My goal for the rest of the month is to do something about the boxes upon boxes of photographs that are in the house. I have my parents photos, none of which are labelled or in albums, I have some of my grandparent’s photographs and boxes of my childhood pictures and those of my children and husband.
Most of my personal photos were in those old albums with the sticky glue in them but I removed them all a few years ago because I had read in several places that they were murder on photographs and were not acid free. They apparently speed up the breakdown of the photographs! So, out they came and with the best of intentions I was going to “scrapbook” them all into lovely albums that would be the showcase of ultimate creativity. *Alas*, years later, they are still in boxes.
So, I swallowed my need to be creative and have everything perfect and Saturday I bought three acid free albums with the plastic pockets to just slide the pictures into. It was a tough thing for me to admit that I had resorted to pocket albums. I wanted the photos to be in albums of beauty! Coming to the conclusions that any album was better than a box was a "light bulb moment" and so the process began. Between the three albums I will be able to store 1500 snapshot sized photos. I am sure this will not be enough but it is a start and I began to tackle this situation yesterday.
Sunday afternoon was a miserable day here. It was pouring rain and thundering – dark and damp so it seemed like a good time to grab a box of photos and get started. I used my bed as a sorting table for two reasons: It was quiet and clean, and the main reason was I would have to finish or at least clean up after myself to get some sleep that night. I sorted photos into groups...old house life, this house life, at the cottage with friends, vacations, photos focusing on just one of my children, my parents etc... As I went through each photo, I tried to not stop and reminisce, I just sorted. Once they were in piles I took the three albums and began to slip them in. This is also when I did a little tossing and likely should have done more. As I woman whose parents were gone early in life, and one who has had to pack up the home of a very clutter loving step-mother once she passed away, I do tend to look at things differently than I did before. I look at the things in my home and wonder how they will impact by children when I am gone. Will they be a burden to them or a blessing? Boxes of photos will be a burden! Albums full of random photos will be a burden not a blessing!
Really how many photos do we need of our child opening Christmas gifts on the same Christmas? If it shows a favourite gift, a particularly special moment – great - but really one Christmas need only be one or two pages in an album. Does your Christmas tree look the same each year? Do you really need a photo of it each year? How many photos of turkey dinner do we need? How many photos of that pretty sunset on your vacation do you need? Pick the prettiest shot and toss the rest! These are all individual decisions but photo albums cost a lot of money and the photos we choose to put in them requires an investment in time, dollars and storage space. Is each photo equal to the time, dollar investment and worthy of the space we will need to dedicate to storing it?
Some things to consider when sorting photos:
• If the photos are blurry, why keep them – toss!
• Duplicates – toss!
• Worst picture of you or your dear ones – toss!
• If they are not something you want your grand-kids to see – toss!
• When you are dead and gone, are the photos you kept the ones you really want to pass down to the next generation? Will they be interested? If not....toss!
• If you really cannot see your loved ones well – toss!
• No idea who is in the photos – toss.
I also went through all my parents’ old negatives and tossed them. It was hard to do, it was not easy, there was huge guilt associated with tossing their memories but there was also deep relief to finally have that box of clutter dealt with. They were a burden in my life. My Mum died almost 30 years ago and it has taken me that amount of time to come to terms with the fact that the world will not end if I throw her negatives away and if I were to die tomorrow, my poor kids would have the same burden .
In the box I found some old photos from the WW2 so I set those aside to mail to the War Museum. They are not family, they are not anyone I know, so perhaps the museum would find them of interest and if not, the museum will toss them. The photos are going into an envelope and into the mail today otherwise, they will sit for months and my best intentions will be gone.
So my Sunday photo sort ended with one box, approx. the size of a Banker’s Box being sorted, purged, tossed and filed into albums. The total time devoted to this project was about three hours with 10 minutes breaks for coffee and visits with my kiddies every 20 minutes or so.
If I can do it, you can too!
Note: If you are planning to remove your old photos from these types of albums, try slipping dental floss between your photo and the book to gently release the picture from the glue. Most came out quite easily but there were a few that really required some gentle surgery.
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Most of my personal photos were in those old albums with the sticky glue in them but I removed them all a few years ago because I had read in several places that they were murder on photographs and were not acid free. They apparently speed up the breakdown of the photographs! So, out they came and with the best of intentions I was going to “scrapbook” them all into lovely albums that would be the showcase of ultimate creativity. *Alas*, years later, they are still in boxes.
Cleaning the house was never something that I was concerned with. Clutter was everywhere, clothes were everywhere, and dishes were always piled high in the sink and on the counter. I hated cleaning, I loathed cleaning and for my overly distracted mind, keeping focus on the task at hand has always been difficult. 
My life is spent running my daycare, shopping, mowing lawns, making many trips to the hospital, mowing the lawn, paying bills, organizing the girls and their activities, volunteering, going to church, and finding time to be supportive to my girlfriends and make time for them in my week. I live a life just like most others in the western world. Chaotic and pulled in a thousand directions!