Again.

We are snowed in.

Again.

I should not complain. I reminded Mikey earlier that lots of people would love nothing more to be at home with their families for a few days with nowhere to go, plenty of groceries, some Dexter via netflix, and a little bit of new yarn.

I have spent the last 24 hours continuing to get our photos under control, which is a HUGE part of my organization resolution. I’ve been taking pictures since I was seven years old, spent two years studying photography, and as a general rule got doubles of every roll of film I processed. Mikey also brought a couple of boxes of photos from his life into our marriage, so as you can imagine, we live under quite an avalanche. I feel like there is always an annoying little pile of photos sitting around at any given time – prints people have given us or things that used to live on the fridge or in a frame and got replaced… when I was younger I was diligent with immediately putting photos into albums, but then the number of albums got overwhelming and I went digital and… oof.

Sometime last year I got sick of having 13 or so photos albums of varying sizes, some falling apart, and I emptied them out and put everything into four shoebox-sized storage boxes. There they have been sitting waiting for the next step. During the last snow-in I did a quick purge, which resulted in hundreds of photos and negatives getting thrown in a tub for repurposing or recycling. I was left with two and a half photo storage boxes full of prints, three albums, and four years worth of (organized) digital photos that I needed to be choosy with and have some prints made to get caught up. Last night I sat down with a free shipping code for Snapfish (free shipping for orders over $20.00 – MYVAL20, good through tomorrow) and three hours later had ordered 828 prints. Not too bad, spread over four years and including the first 15 months of Hazel’s life. This afternoon I (again) sat down at the computer and did some album research. I know exactly what I want – almost. I am trying to decide between 8.5 x 11 or 12 x 12 albums. As soon as I can make up my mind I’ll order several 3-ring albums, full page protectors, and photo pages. I am so, so, so sick of having everything scattered around. Most of our photos in storage boxes. Some photos in their own albums (wedding, honeymoon, trip to Jamaica). 12 x 12 envelopes full of mementos waiting for a home. An unfinished wedding scrapbook(!). I need everything to be streamlined into chronological albums so we can actually look at them and enjoy them. Photos, flyers, everything.

After that I dragged out the remaining 2.5 boxes of prints and sorted them, tossing even more. Now I’m left with a box full of photos from Mikey’s shows (which he’ll sort through and put in an album with flyers and other keepsakes), all of our really old photos (which will stay stored in one small box), and photos of our life together, which will get weeded out even more and then added to the prints that are on their way. I’ll get them all in order, add in mementos, put them all into a few like-albums, and then I WILL NOT GET BEHIND. Now that Snapfish and Flickr are connected, there is no reason at all to get behind in printing. I only upload my favorites to Flickr, so at the end of every month or two I’ll go through them and make some prints – no sorting through huge raw files and uploading them to a printer’s website. It’ll take ten or fifteen minutes.

It feels really good to be making huge progress on this project. I hate having a bajillion photos, which is problematic since I love TAKING a bajillion photos. I hate that we don’t enjoy our favorites because they are mixed in with tons that we are not even going to miss. I hate that as soon as someone gives us a pile of prints or I come across a scrap of this or that that I want to keep, it all gets shoved in an envelope or into a pile instead of the five minutes it would take to stick it into a waiting album page. I want all of us, especially Hazel and future babyfrates, to be able to enjoy looking back through our life via tidy photo album / scrapbook hybrids. So I’m all over it.

New Year’s Resolution: week five

Listening: old-school Sesame Street songs
(I am) Reading: if I can have a bath and a glass of wine tonight, I’m starting The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
(Hazel is) Reading: The Butter Battle Book
Working on: blue & gold blanket; trying to learn how to crochet a hat and getting MAD; knitting a wee scarf for Hazel instead