Yearbook Duty

Apparently, I'm a yearbook-y kinda gal. Who'da thunk it?

When they asked for junior high student volunteers to help with the yearbook earlier in the year, my daughter volunteered -- mainly, I think, because she has this thing about being involved in everything possible and giving everything out there a shot to see if she loves it. One of many things I appreciate in her. But she's not that into photography (unlike our eldest), and, well, I just wasn't sure this would click with her.

And when the current sponsor approached me at a meeting asking if I'd be interested in taking over that duty next year, I was more than hesitant. It just didn't sound like me. And it sounded like a lot of work.

But last Saturday, there was a workday to start putting pages together . . . and I think the youngest and I are about to become junkies.

You know what creating a yearbook is these days? It's scrapbooking. Digital scrapbooking. Have I mentioned that I used to be a Creative Memories consultant? Oh, yeah. This is SO right up my alley. Choose a background pattern. Click and drag pictures. Reshape, rearrange, add text, choose fonts . . . we could have done this for HOURS.

I dated the yearbook editor my senior year of high school, so I have some concept of what it used to take to put together a yearbook. It was a huge task. Hours in the dark room, among other things. This is not the case anymore. This thing is a breeze! This thing is a joy, even! I may very well end up loving this gig.

Now, fortunately, another mom is in charge of the photography end, because that part I couldn't do well. She'll have a crew of folks taking pictures at events -- we just tell them what events we need pictures from. And other parents in the school contribute pictures, too. The school has a site on Shutterfly where anyone can upload pictures they took pertaining to school, and anyone from the school can download what's there for their own use. Kinda cool! Especially for us moms who are forever forgetting the camera or who are too occupied with the actual event to remember to chronicle it for posterity.

And do you know, even selling the yearbook is easy now! When it's all finished, we send an email out to the parents with a link to the website. They order their own directly from the company: a hardback copy, a softback copy, or an e-book. (An e-yearbook! Modern times, folks!) Not only that, get this: if they want to, they can pay a little extra to add some more pages at the end with their own personal pictures before it gets printed. Isn't that amazing? Forgive me if this is old news to you all who have had kids in school all this time. I'm just astounded.

So, one mom is in charge of photography. I'm the staff mentor. And my youngest and her best friend are the student editors. And I'm excited about this now!

And I'm not sure why that surprises me so much. But what a pleasant surprise!