It's Week 9: Organize my Photos.
I started by sorting through stacks of photographs (you know, the kind that were produced from an actual film that would get dropped off at the drug store to be developed...). I have a big plastic tote jammed with photos...it's so full that a person could put their back out trying to lift it. The photos are organized mind you. Oh yes, about 10 years ago I started categorizing my photos by grouping them together in big manila envelopes.
The envelopes are labeled in marker with things like, London/Paris Trip 1993 or University Friends or Petey (our poodle growing up). The photos in these envelopes are very sentimental. But then there are others labeled Enrichment Camp 1988 or Vegetable Monuments, which included a photo of what I think is a giant smiling potato somewhere in the middle of New Brunswick.
My new measure for deciding whether or not I keep a photo is to ask myself, "Will you want to look at this in a scrapbook someday?" and if the answer is no, the photo goes to the garbage (the entire Vegetable Monuments envelope did not make the cut I'm afraid).
I've been tossing friends' wedding pictures, photos of other people's children, and grainy images taken in the 80's and 90's. I've accepted that relationships change, and that some of those photos just aren't important anymore. (I've also noticed that my personal weight has changed, and I really don't need some of those less flattering pictures kicking around).
I feel the same way as I felt in my first week experiment pertaining to clutter - free of this material stuff that has being weighing down my life. I'm not going to apologize for throwing out the photo of my second cousin's first Christmas...I gotta make room for my own life, which all things considered is pretty picture perfect.
I'll keep you posted on the Enrichment Camp envelope.
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