narrow and organize my "memory" stuff from high school and other experiences

I parted with some stuff, and reorganized the rest into smaller totes: 2 that are to keep, and 2 to sort out. My mother, bless her, was hit and miss on keeping stuff. For example, I have what seems like every single worksheet from 1st grade. It goes downhill from there. So I need to do a big weedout of those, plus a ton of double prints of photos I already organized. I was less than happy to find those, because I thought I had organized all my photos already. So we shall see. They may hit the circular file.

I also have to decide whether I will keep my old journals and my old letters from past loves. Frankly, if I died tomorrow, would I want my family reading all that to figure out what it is? Do I_ need to go back and look at that ever, really? _Will I? I mean, how many angst poems is it healthy to keep? So I need to do a little more thinking on that one.

I am going to put this stuff into smaller bins tonight or tomorrow. The huge bins I have now are super heavy and won’t fit in the space I have available. Throughout the process I also hope to be able to part with some items, too.

and have these two enormous and über heavy totes full of memory stuff. I have managed to scrapbook tenth grade, but need to move on to other things, or just get willing to part with some. Space is limited! This goal has taken on a renewed urgency. As soon as I’m done with my DC trip I can do some more HS stuff. It is really fun to be able to look back at it without it being an ordeal of hauling out the totes.

I finished 10th grade and have assembled the album and properly filed all extra photos and other goodies. Now instead of a stack of photos three inches high and a big binder of random stuff, I hve a fun album to look at and a handful of photos to do with what I like and a small folder of papers. Not sure what grade to do next – probably ninth. I have a LOT of photos from ninth grade and would like to get from three photo boxes down to two.

It’s so easy to throw the extras when I was such a CRAPPY photographer! :)

Worked more on 10th grade yesterday. I was alone, and watching movies while I did it. At one point I had a twinge of “why am I scrapping this stuff from 12 years ago when I could be out making new memories?” And then I thought, it’s ok to take time to just be alone, relax, reflect and remember. Some people read, others veg in front of the TV or computer to relax, I am allowed to scrapbook. Not every second of the day has to be adventurous or productive!

I did one trip yesterday from 10th grade. What was so great is that I didn’t remember a lot of the names of places and people, but the photos still brought back good memories – well, what’s great about that is that anything I didn’t use on the pages, I threw in the garbage, completely guilt free. This is why I’m doing this! And because the photos were just going to sit in a box, I’m not being super-particular about how they are getting laid out – I figure anything, even if it’s just to plop them onto patterned paper, is better than that. So it’s fast. Fun!

But really, spent the time eating supper, gabbing, finishing off organizing my recipes, and then just organizing my 10th grade stuff further. But now I can cruise! That’s the thing with scrapping, sometimes it seems like it takes longer to organize it than to actually scrap it. But man, will that be great when it’s done.

for this project, per my most recent entry. Now I won’t have any excuse but to DO IT.

I am going to order 100 12×12 scrapbook plastic sleeves and have been researching the best price (think I found it online & with free shipping). That will get me started and I can be on the lookout for good deals on post-bound albums later. That way I won’t be stressing out that I didn’t get a book that was big enough, because I won’t have to buy the book until I’m done. This way I will also have more flexibility to add pages, unlike with Creative Memories albums, even though they are my faves. 12×12 is the standard size now and even though I did some pages in my 12×15 album, that’s ok, they can stay there. No biggie. I probably have enough to do more 12×12 pages of those events anyway!! 12×12 will also work for memorabilia and certificates, etc. I’m definitely thinking this will be worth the time for two reasons:

1) I like paper scrapping, but with my digital camera I’m also enjoying making online books. That means that my current photos are done on the computer, so I have to have something to cut up :)
2) Once I’ve scrapped my things, everything will be in one place. I can let go of the extra and won’t have it in several places, just one. Then if I want to make someone a goofy card with old pictures, or just chuck them, I can know I’ve kept the best and it won’t be a big deal!

And I think I might need to scrapbook it. I’m hung up on the format, but I have several empty scrapbooks and know what? I might as well use them. Big whoop if they are not the same as the others. I should use what I already have. I’m stuck on what to do about certificates, etc. They are already in sleeves and binders but that makes them very heavy and I don’t if it’s archival. More deeply, I don’t know if I even want to archive them. I think I’ll figure that out as I go.

I’m envisioning decorative boxes for different categories. Maybe by grade, maybe by activity (band, Girl Scouts, drama, friends). That’s because some of what I have is 3D. I suppose I should work that out before getting started. But that might make the certificate thing easier to deal with, too . . . because it wouldn’t be by grade in school. It’d be more interesting, would show more growth and more patterns, etc. Although everything’s already organized that way so the transfer would be easiest if I did it by grade . . .

I find that in scrapbooking, it’s worth it to spend the time on the front end planning things out so as not to be disappointed later. That’s why though I want to use up my books I am reluctant, because if I opt for all the same size, I can at least expand or collapse the books as needed. But it’s also not reducing bulk to buy big heavy 12×12 albums . . .

I need to dig into this project. The months of mulling it over are becoming counterproductive. November may be the moment.