Mammoth project

I am currently trying to get through 12 or 13 years of packets of pictures. I have a huge box that I have been dumping the pictures in every time I was done looking at them. Then when we moved I added any framed photos that I had collected through the years. After I got through the first three envelopes (which included throwing away at least 3/4 of the pictures, labeling and filing the rest in a photo box), the project I thought would take years to finish is really moving along. I have committed to go through at least one pack a day.

The second part of the project is downloading the good, keepable pictures from the C/D's from each packet (only from the last six years or so) to our computer. Haven't started that task yet.

And the final part will be taking the sorted pictures and putting them either into photo albums or (gasp) scrapbooks. I am not a good scrapbooker. I think they are really cool when done without too much kitsch (is that how to spell it?). I don't think I have the time or patience for it. But because I have illusions of grandeur about what I can do, I am planning to make at least three rudimentary scrapbooks, one for Gabriel's first year, one for our 40-year-old girls Fredericksburg trip, and one for Stanley.

I'm also picking out special pictures to start a gallery of family photos up and down our hallway. There will be current family, pets, and a section of really old family photos. I have some wonderful old photos of my maternal grandparents as children with their brothers and sisters, and then as newlyweds. I also have a box of paternal grandparent photos that I need to go through and see what I can salvage. I'm afraid they spent too many years in my parents outdoor storage building getting ruined in the heat. I'm trying to get Jav to get pictures from his Mom so it won't just be my side of the family up and down the hall. It's weird how the sons don't seem to keep the nostalgic things around as much as the daughters of the family.

It's really hard to not get caught up in reminiscing while looking through the pictures. This has a tendency to make me very nostalgic and emotional, which can hold up the whole process. But other than that I'm making pretty good time and hope to be finished by the end of the year.