The Photo Cleanout: Begin As We Mean to Go On

Or, Vol 1 if you really want to be picky about it.

Remember years ago, I had the audacity to think that I could actually maintain TWO blogs at the same time. The 100 Days Cleanout was a fabulous idea.....that I only made it 45 days through. I KNOW! I am an overachieving idiot. I actually did clean things out for much longer than 45 days, or at least it seemed like it anyways. And I got rid of a vastly larger quantity of things than was represented in those 45 glorious posts. Believe me, when you downsize from a 5000 square foot house to a 2300 square foot house you can't take everything with you. Well, I suppose you can but we surely did not want to.

Our watchword from 2010-2013 was DOWNSIZE IT!

You can't take everything with you....except for photos. Remember BIMNISDS! That would be why I currently have 73,861 photos on my computer. That is the actual number, I just checked it. We aren't even talking about my external hard drive, which might not, at this moment anyway, be harboring as many photos as my computer is. I am going to be cleaning out photos until the day the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse come knocking on my door to let me know that the chaos is outside as well as inside. But, I have to start somewhere on this grand photo organizing adventure and this is it.

You see, I have to tell you something about myself. I know that there are many who would say, "Just start the project! Don't delay! Power up Lightroom and get things organized and keyworded and metatdataed and work through the deleting as you go."

Folks, I cannot work like that. It just isn't possible for me to do it that way. I am the sort of person who gathers all of her materials before she starts sewing. I am the person who has all of the ingredients for the recipe out on the counter, measured out into their own little bowls before I even power up the Kitchenaid.

Yes, I am that person. And because I am that person it is an impossibility of epic proportions for me to just power up Lightroom and add things to the cataloging system that is pure GENIUS before I have gone through and eliminated all the photos that I don't want to catalog. This is hardwired into my DNA.

SO, I think you should come along on the process with me. Who knows, I may blogfade on this idea in, oh, about 3.2 blog posts. OR, I might just keep going with this until all of you throw up your hands and yell, "STOP! Stop showing us these things. Our eyes are bleeding." I am going to try to put up one of these blog posts every week or so. I won't show you all the photos that I will be cleaning out, only the "gems" so to speak. The current crop are stored in a file on my computer that I am calling "Blog then delete".

I hope.

 

If you know me on a personal basis you know that there is no way I could ever have resisted taking a picture of this. I didn't buy it....although I wanted to very badly. I may however have put it up on Instagram.

 

 Hmmmmm, an artful picture of an onion, a knife and a cutting board. I just have no idea why.

 

I am obviously writing in my journal. I am also obviously cold as I have my Fetchings on. Other than that, I got nothin'

 

I think it was originally cottage cheese...or yogurt...or sour cream....or some science experiment from 2001 when I spent a year homeschooling Cartoon Girl. 

 

Baking gone terribly awry. I have no idea what these were even supposed to be. Did they taste good? What the heck happened?

 

Obviously an omelette. Obviously I made it. But why I thought I should take a picture of it is, at this time, unknown and shall remain so.

 

I am sad just looking at an entire jar of homemade yogurt splattered all over the garage floor. I do recall that I let Max the Magnificent take care of most of the clean up. He felt so healthy after.

 Obviously a path. I think at Sunny Lake. But why? Why?

 

I seem to be obsessed with Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, or at least taking pictures of them. Trying to go back to my childhood? No, that would be pictures of Peanut Butter and Banana sandwiches, the bane of my school lunches. Sorry mom, I hated them....and threw them out. I would rather go hungry.

Obviously a meeting. Where? Why? A mystery I choose not to solve.

 My shoe. At the Community Center. Not walking but sitting. I think I will call it, "A Still Life After Weight Lifting Pain."

 

I can't even.......

There. They are blogged. Now I can delete them. Only about 30K more to go.

Is that the Four Horsemen I hear?