Picture This! -- Part 3

Back in March 2005 and April 2005, I wrote a couple blog posts about my neglect of putting family photos in albums since my oldest son was about 18 months old. His sister came along when Avi was two years, two months and two days. And his brother came along a few years later, in March 2000. Imagine all those baby pics, sitting in photo processing envelopes, in supermarket bags, strewn in drawers, in cupboards, in crawlspaces.

Back in 2005, my husband threatened to take all the pics and put them in albums himself -- my neglect has continually been a sore point with him -- but he would have done so haphazardly, without any sequence. I panicked and was supposed to take on the project  a few years ago.

I didn't.

I am pleased to say that I FINALLY took on this photo arranging project this past week.

As I told my husband, Ron, it's the ultimate punishment, the ultimate "I TOLD YOU SO." I've been going batty, trying to find the sequences of  each child. Yes, I had actually labeled and dated some of the photos  when I got them back from the developer. But those photos in their envelopes are not sitting in any orderly fashion, according to months and years. It's somewhat of a guessing game as I plow through these moments in time.

But I am slowly making headway, and was able to help my firstborn celebrate his second b'day in pictures, then finally bring my daughter into the world and watch her in her first few months.

I stopped putting the photos in albums for now and in the meantime have just been arranging the envelopes with dates and years so that they can be in the correct sequence for when I do place their pics in the albums.

What can I say? It's definitely labor...but a labor of love, as I review our life in photos -- with cherished family members and friends...some of whom have departed this world and whom we miss enormously.

Perhaps lucky for me, my pics mainly carry me up to about 5 years ago. After that? We went digital!

I guess I can sum up my long-overdue photo archiving experience in this way, with this wonderful quote by an unknown author:

She glances at the photo, and the pilot light of memory flickers in her eyes.