Pictures..... have I got pictures!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who had oodles of pictures! I spent some time several years ago going through the boxes and stacks of loose pictures. Pictures from my childhood, family photos going back to when my parents married, relatives (some not labeled so I have no clue who they are). Then there were the pictures that spanned our marriage including several trips we took. (The trips were mostly post cards.) And while there are a lot of pictures, they are limited to the times someone had a camera or wanted to memorialize an event. The pictures (family and ours) span over 60 years. Around 2000 we moved to some digital pictures and the cameras expanded to better quality and memory cards dropped in price and we had home computers that had storage space. So taking a picture was no longer an event. You grabbed your camera to not only memorialize an event, but to just take a picture of the lovely sun set or mess around with your camera. And gradually, we stopped printing pictures because not only were there so many, but we could carry them around with us on the camera's memory card, plug them into the TV or a slide show, send them in an email. And THEN, there was Facebook, the iPhone and all the other phones, the iPad and all the other tablets. And not only could you take pictures, you could post them on FB or send them off to your friends or family. Most pictures were of better quality (unless you jiggled you phone) than you could take with the cameras of the 90's. And I rose to the occasion, took pictures and I have over 7,000 digital pictures!!

I'm trying to organize things......

The digital pictures were at one time located on Picasa, a Google program that stored pictures in what became "the Cloud". From there I moved to purchasing programs and first settled on Photoshop Elements 9 as well as Photoshop Lightroom. With that program I could label pictures and organize them by date and event. I also ended up with several computers as I tend to purchase a new one but keep the old one. So the digital pictures were scattered. And I've tried off and on since I've been retired, to organize things with some success. The actual pictures are better organized with storage in boxes labeled by event. I have a few photo albums. I also made two picture books - one of the first two years at the Lake house and one for B's birthday a few years ago (a this is your life type of book). And this winter, my goal has been to better organize things. And I'm getting there.

I now use two Mac computers, a desk top that's several years old and a MacBook that is new. I purchased Photoshop Elements 14 and am in the process of organizing everything into that. I spent the past several days moving/exporting my pictures from flash drives, memory cards and Photos, the picture program for the Mac. The sense of urgency is due to this blog.... right now I edit the picture and it ends up on my desk top. I started with folders from 2000 to current and all pictures are now in one of those folders. I also have folders for scanned pictures by location (where we lived). It's been interesting seeing all the projects we have done around the Lake house and here at the Park house.

My mom and me. Back yard of our house in S. Jersey.

Mom made our dresses

Me in the 50s in the living room of our house. Again, the skirt made by my mom.

Here I am in the kitchen of our first house.

Loved the wall oven!

Our second house!

We had the house built and it came with just the trees - no landscaping.

We bought sod from Tuckahoe Turf and laid it ourselves. What a job!

B built the fence. It was inspired by the model home and he made the entire thing.

Snow at the Voorhees house.

We had a small snow blower and it did the job.

We had a 32 ft. Carver boat outside of Annapolis. This is B with our first Honey and a friend who was boating with us.

It was a very nice boat - and here I am relaxing in the cabin reading a book.

Our Lake house the third house we owned. Due to the deer and other wild life, I did most of my plants on the deck in containers.

Christmas at B's mom's house. I'm Santa.

Honey in her chair - a favorite spot.

YES, that's a bear walking up the street. The Lake house is in the wilds. Thankfully I had my camera handy and grabbed it as the bear walked past our house and up the road to our neighbor's.