Today I’m writing with a happy heart.  For the first time in 20 plus years I actually have 500 of my 3,000 recipes organized.   I had them professionally scanned with Recipe Runway and in just days those messy, over flowing, unorganized recipes now have one home to reside in - my personal recipe center.  They are categorized, easy to access, shareable and online.  I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am.  For a life time recipe collector there is light at the end of the recipe tunnel!

It has been like seeing old friends again.  There is such rich history, memories, and stories with each one of the recipes.  Seeing all the different old fashioned recipe cards, torn out magazine photos with recipes, the little personal notes, my Mother’s handwriting, and of course the little stains –has been  a great joy.  Having the recipes preserved like this I’m filled with gratitude.  Gratitude because my life has had many special moments and occasions with family and friends and these cherished recipes have played a special role in those moments.

Both my Mother and Brother have had a good portion of their collections scanned with Recipe Runway and now are online also.  The recipe center has a section to add stories with the recipe so we decided to take the time to do this with our favorite signature recipes.  This has lead to many fun conversations as we try to get all the facts and stories about our collections correct.   We may start out talking about a recipe but the conversation always ends up about the family, friends, settings, traditions or little details that warm our hearts, and this is where  the real value lies.   Needless to say, we have been sharing many recipes and stories back and forth.    I applaud all these little scraps of paper, pull outs from magazines, old fashioned recipe cards or our online finds, because they connect and bond us forever with our families and friends.  

I promise my future blogs won’t be about me getting organized – but this has been such fun, and I’m getting organized…I just had to share!

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Keep collecting and connecting - Lori