Our Handwriting

A few years ago, I attended a scrapbooking bible study class.  I know, it probably sounds like an odd combination, but it was great.  Lisa Welchel from the old TV show, The Facts of Life, created it.  I paid my fee, received my supplies and for a couple months, every other week, I met with a small group of ladies.  We watched a video with a devotional, had some discussion and worked on our pages for the lesson.

The book we created was a scrapbook about ourselves that we would pass down to our child(ren).  I only made one (hopefully one of my kids will want it) and I love it.  We journaled our family trees, about where and when we met our husbands, about our children, parents, childhood, church, etc.  It's a pretty neat little book.

I'm somewhat of a perfectionist and at times, I simply could not make my mind up about what to put where or what to say because I wanted it to be just right.  I think that is probably the bulk of my problems with a past want-to-be-scrapbooker obsession.  It just never took off because I couldn't seem to force myself to just cut the picture and put it on the page...for fear of it not being perfect.  I've since moved on...

But one of the important aspects of the scrapbook that Lisa really pushed on us was journaling and writing things in our book in our handwriting.  Yes, I really wanted to type things out in a creative font on my computer and print, but Lisa insisted it was important for our children to see our handwriting.  Hmm.

I'm not a fan of my handwriting.  I often say, "And you can see that that's why I type."  It just isn't that great. Part of my problem is that I don't slow down and take the time to make it pretty and legible.  (Imagine that.)

But I bought some fancy gel pens and I penned in my little "All About Me" scrapbook.  It turned out okay. Shamefully, as I write this, I think I may even need to finish one last page - which is so like me...ah!

These past few weeks, for some reason, my Grandma K's handwriting has been popping up everywhere.  Lane pulled out a word-find book that I had in my bible bag at church during revival and I saw her name handwritten across the top.  That made me smile.  Last week while cleaning and sorting camper items for the camper, I was going through the utensils and found this metal thing (I have no clue what it is) in a plastic sleeve and written across it, in my Grandma's handwriting, was a description of it and who gave it to her. (She was notorious for making notations on things that people had given to her, who it was from and for what.)  Seeing that one kind of did numbers on my stomach.

I don't know what certain characteristics of our handwriting says about us, but I do know that they become part of our identity.  Do you ever reach in the mailbox and pull out an envelope with no return address and know immediately, by the handwriting, who sent it?  My mom has pretty nice handwriting and I can easily pick it out without hesitation.  If she has left me a note or made a notation on something, I know without seeing who it is from that that is my mother's.  There are some other 'mothers' out there whose handwriting I also recognize easily.

My Grandma L had very pretty handwriting.  It was curvy and flowed smoothly from one letter to another.   I imagine she didn't apply much pressure to her pen.  Grandma K's was completely different.  It was very deliberate; each and every letter appeared to be made with just the right amount of pressure and precision. She wrote in cursive, but it didn't seem nearly as pretty as Grandma L's.

It's funny how things come back around.  When I was attending that bible study, listening to Lisa talk about the importance of your handwriting and its legacy, I never once thought I would appreciate its value.  But here I am, thinking about my handwriting and the handwriting of my loved ones...