Just in Time

I finished the very last of my scanning project late on Sunday night! Close to 2,000 photos, covering more than 100 years and 7 generations, are all backed up on my computer, and then backed up again on my external hard drive. I wanted to get this project done before we left for Salt Lake City for Thanksgiving, and I'm so glad I did. I really can't believe that those two boxes I've been dragging around for a decade now are really all scanned in, organized, and sorted. As I was scanning I culled out doubles to give away, and the copies I'm keeping went into photo boxes. If Bobby and I were going to be settled, I would have put them back into their photo albums, but as it is now we are planning to be gypsies come May, and will be leaving the country, so it made much more sense to condense them down into storage. Plus, I *really* love the photo boxes I have, they are so tidy and compact.

Here is box number one, with 12 snap top containers that come out individually to hold pictures.

And here is box number two, same design with 12 individual containers. I labeled the containers with masking tape, so if the contents change it would be easy to re-label.

To give you an idea of the sheer number of pictures I have been working through- each small container has about this many pictures in it. And again, there are 24 of the small containers. That is a lot of damn pictures.

I filled up the two boxes fairly quickly, so there are still tons of pictures that need to be filed away- this is only about 1/5 of the pictures that are in (organized) piles on my study floor waiting for their own plastic box home.

I also have tens of other organized piles of pictures that are the doubles I need to organize, put in albums, and give away. Bobby had the great idea of copying all the digital files onto a flash drive to give to people, so I'll be giving away physical albums in conjunction with a flash drive of the digital files.

I know these update posts must be super boring, but really I cannot even express how much of a load has been lifted off of me now that this is done. I was the unofficial "picture keeper" of my family, and somehow I ended up with all of my baby pictures, plus my sister's, brother's, mom's, uncles', Granny's, and Great Granny's pictures. I mean, I had original copies of my Great Granny's wedding picture. I'm not a materialistic person, and I'm not overly sentimental when it comes to things like so and so's chair or china set, but it would have been devastating if something had happened to all of these pictures. But now it's done, and I don't have to worry about protecting every photographic memory my family ever made :)

For now I'm off to read for class and pack for our trip. My cousin Jen and her boyfriend are hosting Thanksgiving, and her sister Mel is flying in with her husband and two sons. Their father- my uncle on my Dad's side- is coming in too, and so is my brother. It will be a nice big group of family and Jen has already promised hot blueberry pie, brownies, and coffee with pumpkin spice creamer will be waiting at the end of our drive. As long as the weather cooperates, all should be well.