Mountains of Pictures

Chiseling Down Mountains

What a great week going through mountains of pictures.  I spent time chiseling some of my mountains down to smaller mountains and in the future…… I want them to be just a small collection of a few digital molehills.    My mountains of pictures have proved I have lived through some crazy, silly and unforgettable times.  Yes there have been Happy, Sad, Crazy, Fun, Foolish and Unforgettable times but there are Mountains of pictures.

My unforgettable life started in Edgerton Wisconsin.  I am fortunate to have several pictures from when I was small along with a bill from the Edgerton hospital when I was born.  Back in the day…. for less than $ 200 you could bring a kid home that will cost you so much more….. much more money, more sleepless nights and much more grey hair.  Oh… my poor parents.  I am kid #5 what were they thinking?   Well they went on to have kid # 6 so I guess I wasn’t that bad.

Manageable and Transportable

I have truly enjoyed the walk through this clutter, but I need it to be more manageable and more transportable.   I know that retirement is still a few years away, but I am a planner and pictures are something that I want to keep and securely store. But I have to ask myself do I really need that many pictures of an old boyfriend, an “unforgettable” marriage and a menagerie of animals (believe me pictures of the animals alone were unsurmountable but what a blessing they were). 

As I go through the trips I have taken with my family, my friends that I have done  life with and the homes that have held so many memories, I was reminded of the blessed life that I have had this far.    Pictures allow me to see the hard times and super fun times, but these memories are all forever etched in my heart and soul.   Nothing can take those away. How many pictures do I really need.

Minimize and Downsize

While memories are always with us I still need to minimize what I own and it is a battle of time.   What is the best way to spend my time to create the biggest impact on my “paper clutter”.   A few weeks ago I set up several tables throughout my home.  I pulled out the boxes of pictures.   I used to sort everything in photo albums chronologically, but when I moved to Arizona I pulled everything from the books.  The books were starting to yellow and the pictures were cracking.   I needed a new way to downsize and store them.  Boxes were the answer until now.   I really need to get them digitized so I can easily access them.  

Negatives, Duplicates and CDs

I knew that digitizing them was how I wanted to store but I still had negatives, duplicates upon duplicates (remember that blessing? LOL)  and then they came a CD with all of the pictures.   Ok the negatives were no help, I threw out the duplicates, but I have been able to add the CDs to my hard drive.  Yeah!!!    I am down to scanning the ones that are prior to computers.  https://bmiimaging.com/blog/document-management/digital-file-formats. Hopefully the end is in site.   I will take a break for now but the progress has been great!

Where are you with your digital clutter?  Do you have “Mountains of Pictures”?  You have to start somewhere or you get nowhere.  Start today with a box or an album.   Working on a few each day will eventually get you to your goal.   What Mountain will you start making a molehill?

Saving Digital Files

I am sorting the pictures into digital albums.   Location, Family, Friends, Pets, Work, Trips, Hikes etc.   I will put them on my One Drive, create a file for them on my external hard drive and then keep a thumb drive just in case.    All of those pictures will eventually all be digital so I can find them when I need them and keep them with me in several locations in case my computer crashes.  I want to live with less, but I do know the down falls of electronics.  #Mountains to Molehills