After sorting through a box of pictures last week, I have not been able to stop. I have no idea WHY I have 8 boxes of old photos in my garage. The only thing I can think of was that maybe the last time my parents moved they gave me their photo boxes for some odd reason. Maybe I said I’d sort through them and put them into photo albums {do people still do that?} I don’t know. All I know now is that I am on a mission now to sort through them, divide them up and give them BACK to family members them so they can enjoy them.
Ya. That’s it. Or maybe it’s because I don’t want to store/lug all those boxes around the next time we move {okay, so that is really the reason}.
Anywho, I found another formal picture. This one was from homecoming my freshman year and it was my favorite Jessica McClintock dress of all time. I spent a good 5 minutes on eBay trying to find it this morning. No such luck. 🙁
And you wonder where I get my OCD ways. Look at the presents under the tree. Notice anything unusual? The paper, bows, baskets, bags and ORNAMENTS. They all match. Seriously.
So many pictures of the back of people’s heads, vacation pictures of nothingness and just weird stuff in general. Back in the day when you had a roll of film developed there was no editing. No picking and choosing which photos you wanted. You had to buy the crappy photos {which amounted to 90% of them} along with the good ones. Oh how times have changed.
While cleaning out another box of old photos I found 5 $2 bills from the 50’s. Apparently they’re not worth much more than that today. Still cool though.
Why would I keep this dental mold? 24 years it’s been sitting in a box. I think it’s time to let go.
Have you been to San Francisco lately? How much does it cost to ride the cable cars? I found these postcard/tickets in a photo box from when the HH and I were there 10 years ago. I wonder if I can still use them? Does anyone know? We might be going to SF this summer and I’d like to use them if they are still good.
And racing bibs. Why am I keeping them? Seriously.
I wish there was someplace I could send all this junk. Maybe it could be of use to someone else. An artist {or a hoarder} maybe.
Why do we keep the things we do?
~Mavis
Brandie says
Ahh memories! You should look into project life for your photos. Super easy. And makes everything look great.
Crystal says
Oh, agreed!! I just bought a bunch of Project Life goodies – I can not wait to start!!
Nancy D says
Going through old photos and super 8 films and negatives with my mom the past few months. We purchased digital conversion deals off of groupon (if you wait for their extra 20% sales you get some fantastic deals). We’ve been sorting and packaging them up and getting them put on CDs and on their cloud service so other family and friends can access them. It’s been really fun! I bet you’re enjoying yourself going through them!!
Mavis says
It really has been such a fun trip down memory lane!
Gina says
I think it’s important to keep things that remind us of our lives. There may be a day when we can’t recall them without physical items to remind us. As for photos, I have gone through and digitized all of my life’s photos, and sorted them into correct year folders, so I can look at them when I want to remember. In the digital age, there is no reason to keep such a large volume of physical photos. We have photo frames that will cycle through our memories every day non stop, should we choose to get one. I know my kids appreciated the digital photos. There was one year when I was purging, that my girls came to visit, and they appreciated the hand drawn things and crafts that they made when they were little, when opened up the boxes to share. They each chose what was important to them, and then I kept a couple, and tossed the rest. The walk down memory lane is never a bad one, because those experiences shaped us into the people we are today, and sometimes it’s good to be reminded of them. I do think that sometimes we can keep too much, and I also know that sometimes I have purged things that I wish I had back. There never really is any one right answer, so I choose to live with no regrets, and push on.
sclindah says
I came here to say the exact same thing! It’s easy to share with all of the family that way too! Make sure there are lots of back ups.
Andrea says
Oh memories and sentimental items! This is one of the things I have problems with. I am trying to reduce the things in my house, but photos and the sentimental items are the absolute hardest. My son comes home from first grade with stacks of coloring and papers. I can’t save them all. I send some to his dad and his dad’s parents, but a lot of it gets shredded and composted. I keep the best, of course. But it is hard to get rid of things like the plastic buffalo from the 1970s that used to be your dad’s before he died. So those things end up getting shoved into a box because I don’t want to have to deal with them. But after the last move where we moved 25 boxes that were those sentimental things. We are reducing. Sometimes we take a photograph of things so we can remember it without bulk of it being there.
Mavis says
I’ve heard of people scanning in all of the artwork and then making one photo book of all of it. That would help with pictures, art work, etc. but not the plastic buffalo type things. Those are hard to part with!
Brianna says
I purge and go through my house twice a year. I have a “scrapbook” box with my old newspaper clippings, awards, certificates, photos, etc. I go through it about every other year, especially if I feel it is getting packed and I get rid of things from it. I limit my memories/scrapbook box to just the one and that is all I will ever have. It is a plastic bin about the size of two plastic shoebox bins, so not too huge. I’ve had 18 addresses in the past 15 years (thanks to the hubby’s job) and we constantly are having to get rid of stuff to meet a weight allowance to move. It is easier to move my own personal bin at that size with my jewelry and other meaningful items than let a moving company do it because we have had things lost, beat up, and stolen on some moves. My house is bare, I don’t hang anything on the walls, my kids only have a bed in their rooms and no other furniture……but the garage, that is my hubby’s domain of clutter and “memories” he is attached to and can’t sort through. It drives me nuts! I could probably do the tiny house/minimalist living if I didn’t have his “stuff.” Over the years I have been slowly able to help him get rid of some of it, but I think it is because he grew up in a terrible home, neglected, without basic needs met, and with nothing that he hangs onto things. I can’t force salt into his wounds, so I just help him when he is ready to part with those things.
Mavis says
First, 18 moves? Holy moly! Second, I love that you realize why he holds onto things and just let him be. He is lucky to have you!
Julie says
Your $2 bills are actually kind of cool. Because they have a red emblem (blue is also good) instead of green, they are silver certificates. Notice on the bottom the say “Will pay to the bearer on demand.” Money no longer says this because they started printing money that had no gold or silver stored in a vault anywhere to back the paper money up decades ago. Your bills are supposedly backed up by actual gold or silver in a vault somewhere (in theory).
Janet says
Oh my gosh, I had that same black dress and I too had the long gloves to go with it!! So crazy, I was mentioning that very dress to a friend at lunch today and here you have it pictured. I wore it on a trip to New York City. we went out to dinner in at the restaurant on top of one of the TwinTowers and then we to the Cats so that tells you about how long ago it was
JC says
I don’t even accept racing medals at the finish line anymore. People look at me like I’m crazy, but honestly I’ll take a picture and save it with my time somewhere and it’s so much easier than hoarding those things.
The craziest thing that I hold on to is craft supplies. I always thing oh I could do something with this, and then I never do and it sits there. Something I’m working on changing now.
Michelle says
One year for Christmas my Mom went through all of her photos and divided them between my siblings and myself and put them in albums. (Of course this was before digital!). That is what we got for Christmas that year. I still have my album.
Regina says
I’d save that dental mold in case someday you want dentures that look like your real teeth! Not sure they can do that… But maybe?
Jessica says
I am 36 and recently moved out of a 4000 square foot home where my family of 3 cohabitated with another family. We downsized into 960 square feet. It was extremely liberating for my husband and I. We purged a ton of our possessions, realizing there was a lot we did not need or use, a lot of things we kept out of habit, shame or obligation. I questioned a lot of the boxed up things I move from place to place. It felt amazing to get rid of a lot of it.
Diana says
The race medals make the neatest sounding windchimes. They make a soft ping sound. Pin them to a coathanger just to see what I mean, and then figure out how to mount them on something with more visual appeal. Don’t overthink the mounting or spend a lot of time on it, just do it. You will be glad you did.
Diana says
PS The race bibs can be sewn into super-cool looking tote bags, backpacks,etc. Just Google for ideas.
Mavis Butterfield says
Ah man. Now I’m going to have to dig them out of the trash!
Jen Y says
I think it takes some of us longer to learn that holding onto anything……even the people in our lives…..does not bring real happiness. The tighter we hold onto anything the more pain & frustration we deal with.
I am slowly learning this & yet it is still so hard to let go of things. I try to focus on what I am keeping instead, one or two things from each person in my life & let the rest go.
Tracy L. says
I know I’m REALLY late commenting (been a busy couple of weeks), so I’m trying to catch up. In April we were robbed. The thieves stole our entire bag of tapes from our camcorder. They dropped the camcorder (20+ yrs old), but we lost 20+ yrs of memories. We never took many pictures, but did use the camcorder A LOT. Now we have nothing. That loss consumes me. I’d say make copies, scan them, do whatever you can to preserve them. You can’t replace them when they’re gone. : (