Since the nature of my work (editor of a local newspaper) requires me to stay most of the time in front of the computer, I spend most hours of the day in my home office. Well, this is a win-win situation for me as I am able to do my job while at the same time move around the house, supervising the househelp or simply doing chores myself in between breaks.

But it is summer - and this summer vacation, my house will expectedly turn into some sort of pandemonium as the kids will spend many days at home and maybe some of their cousins will be coming over to visit or even stay for a few days.

My, my… I should be ready for such disruption - although I warmly welcome the respite from my humdrum daily routine.

… I am thinking that this summer, I should start my long-planned and much delayed project. I intend to arrange and fix my files. I also intend to gather all our family photographs and post them in albums to add to our family heritage collection.

The kids have grown so fast. It does not seem long ago when they were in their early teens, then late teens, and now early 20s. I cannot grasp them anymore. Like a friend told me - “You can never snip the wings of your young ones. Once they grow their wings, they will naturally want to flap them and wander about.”

This is the very reason why I need to pursue this family album project.

I want to record the memories of my kids’ earlier years. I want them to have something to snatch out from the shelf, to look at themselves in their charming innocence and thereby learn to cherish their childhood more. This is not to say that they will have to bask in the past - but rather to relish it and serve as a holding ground for them to make them always want to come back to their roots no matter how far they have flown about.

My son who is a web designer has offered to help me on this project. He suggested that we store the photos in a file in my computer and assemble them in slide form. I thought this could be nice, smart and trendy but I have opted for the old fashioned photo albums.

Nothing can replace the feel of the pages as they are flipped one by one - with every single picture beaming and telling a story of its own.