Organize your Stuff Challenge: Week 6 Photos

Wow! What a week! This week was photos week (as the title implies). I am feeling just slightly bi-polar this week, and I guess that is a good way to describe my photo storage. I am beginning to feel like Zen Master Wookiemouse's Challenge weeks are like Star Trek movies...where every other one leaves you just a little disgruntled, but you keep coming back for more (sorry non Trekkies). Here is my layout. It took me a while...and yes, I confess, I went to my local scrapbook store and bought new paper for it (but come on...it has Legos!!!). Ok, I know, My name is Scrappnbee, and I have a problem...

Paper was ROUGH. Scraps was easy. Photos made me want to find Inner Hoarder's corner and rock. Now, you may be a one camera family, but I have been blessed... or cursed... with a gadget guy for a dad (Love you, Daddy!). So, back in the pre-digital day, I had:

1. ...a fabulous 35mm Cannon, which had been an eighth grade graduation gift... but was too expensive to go to college...

2. ...the college, one step up from disposable, camera...

3. ...Fabulous Spouse's college camera

4. ...Advantix Camera, wedding present by gadget guy Dad ...since you could now take 3x5, 4x6, and panorama in same shot...

The problem with this, I have one roll of film that has both honeymoon pics and my first child's delivery room pics. OCD me refuses to separate these photos until they can be converted to digital, and practical POW me really cannot argue...after all, the Advantix rolls are .59-.79 a frame to convert to digital. With over 30 rolls of Advantix film alone... you can see where I began to shut down. Even Fabulous Spouse, looking over photos with me on Friday, was willing to give me a bye... (I think that he is in denial about football season being over).

This morning, I was still in the same place I was on Friday night, but it was Monday, I had a blog to do, and a layout to complete (yes, PA Me was doing a bizarre happy dance and using the mountains of photos in lieu of shiny objects). So, thank you dear readers, as I have hopefully inspired you, you arm twisted PA Me, and we got to work. I realize, just as Zen Master Wookiemouse said, that this was a multi week program, which allowed OCD to breathe a little easier (she really, really wants organization...and this quandary was not helping her). My husband treated me to lunch at our local Brewery (they have the best Beer and Cheddar soup), to give me a little liquid courage... and off I went to do the best that I could with what I had.

Did you know that the photo boxes that Michaels and JoAnn's sell are strictly for 4x6? I don't know why that did not cross my mind... or that my father would print all of my wedding photos in 5x7? (I love you Daddy!...again) I bought 12 of these in January! I can do this.

OK, OCD Me, where to start? I decided that starting with our wedding year (I just laid those flat in the photo box), I would color code each year with a 4.25 x 7 card (yes, the photo box will hold 4.25 x 7...just not 5 x 7). Then I went to town on any photos that were not Advantix or larger than 4 x 6.

Surprisingly, once I got started, it went along pretty well...and golly, I took a lot of pictures of my first born child! (Sorry Middle Child and Girl Friday). By the time my kids got home from school, I was almost done, and by dinner time, I had 3 boxes sorted, 4 boxes of need to scan then sort, a Cropper Hopper file for my big pictures (you know, school, soccer, T-ball, etc...). and a box with those danged panoramas I thought was so cool when my Advantix was new. Ta-da! My inner procrastinator was pouting...a little. She and OCD me were deep in thought...and the POW was trying to work out a budget with the Inner Hoarder who was not sure she wanted to let the negatives out of the house. Maybe that is why negatives week is so far away... Here is my After...or as after as it is going to get for now. Not to bad, eh?

Ok. Easy part- digital. (It is like good Ash, bad Ash...or digital is the up to my hard copy photo down... -I told you I was feeling bi-polar!). I have a 1TB (yes, a Tera-byte...I am my father's daughter, after all) external back-up drive thanks to Black Friday 2008. Once a month, I upload pics to an online photosite (more frequently during special events so that I can photoshare), and I keep a copy on my desktop computer, filed by year. Inside the year file, I keep the photos stored by datestamp and an identifier (like I said before...mommy braincell atrophy...should have had more fun in college)...example-02-14-10a Kids dressed for Valentines, 02-14-10b Valentine dinner at Local Bistro ...because 2 years from now, I won't remember where we went, only that the tapanade was fabulous but the service ho-hum.

I still have my 35 mm, and I do give my kids the throw away cameras, but I have learned my lesson from the Zen Master, develop both of these with a digital copy, and then upload it with the rest to the computer, so that I never have to worry about this again ...and can print it out when I am ready to scrap.