Whatever makes you happy

Possibly 2 years ago I read "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. Now I am not a non fiction reader by choice - my usual poison is fiction but this came highly recommended by more than one person. I have to say that I flew through it taking into account that it is non fiction and that my habit of reading about 3 books at a time fuels my fiction reading. I enjoyed the book a lot and would recommend it for all. And while possibly most of her items on her happiness list can be added to mine if I ever had the time and chance (and money) to do a full year of happiness project - I may change say 2 of them, the one that I most associated with was her item as "Memory keeper of the family"

I have always since childhood been into photography on whatever level I could practise it at the time. I am not sure if my fascination stems only from the actual technicalities of a good photo or from purely the memory it captures. 

While all three are possibly nice enough photos it's the memories that they capture that makes them so very special. For instance the last one brings the holiday it represents immediately to mind - the boogie board, the sarong and the tiara - all so much part of that holiday (our first in Mtunzini).

In the past I made photo books of every year. Over the last year and a half I have tried to keep up with Project Life - for a long long time it went really well and easy. But ever so often I would get behind and most recently the shoulder op really caused me to fall way behind.

I am so enjoying catching up on it though - using before work, lunch times and whatever I get at home to go through this years photos and notes (at least I kept taking photos which makes it a lot easier). It just made me realize once again that for me this is an essential part of my happiness - not only making but keeping those memories - be it here in the personal blog, on Facebook (mostly shared for the sake of the grandparents) or then in Project Life which in it's very real touchable format brings not only joy to me but hugely to the kids as they page through and recall.

Are you a memory keeper and in which formats? I am interested if this is mainly a female thing - anybody knows a passionate male memory keeper?