Saturday, August 29, 2020

Hundreds and Hundreds #SoCS

 Well, here it is, Saturday once again, and me not feeling inspired to write much. There has been a lot of personal upheaval for me that I have kept to myself but that has left me feeling drained and uninspired. 

Cue Dan Antion over at No Facilities . I try to never miss any of his interesting, informative and colorful posts, especially on Saturday, where you might find yours truly tending bar sometimes. He may not know it but I rely on his posts for knowing the SoCS prompt theme.  Check out his post today to see who will be making a surprise visit to the bar real soon. He’s a celebrity of sorts for the bartenders there. 

Back to the prompt which is more than a hundred. We are to write about something we have more than a hundred of. Okay, forget the fact that we are in a puzzle addiction right now. The last one was a real challenge, but oh so lovely. 


God, I love butterflies. This one took a long time. There was no logic. It was like a paint by numbers puzzle but without the map. The pieces were oddly shaped. I’m talking umbrellas, goldfish and bunny 
shapes!


But, I digress....the real issue is that we are collectors so we likely have a few qualifying stars for this prompt. But....since I have spent the last week...yes I said week...or so sifting through, discarding and organizing all my actual real paper printed photos from my life on this Earth so far, I can safely say they number well over a hundred-in one album alone. 

Anyone who follows my blog(s) knows that first, and foremost I am a photographer. Family, friends, birds, bees, butterflies and trees-nothing escapes my shutter (although the hubs is an elusive subject) I have been called a photo hoarder, obsessive, too focused on pictures, etc.; but, I love life’s moments and want to save them as the memories we all too often tend to forget. Holidays, vacations, instantaneous laughable moments, beauty that is elusive, family that one day will no longer be around. 

But, in the interest of saving space and scaling down, I took on the daunting task of going through my volumes of photo albums (thank God I was at least that organized) and weed them out, culling the special moments for each of my children to start or add to their own family memories and condensing my albums to a more manageable trunk full. This is what was discarded in terms of volume.


And this is about a third of what remains. ๐Ÿคช

How do I throw away a life-lives? Sure, I was there for everything, but we all know how the mind works. What seems so important in one moment can be replaced by something else as time goes by. I want my family to be able to wander through their past and rest for awhile in the cool shade of happy memories. They may curse me when they have to figure out what to do with it all after I’m gone. But they will know how much I have treasured them . 




I mean, how could I toss out my greatest treasures? 
Today’s post is brought to you by Linda Hill’#SoCs prompt
                            You should visit her blog to meet other great writers and read their words. 



And a huge shoutout Happy Birthday to my hubby. Now, if you excuse me, I have a birthday pie to make. You go out and make beautiful memories now, okay? 

11 comments:

  1. Have you considered scanning all your pictures and keeping them on an external drive? Or are there just too many to deal with that way?

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    1. ๐Ÿ˜‚Thanks for the suggestion John. I’m laughing because I have thousands of digital photos as well. I just had to ‘dump’ them onto a mega external hard drive recently because my laptop ran out of memory. ๐Ÿคฆ‍♀️๐Ÿคท‍♀️And they are mostly great photos!

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  2. I love butterflies too. As much as I tossed out recently, the photos stayed. Organized in a album for the first time ever. Birthday pie sounds yummy. Happy Birthday to your husband.

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    1. Thank you! Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a great weekend, full of beautiful things.

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  3. First and foremost a photographer but a photographer with amazing talent and a unique ability to match beautiful words to the images you create behind your camera.

    Thanks for the shout. I'm sorry I missed this yesterday (google notices are screwball, but I usually check).

    I hope hubs had a happy birthday. I'm sure he ate well ๐Ÿ™‚๐ŸŽ‚

    As you know, I started organizing digital photos earlier this year. I wish I could say I figured it out.

    I hope you have a great day today and a wonderful week. I'll see you behind the bar on Saturday.

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    1. See comment below Pam’s. Apparently Blogger is tricky with replies too. ๐Ÿ˜‰

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  4. An incredible puzzle! I hope you frame it. I am the Keeper of the family pictures and every now and then I wander through out past. My grandfather was a shutterbug as I was.

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    1. I am considering framing it. For now it remains on that table and we work around it. It was way too challenging to just break apart. I love to see old photos and remember. I can actually remember other aspects of the days on which so many were taken. The one photo is of my great grandfather on my Mother’s side. He was in the army.

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  5. ๐Ÿ˜ŠThanks so much Dan. The only down side to Blogger for me is the lag time between hitting the Publish button and the time it takes to actually send out the notifications.
    Nature inspires my soul to be sure, although lately I have had to dig deep for that.
    He did have a nice birthday and thanks for the good wishes. He only requested a Chocolate Cream Pie and I must say I think I made the best one ever. Keeping this recipe for the filling!
    Photograph organization is tricky, no matter how you approach it. I will say that in this instance, I prefer my physical photos because I find it easier to group them and organize. My digital photos are all over the place, although my son tells me Google has a cool new way of grouping them for you based on subject matter as well as face recognition. I am not sure if you would have needed to label them or not though. I never do that.
    I hope your week is productive and relaxing, if that is possible.
    I’m looking forward to seeing John on Saturday!

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  6. I've still got a large amount of printed images in boxes that I've never sorted and organized. The day is coming when I will do what you've done with them and give them to my kids after my sorting. Where's a sorting hat when you need one eh?

    That puzzle is so pretty, but looks like it took a while to piece together.

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    1. Ah, I fear the Sorting Hat would simply assign us to the House of Huffnpuff. ๐Ÿ˜‰
      That puzzle took weeks but I was determined. I do love it though.

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