I have just begun my monumental project book: An illustrated autobiography

Why do I want to make an illustrated autobiography?

• I enjoy looking at my recently created book projects, Our Families and My First Book of Essays. It will be fun to see this new project in book form.

• I can be as creative as I wish in choosing images and writing expositional descriptions and comments.

• My descendants will have a chance to read about their ancestor. They may be more likely to look at the book than at the computerized information, where documents and comments are not linked.

• Once I make the book, I can relax about getting the information out to my family.

This project will take a long time. I predict it will take about three or four months to complete. I chose Shutterfly, which limits me to 111 pages, because I like their formatting style. If I need more pages, I will have a Book 2, Book 3, and so forth.

Many years ago, I began a written autobiography on the computer. I will draw upon that information for this book.

As I began putting together the layout for this project, I learned how to better use Shutterfly’s “creative – .” It allows me to resize my images on the page.

Here is the format for the page I just created. The page title is 3rd Grade. The large 3rd grade class photo takes up approximately 1/4 of the 12×12-inch page. Under it are the front and backsides of my report card for that year. Text boxes fill the rest of the page. I talk about my memories of the teacher, certain students, and about memories of my family while I was in third grade.

Why have I waited so long to make this book? The clearest answer is that I am getting older. I want to compete this project while I am healthy, while I can enjoy what I am doing. Up-and-at-‘em!!

Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at robertebsen@hotmail.com.