lack of "enoughness" gets me in a yucky place where I can do nothing. So I'm either striving too much or doing nothing at all. This isn't what Christ came to earth to do for me. He came to set me free of that junk. Why do I let it hold me back?

I created this layout based on those thoughts and feelings. It is sort of an art journal-y type thing. The kit is from Jennifer Fehr. The journaling is included below. I'm putting myself out here a bit - in hopes that someone else may be able to benefit and see their worth in Christ is already said and done. He is enough. If you are His, you are enough, too.

{While working on my Finding Photo Freedom class I had to come up with an {enough} quotient, which related to how much scrapbooking I wanted to do to feel successful. That started me to thinking about all kinds of other ways where I can find my enough quotient. I realized how much the idea of"enough" really affects me overall. Though Christ has died to set me free from guilt and shame, I feel guilty and am constantly comparing myself to others in so many ways. From homeschool methods and curriculum to how I dress and how behind I am on laundry; never measuring up. But I realize because of Christ's blood shed for me, He declared I am enough.}

I am working on some other "enoughness" goals in homeschool and homemaking. Example: it is enough that my teaching the kids doesn't have be manifest in the 3 R's. I can teach by doing and being and by what Christ is doing in my life. I can teach random or planned non-essential lessons and fun times. I can teach life. I can delegate some teaching responsibilities to Bob Jones DVDs. It is enough that I cook mostly homemade food from scratch. It is enough to do 8 loads of laundry per week. My children will not die pulling clean clothes out of the laundry basket. It is enough to have a mostly decluttered home. 

Still working on all these areas, trying not to get stuck in the feeling of never being/doing enough.