An Ordinary Life

I got a hold of the book Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It was so highly recommended by Julian Stacy in her book The Big Picture that I had to see what she was so inspired by. She's even going to offer a scrapbooking class using the book as a guide.

First, just check out Amy's web site for loads of fun! This woman is chock full of creative ideas, like how she left 150 books intentionally in public places for people to find and write back the story of where and when they found the book. Wouldn't it be fun to randomly leave cards with your blog address on it for people to find?! Then have them write a comment on your blog about where they are and how they found it.

The book is written in the style of an encyclopedia (hence the name). It's basically Rosenthal's "musings on moments in everyday life." I found that I was really inspired by this book too. Her writing style is witty and very easy to read...and savor. It's an intriguing way to categorize the bits and pieces of life. I like how she writes in a voice that explains things to someone that may be reading this in the (distant) future. The book is a time capsule of one "ordinary" life at one particular time in history. I admire that she sees her life as something worthwhile to write about. It's nothing extraordinary, but it's worth leaving a trace. Shouldn't we all. That reminds me of the NPR radio show This American Life.

Wouldn't it be fun to do a scrapbook album for each letter of the alphabet? Instead of having just written entries, have a layout for each entry under the particular letter! You could also scrapbook her idea of "Orientation Almanac", facts about American life at this moment in time. Or an album memoir of sorts "The Evolution of a Moment" taking snippets of your life from birth to present. Oh, if I just had more time....

I think I will do an alphabetized entry here in my blog to get things started. More to come..

A

ArtsyMama- I decided to write a blog in November of 2005. I'm not exactly sure what I was looking to do. Self indulgence some might say. I use it as a way to organize different facets of myself. I can keep track of books I'm reading, web sites I find, networking that I'm doing. I also want to put something out there that may actually be useful to someone else. Maybe even find a few like-minded souls. So I started and now I can't stop posting:) Ideas keep running around in my head since I now have a place to put them all down. We'll see where it takes me.

I love how on the web site there is an anagram for the title of the book. Let's try one for ArtsyMama....
A smart yam

Can anyone think of others?