I'm blogging as a means of procrastination--since last October I've been working on organizing a lifetime of photos. Yikes--I had no idea what I was getting into, so always find a reason to put it off, but my office is a mess, a wreck, with albums and papers and bags and boxes scattered all over.
I wanted to make albums for my two daughters and one for grandbaby. I discovered lots of photos of myself from youth up to near present that I will also have to album-ize; I filled a mailing size manila envelope with negatives, then had to get another one. I finally got some organization into this process by putting each girls photos into bags until I can file them.

It's sometimes sad and disturbing to see your life as it used to be. Me, skinny--actually skinny after the birth of my first daughter. I was standing, holding her, wearing a pair of shorts and a sleeveless top--two things I'd never dream of wearing now. Where did that skinny girl go? There are photos my husband, the Sgt., sent from Vietnam. Those will go in the girls albums.

Photos of New Orleans, riding a streetcar. Photo of me, kids and mother standing in line to see the King Tut display at the Audobon Park museum in New Orleans (no photos allowed inside) pics of the New Orleans World's Fair, pics of three of us young RN's in front of a house we rented in Biloxi Miss. after graduation; the lighthouse, us at the beach, pics of New York, pics of New Haven Connecticut and Yale, pics of New Mexico and Texas, pics of our high school class trip to Rock City Tennessee and Ruby Falls with its underground cavern and pools of blue water.

Pics of my house that has remained unchanged, just the landscape has changed. My house used to be situated in a gorgeous glade of hickory and oak trees. Now the trees are gone due to old age and hurricane damage. Now my house sits out in the open bare to the elements. I also took pics when I was making my rounds as a home health nurse, of old houses, old bridges and old people who were my patients.

It's a roller coaster ride of memories, the photos a zigzag of early life mixed with all the people and events from then to now. Some people in photos I have no idea who they are, so being ruthless, ditched them. But sometimes today I will go back in the office and work on it all again for an hour or so. If I don't, another year will come and go and all those photos will still be waiting. Ouch!

susil