I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier.

I'm always trying to stay more connected to my memories.

I feel like I don't remember my own past very well,

so I'm always happy to find tools or strategies to help my memories stay vivid.

For instance, I made an album of now,

an album where I took photos of the most ordinary sites for my ordinary life,

what's in the fridge, what my closet looks like.

I was inspired to create an album of now because when I'm trying to recall my past,

that's what I'd most like to look at, the scenes of my everyday life.

Taking these photos of the unremarkable scenes of my present made me yearn to revisit

the unremarkable scenes for my past.

But how?

Something occurred to me.

Years ago, after my grandparents died, their house was up for sale and sold,

and it occurred to me that maybe the house had been listed on a real estate website.

I typed in their street address in Norse Platinumrasca and sure enough,

there it was.

I stared at every picture.

I could see the brick flower box by the front door,

the shaded back patio where my grandfather, grilled burgers and hot dogs,

in a photo of the room where Elizabeth and I slept as children,

I recognized the drawer poles with their vaguely western design.

...