Project Photo Legacy

Legacy photo boxes for my boys

Do you have a ton of photographs stashed somewhere? Maybe in albums and boxes.

I've been weeding through about a half-million pictures since the beginning of this year. What a project!

I had a plan. Go through every album and two huge totes, pull out decent pictures, and trash the unwanted ones like all those pics of zoo animals or Nascar race pictures. Sort the good ones into folders based on family lines or my boys, grandsons, pets, nature, and so on. Then put my son's and grandson's photos in a legacy photo box.

Sounds simple right? Well, not so much. 

You see, back in the day, we had duplicates made of almost every photograph. 

And when it comes to photographs, I'm a pack rat. I had school artwork from my boy's early days and my school report cards and silk material from my wedding dress. Tons of stuff to sort through.

Some was an easy decision—pitch it. Some brought forth happy memories. Some stirred up deep emotions. All in all, this has been a slow, genuinely intense endeavor.

At a recent family funeral, a cousin commented on the volume of pictures her family would have to divide from their father's albums. When they searched for pictures to take to the funeral home, she mentioned the lack of photos for the last ten years. The digital photography era began.

"Now we store them in a cloud somewhere." I laughed remembering my pool table at home covered in albums, piles of papers, and photos. "At least, we can hit the delete button to weed out the bad pics and don't have two copies of some zebra so far off in the distance, it's hardly recognizable."

But I have learned lessons on this photo journey.

• When the sorting becomes too overwhelming, stop for the day. Small chunks of time work better rather than hours of emotional decision making. Remember—how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
• Take less pictures of stuff that doesn't matter. Why did I take so many pictures of the scenery and only a few of my strawberry-blond four-year-old son at Kings Dominion?
• Have patience in the midst of enduring the extreme clutter that seems to multiply as the process unfolds. Sorting through years of life takes time.

I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Old albums will soon head to the dump. New boxes for each son and grandson will be stored until the day they take ownership.

Once this phase of cleaning out and storing is done, I can enjoy catching up my scrapbook and hanging a few of our favorites on the wall. I will be grateful when this overwhelming project is complete and my heart lighter since I'm not leaving a huge mess for my boys, instead a legacy box of photos.

In the meanwhile, I better take another bite out of the elephant, unlock more memories, and empty yet another album. 

Would you like to have this 4x6 Santa album? Leave a comment below and I will pick a name from a hat, and pop it in the mail. 

What about you? Have you undertaken an overwhelming project lately?  How did you manage to keep your sanity? Let's share our wisdom and encourage each other on life's journey.

Tammy Van Gils plants words and grows insightful stories blooming with hope. She is a thriving survivor of abuse, abandonment and adversity. How? By the Master Gardener's grace, the Vine's love, and the Advocate's renewal—emotionally and spiritually. She is sowing life with her husband of 35 years, a Yorkie Poo named Moose, and a dozen chickens. She is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers. She's honored to be a guest blogger and also a contributor to The Wonders of Nature Devotion Book, Let the Earth Rejoice Devotions, So God Made a Dog, Worthy Inspired and Short and Sweet Too, Grace Publishing.