The 100 Days Cleanout: Day 43-I Am a Picture Hoarder

I might have mentioned before that I am a “belt and suspenders” kind of gal. I think through all the possibilities. I plan the escape route on the plane if I have to evacuate. I know where all the exits are.

I hoard every picture that I have ever had printed.

Boxes of them. Stacks of them.

There was a time, long ago, when I would actually take a roll of film to wherever it was that I had film developed. And always I would choose the “double prints” option because, you never knew when you might want to send a picture to the grandparents or use one for a project or something. And then I started scrapbooking and rather than selectively re-print some pictures I would have a moment of sheer madness and say,

Print them, print them ALL!

And then I would use about half of those prints and then put the rest in a box, all neatly organized by year. And then when I needed those pictures again….of course I wouldn’t actually look through the boxes. I would have them printed again.

Insert expensive dope slap here.

But I am slowly beginning to go through those boxes. To look, quickly, at the pictures and decide if I already have a copy of them in my carefully organized photo boxes that I AM using for scrapbooking.

Yesterday, while Nick the plumber was here replacing the ejection pump, I was busy ejecting pictures from the boxes. This pile represents pictures that I already have a copy of somewhere else. Or pictures that are blurry. Or pictures that just aren’t right.

I was going to scan some of them to show you but then I would just end up saving an electronic copy of pictures that I don’t want to keep anyways.

And that would sort of defeat the purpose of the whole clean out thing.

Trust me, I am scanning in a BOAT LOAD of pictures every day and some of them are doozies. I am sure I will show them to you at some point.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.