Family Road Trip

 

Last weekend I took a very quick road trip with my mom and both daughters. We went to Chicago (about three hours from here) to watch my niece sing in her college jazz vocal group. It was a rather expensive trip - hotels in downtown Chicago don't come cheap! But it was a nice bonding experience. In addition to spending time with my three favorite women, I got to see my niece. And an added bonus was seeing her dad, my youngest brother. Ken lives in North Carolina so it's been a really long time since I've seen him.

Having family spread out so far makes it difficult to maintain close ties. Of course, now it's easier with email and social media. But my brothers don't get on facebook often, so they don't see my news and I don't learn about theirs. One brother informed me that email is not a reliable way to notify him about things because his messages tend to get lost! We muddle along, though, using old-fashioned technology like telephones (yes, they're cell phones!).

I guess the point of this is that family ties, when they're strong enough to begin with, can persevere even though long periods of absence. Because we've had a long past, we'll continue on. That's what families do.

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This week's project took a whole ten minutes to complete, once I got all the materials assembled. I took an old chipwood box and covered it with scrapbooking paper and ribbon and decorated it so it looks nice on the mantle or on an end table. I'm having so much fun trying to get things made each week using stuff I already have in the house! I wonder how long I can keep it going.