In the third week of the year, you can find me with my husband and in-laws enjoying prime skiing conditions in northern Vermont. When we arrived Saturday evening, one of the first things I did after unpacking the car was sit down on the couch and leaf through the Oaks 12 Journal. The journal, kept throughout the years by visitors to our condo, is a running narrative between 5-10 active journalers. Part of the magic of coming back to the same room every time is finding another year of writing from fellow residents.

Before anyone asks what this has to do with photography or fine art (it's a stretch but I'm on vacation, after all), for me it's all about the interplay of text and images. The topic has lingered on my mind lately because I made a New Year's resolution to send five photos to print from my latest work. I haven't done it yet, but I have populated my "idea notebook" with sketches for combining these very personal, domestic images with journaling.

Returning to the Vermont journal reminded me of the power of documenting personal histories in our own words. Every year I bring my camera and most photos just take themselves around here, but the way we weave a story into a place separates this experience from any other beautiful landscape. Here is where two tween girls who have never met in person, Gillian and Taylor, are making youthful memories and writing messages to each other in the journal. It's also where a grateful husband bonded with his wife and two little boys as she recovered from a battle with cancer. My husband spent childhood winters here and later proposed to me on the slope during New Year's fireworks.

So while I'll continue to take beautiful photos, the interwoven stories in the journal will create a richness of memory we could never achieve with pictures alone.