Out of Sight, Out of Mind

We are still going through things, throwing out things and packing stuff for storage. What really slows me down are going through boxes of photographs and mementos.

Things like Baby Books. The first child dutifully has achievements recorded for about a year, the second child has some things recorded but the third child.........well his name and birth weight are in his book.

Photographs and more photographs. Studio photographs, vacation snapshots, Polaroid shots from the 60's...fading fast, photographs sitting on Santa's knee, Christmas snapshots, school photos, and it goes on and on and on. Old negatives still in their paper sleeves from the drugstore. These are all begging to be scanned and saved. How much time would it take to sort through and choose the best, the most representative of this huge pile of our family life, and scan them, clean up the files and save them? It could be a project for the rest of my life.

When I look at these old photographs, it isn't just looking at the people but it is seeing the house when that beige scratchy couch was there or the flowered draperies or the chrome table in the kitchen. It is a flood of family history. When they were in the box stored away, all of these experiences were out of sight and out of mind.