Get it together

The closet in my craft room

I have "inherited" my fathers photo albums, all of my mother's memorabilia and collected tons of my own "stuff" over the years. All of which I intended to put together in some sort of order. But, in fact all of that stuff has taken over my craft room. This is the room I used to scrapbook in all the time. It used to be my haven, my creative spot, my sanctuary. Now...my stickers, paper and photos just sit and wait for my return. I just haven't made scrapbooking a priority since I went digital. I have missed it and I am on a mission to claim back my space! That being said...we also have other plans for this room and that means organization and purging are a must! But photos and memorabilia are only part of the issue. Our old video is a challenge to me. The other night a friend asked us to find a video of Depression Glass, Jeff's band in the 90's, opening up for Drivin' N Cryin' at CSU. Wow...talk about a blast from the past. This request sent us on a trip down memory lane. Luckily I knew where these older tapes were since I had been "organizing" and Jeff knew where the old camera was. Don't ask me why we still have this old camera because I couldn't tell you, but it's a good think we did.  Jeff hooked it up to the television and we began to search.

Among the videos that we found was the tape of our engagement...where I stand corrected from my previous post...Jeff very sweetly said "Jen, will you marry me?" He also had a tape of our wedding that I had never seen and didn't know existed! He apparently put the camera in the balcony of the theater and hit record. So of course we watched it. Well if I was mushy about Jeff before Lord help us now. We found random tape of friends hanging out, my very first apartment at Christmas, Jeff's band practice in the shed, our trips to Disney (before we lived here), Liv and Gabe when he was just home from the hospital, mine and Jeff's Birthdays, Christmases, Shows from college, Daniel with Santa and even Jamie at one of his reenactments. Many wonderful memories that I am happy to relive.

So, I have very slowly been going through box after box, drawer after drawer. I have been taking pictures of bulky items recycling what I can and trashing the rest.  I have been putting items that are not meaningful to me in a box for my sister and brother to rummage through. But I think what will help me the most is to make it all digital so I can actually do something with all of these memories. If I were to go through and try to scrapbook everything I would never make any progress. I did feel a since of freedom when we started making iMovies. It will allow me to focus on a few photos and the story or emotion when I create the scrapbook page instead of making sure every picture is used. Freedom! My plan was and still is to make iMovies to accompany the scrapbooks.  So begins the quest to figure out how to digitize my videos. I have a good idea where to start! I'll let you know how this goes.