My son at age four and half at our riverfront property in Washington State that my grandfather bought for a few dollars during the Great Depression.
I am facing a chore I’ve put off for years. I have stacks of photo albums with many of the same photos and duplicates from my high school years through raising kids — before digital photos became a thing. We had a photo developer a few blocks from our house in Palm Springs called Double Photo. Yes, you got two photos for the price of one for every roll of film you brought in. I’d walk to the store, pushing a double stroller with kids plus rolls of film treating them like treasure. Hence my abundance of photos and closet full of photo albums. I’d mail the double photos to Mom, but after she passed, they were all returned to me.
I’m finally addressing the elephant in my closet by tackling one album a day. I take out the photos I want to keep and put them in a photo box. The album with remaining photos gets tossed.
Here are a few photos I found this week that bring back memories:
Here I am at our property with both kids, my daughter aged 18 months, throwing a punch?
My son before little sis was born, bathing in the kitchen sink.
Baby Kat at our park for the Fireman’s annual egg hunt.
My son eating steamer clams we dug together in Washington at my mom’s house. Funny, he’s allergic to all seafood now.
My husband and I took a rewards trip to Hong Kong thanks to the company he worked for. This is the parking lot of the Peninsula Hotel. I couldn’t believe their fleet of cars. Or the flowers for a wedding.
Wow! I’ve never seen a wedding with so many flowers before. I guess it goes along with the cars.
Then in typical China fashion, this was a side of pork at a local open air market. Such a contrast between the haves and have nots.
A picture of me in Hong Kong. We were all turned around time wise and I tripped on the curb outside our hotel — my first steps outside — and sprained my ankle. We have lots of photos of me sitting on that trip wearing an ace bandage. Kind of foreshadowed our trip to the lake in Eastern Arizona last month!
What do you do with photos from the past vs. digital photos?
I too have a cabinet drawer full of albums and loose photos. I should organize them too.
I am doing one photo album per day. That way it’s not overwhelming and it’s a small task.
Good idea. 👍🏼
😊
Wow that double photo thing takes me back years EA! Love seeing the kids when they were small and I bet the memories are wonderful as you go through each photo. Everything I have is digital now. Just another aspect of our younger days that has totally changed within our lifetime.
Isn’t that so true. So much has changed in our lifetime. That could be a blog on it’s own. I am enjoying going through the old photos, one album per day. More than that I think I’d feel like the memories are too much — or that it’s to time consuming. I’m glad you enjoyed the photos, too.
I went through a major photo purge last summer. I shredded garbage bags of them, saved some that were meaningful to me, then tossed them in boxes organized by name/family/occasion. That’s as far as I got organizing my stash of photos from the past. Not that I’m much better with digital ones, but a least they’re new. And already in the computer.
That sounds similar to my project. I decided being home and unable to drive or walk is as good of a time as any to work on this project. I have way too many photos on my phone. I wouldn’t know how to get started with that. One job at a time!
I am overwhelmed thinking about going through old photos and so far have avoided them. I have large plastic containers of photos and old letters stacked in the laundry room. I keep thinking I will get to them “next winter.” I think I’m afraid of the emotional effects.
I am laid up for a couple months, so I thought this would be a good time to get started. I’m limiting how much I do every day so it’s not overwhelming. My husband has a saying, “How do you eat an elephant. One bite at a time.”
Such sweet pictures! I totally understand why you don’t need two of them — but wow, I’d have trouble letting them go. Good for you for tackling them!
Thanks! I’m glad you like the photos. I’m putting together photo boxes for each of my kids. So some of the doubles go there. But every time I took photos, I put all of them in albums, and so many photos are almost identical. I’m saving the best.
Pictures bring back so many memories, don’t they! Cute pics of your children. A good one of you too, and when you said that about spraining your ankle on a trip. I thought right away of your recent experience. Start carrying bubble wrap for your ankle. LOL!
Allergies are strange how they can suddenly develop. Too bad about your son’s allergy. I love seafood!
I was really good at making the Shutterfly books with my digital photos, but I am behind now. I need to get started like you are doing.
Fortunately, my old photos are mostly in photo albums.
Thanks! My photo albums were taking up the shelves in our guest room closet. I’m happy to save the best and throw away the photo albums. My kids are enjoying these memories, too. I pull out a few and take photos with my phone and text them.
Understand about them taking up room and I know I have duplicates that I could throw away but yes, it is quite the job!
I am enjoying the memories, though. Also, to limit my time to one photo album a day works. I don’t get tired of working on it or overwhelmed.
Smart!
👍🏼
Oh, you’re not the only one that has to do this. It really is a huge chore. You want to keep the memorable ones, but even the bad pictures (blurry or design) have something that triggers the heart. It’s such a difficult task. Good luck.
Thanks! I take so many photos almost exactly the same and still save them all rather than deleting some of them. That filled up so many albums and my phone! I can handle one photo album of memories per day and enjoy reminiscing.
Ha! The classic kid bathing in the kitchen sink photo (I wonder if parents do this anymore?). I bet your kids are grateful you didn’t post the other classic: kid sitting on the toilet… or maybe that was just my crazy parents. 🙂 Have fun journeying down memory lane!
I never did the kids on the toilet photo. But I do have other ones they definitely cringe at! I’m enjoying going down memory lane but am glad to limit it to one album per day.
Oh my goodness. What precious photos and memories. Cheers to you for digging in…I’ve got so much of that to do and know I need to digitize but I get swept up when I open the old albums and boxes and lose my sense of purpose. I can see how you might do that – these are terrific memory lane glimpses! 🥰
I may not digitalize them except to take photos of a few that I know my kids would like to see. I text the photos to them. My DIL enjoys them the most. I’m enjoying going down memory lane, but I can’t handle more than one album per day!
Oof! Hear you — but still impressive! 🥰
Thanks! 😊
I have 6 pre digital photo albums. But to be fair, I rarely look at any pictures of the past except for what’s on my walls
I have more than 20 and they take up to rows on my bookcase plus a shelf in our guest room closet! I never look at them either, so this is a good way to make better use of the space.
I put them in boxes and tucked away
That’s a good idea. I ordered photo boxes and will get rid of the bulky albums and hopefully not take up so much space.
Consolidation is key
Yes, plus throwing out lots of duplicates and similar photos.
I totally forgot about double photos until you mentioned it here! Wow, blast from the past. I have so many albums in the basement. I don’t make prints anymore because everything is digital now. Much easier today than it used to be.
It is much easier with digital photos. Even my real camera is digital and I can download the image card onto my laptop!
It is SO much easier!
👍🏼
My sister sent me 4 banker boxes full of loose photos once belonging to parents. I was saddened by the many vacations they once took and now they won’t leave the house…. I as fortunate that my former employer sent me on many international trips. I probably spent 4 months in Hong Kong.
That’s a ton of photos to go through. My brother sent me a huge box of my mom’s after she passed away. There were many photos from her childhood through ours, plus all the photos I had mailed her of my kids. It is sad to see how our parents change as they get older. Wow. Four months in Hong Kong!
Getting older is sad. And I still have my Octopus card.
I enjoyed all your vintage photos; your kids are adorable, and you’re falling on that trip? WOW. You are giving yourself a reputation.
I cleaned out photos during the pandemic. I gave any duplicates to my kids and discarded photos that were of no value. (a flower, lion at the zoo, etc)
I also sent tons of photos into a service to have them put on a thumb drive and those are in a safe.
I remember vividly dropping our film off, then waiting the week or so for our pictures. What a time to be alive!
Thank you! Yes, I have a terrible habit of not watching where I’m going. My daughter said it’s because I was so nearsighted, I never learned how to look. I wore hard contact lenses and my Rx was one of the worst anyone saw — until cataract surgery! Maybe she’s right. I don’t know how to look. I’m being a lot more careful now!