I, as you know, pride myself as being clutter-free. With a snow storm this past weekend I decided to take it a step further and eliminate my photo albums and get all my pictures in one small space. I never realized what a job it would be.
First, to scan every one of them (55 years worth) would take the next 55 years plus, once they were scanned, could I part with the hard copies? Of course not, so the plan was to take them out of the albums put them in cute photo boxes (which hold about five albums of pictures), date each box and when I wanted one would have some idea as how to find it. I was on my way.
My dear late-Mother-In-Law had pictures to which I inherited in the past years that dated back to the 1800's. I thought at the time, what a "Pack Rat" my children will never have to go through this. It was until this weekend that I realized what a wonderful job she had in keeping photos. There were certainly fewer photo ops in her life beginning in '27 than in mine '54. Kudos to those in the 19th century people who invented cameras. Look how far we have come.
My MIL bought school and sports photos, in years she thought a good picture of her kids and had few professional photos of their early childhoods. I, on the other hand, had the opportunity to have a picture taken at each month of my first child's first year of life, did almost the same for the second child. Both of them together, watch out! I am talking only professional photos here, there are still hundreds of them from our own camera. Then they went to school, played sports and took dance. I pride myself for always ordering "Basic Packages".
However, I realized that I had five times as many photographs as my MIL and if I live as long as she did, I have another 25+ years (God Willing) I will collect so many more. Thank God for the digital camera and there will be no more packets of photos but, I've yet to have grandchildren, witness the wedding of my second child (college graduation is soon) or gone on the trips I hope to take with my husband.
It hurt to throw away photo albums that dated back to my birth. Kept the pictures but losing the albums was hard. Someday my children will thank me.
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