August 14: More Photo Organization

I seriously have a problem.  I take, print and keep way too many pictures.  I thought this was a more recent problem that developed when I had kids and got a nice camera.  However, today I realized that this problem has been going on for much longer than that.

At the beginning of the year, I was in the mood to clean and organize and get everything in our house in order.  I got a lot accomplished, but as the year wore on and we got busier, I never finished all of my projects (and many things started to get unorganized again).  So, now that our crazy summer is over, I am back in the mood to organize and simplify our house.

Today, I tackled the storage area in our basement.  As I was going through tubs, I found two entire tubs full of photo albums and scrapbooks, as well as a few more that wouldn't fit in tubs. That is not including the entire shelf full of photo albums that are in my dining room.  I had no idea that I had so many pictures and albums!

Earlier this year, I dealt with the two boxes of loose photographs that were just sitting in the basement.  I threw many of them away, and what was left I put in albums.  Then I organized those albums on the shelf in our dining room.  I knew I had more albums in the basement, but I had NO idea how many were there.

So today, I decided that it was time to get rid of some photos. A lot of photos.  I have a bunch of random pictures from high school.  And a ton of pictures from college.  I think I took a picture of absolutely everything I did all the way through five years of college.  This whole idea of "a photo a day" obviously started long before I began blogging about it!

I pulled out lots of pictures to throw in the trash.  The girls thought it was great fun to play with these.  Audrey was helping me put them in a tub to throw away, but then Isla would pull them out of the tub and throw them on the floor.  Then Audrey would pick them back up, and Isla would pull them back out again.  This created a huge mess in our living room, but the girls found it hilarious.  Plus it kept them occupied while I looked through tons of photo albums.

I then consolidated the pictures I had left in the albums, trying to keep them as organized by date as possible.  I ended up getting rid of about ten albums and scrapbooks and tons of photos.

I added more albums to my bookshelves in the dining room.

Now, I have just a half tub full of scrapbooks left to go in storage.   With the help of two little girls, this was an all day project.  But it feels good to get rid of some things.

It was fun to look through all of the old pictures though.  I am glad that I take and keep pictures, as I enjoy reminiscing and remembering life's little moments.  But I am realizing that  I don't need to keep absolutely every picture forever either. 

Looking back at all the pictures of me in my high school and early college days...wow, I am just a different person now.  Crazy to think how much has changed in the past 10-15 years.  I'm sure I will be organizing photo albums again in about 10-15 years, reminiscing about how much life has changed yet again!