My Life in Two Boxes

Remember back in the day, before digital cameras? When you would drop off film at the drugstore, and get duplicates to give to friends, and if you were feeling really frisky you'd spring for the one hour photo to get them even sooner? And who knew what was on them, or how they turned out, until you had photos in hand. I didn't get a digital camera until I was 22 years old, living in Japan and teaching English. I quickly realized my old standby of "get a few disposable cameras" wasn't going to work with all the things I wanted to capture in a photograph. When I finally owned a digital camera I spent the first three months terrified I would drop it/lose it/break it, but January of 2011 will be our 4 year anniversary, and the little guy is still going strong- and is responsible for 95% of the pictures on this blog. Since my glorious digital revolution my (copious) pictures have been neat and manageable, saved on my computer and cross posted between myspace, then my blog, and now that the myspace is gone they're on facebook.

But, that still leaves me with a good decade of the results of the old fashioned system. Said system resulted in a huge rubbermaid container of pictures, plus a big brown box of more pictures. These are a pain to move around, and they also stress me out because they could get damaged or lost in the terrible even of a fire or flood. My digital pictures are all safe and sound in an external harddrive, living in a fireproof box with other important documents. That is my goal for the two big bulky boxes- to scan every last picture in and save them digitally.

so...

that's a great idea and all, but...

Have you ever scanned pictures? Not just one or two, but tens of slippery piles of photos? I have. When my Great Granny moved into her assisted living apartment, she gave me three photo boxes of pictures. Over the years, and through all of our many moves, Mom would send her pictures of the three of us kids, and what the family was up to. She saved every one, like any granny worth her salt would do. Seeing as how Mom had sent the only copies to Great Granny, some of these pictures hadn't been seen in over a decade or more. I spent about 40 hours organizing them, scanning them, editing them, saving them, and then printing them off and organizing them into albums for my mom, brother, and sister for Christmas. Why yes, I *am* a saint, thanks for noticing!

The point (other than my sainthood) is that I was certain I was losing little bits of my mind with every whirr and zing and light flash of the scanner. It. Takes. Forever. Doesn't matter if you have the newest most awesomest scanner ever, this is a job that would test the patience of Mother T. But. It's also super annoying to have so much emotional energy invested in two boxes, one brown, one blue, so I guess it's all the same in the end.

So, kittens, be looking forward to random posts of even more random pictures as I take a little stroll down memory lane, complete with whirrs and zings as a soundtrack, and flashes of light to keep me from falling off my chair from boredom.