Note to my grownup kids: I'm restraining myself, but apologies in advance for sharing a little of your ADORABLENESS as youngsters!
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| Our infamous Gettysburg camping trip during the monsoon. |
It all began several months ago with a paragraph in Parade magazine. A company called ScanMyPhotos.com was recommended for turning those pre-digital photos* into jpegs. This was something I'd been meaning to look into, but was afraid of the expense.
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| Sunny was our family dog/Houdini for 15 years. |
*Do you remember those days of buying rolls of 24 or 36 exposures? You'd take a picture now and then, spreading the roll out over a few weeks. It cost real money to develop the film - cheaper to get doubles the first time around for sharing - though you also had to pay for doubles of the fuzzy, overexposed, underexposed, or just unthinkably bad photos that went straight into the trash. Then you carefully added the prints to a photo album or the fridge. Maybe on vacation you splurged and took two rolls of film in just one week! Wheeee!
When I googled the company a link to a Groupon came up. I'd never used Groupon but getting 1000 pictures digitized for $29.99 sounded great. It took awhile but finally on July 29 the pics were boxed, numbered, counted. They spanned a period from 1992 to 2000. It was spooky putting them in the mail. Would we ever see them again?
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| First winter after moving back East from California... |
When September came to an end I got nervous. The live chat help at ScanMyPhotos reassured me that my photos would be returned the following week. Several days later they arrived with a DVD. They were in perfect numerical order, with none missing.
What a nostalgic trip it's been, from removing and then replacing the photographs in their albums to sorting them into iPhoto 'events'.
I believe that we are our memories. The devastating thing about watching my mother-in-law Joan's Alzheimer's disease progress was witnessing the slow, inexorable theft of her memories. Gradually I came to feel that the woman I had grown to love over 34 years was disappearing before my very eyes.
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| With my grandmother Helen, many Thanksgivings ago. |
Photographs give us a record of who we are, what we've done with the years, who we loved, when and why. If it's true that what we do with our time reveals what is truly of importance to us then leafing through the old pictures can illuminate the search for meaning in our lives.
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| This may be the only time Lauren and I played music together! |
There can be regrets too. In keeping with the theme of See Beautiful I will confess one. I never felt pretty and most especially fretted constantly about my weight. "I don't like that picture," I'd say, "it makes me look too fat." Or, "No give me the camera, I hate having my picture taken." Now, looking at those old images, I wonder, was I crazy? Who did I think I was supposed to look like?
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| Me with Honest Abe! |
If you catch yourself criticizing how you look, just stop. Don't do that to yourself! Nobody likes every picture of themselves. So what? Find what is beautiful in every picture. In thirty years, believe me, you will think you looked pretty darn good. And guess what? You do. You really do.
Disclaimer: I'm not advertising for nor being compensated by ScanMyPhotos.com. I'm just giving my opinion about my personal experience with them.
16 comments :
Great post and fabulous photos! :)
We think each picture is a beautiful treasure. Excellent way to celebrate See Beautiful.
Hugs to you and Toby.
Madi and Mom
Oh so much lively playful living in your photos ~ happy weekend to you all ~ carol, xo
This is really cool! I think I'd also be nervous about putting photos in the mail.
i enjoyed your memories very much and that is a fantastic price for that many photos. i could have written the part about thinking i wasn't pretty or was to fat. i was miserable in high school thinking i was ugly and fat and looking at my photos from 50 years ago i think WHAT? great post and you are right there is beauty in all of us
Love it. Our next door neighbours have downsized and they did that with all their photos as there was no room in their new place. Cool and loved seeing your old pix. Have a fabulous Friday.
Best wishes Molly
LOVE old photos, its precious. You got a good deal digitizing your photos. Golden Thanks for sharing these nostalgic memorable beautiful photos. Lots of Golden Woofs, Sugar
Hi Y'all,
I love the old pictures, especially when someone took the time to mount them and comment. After my parents passed away all that remained was photo albums...looking back at one album kept by my father before he knew my mother, I loved the insight into his feelings and thoughts those short comments under photos provided.
One day your photos and blog may provide the same for your kids. Photos capture those special moments in time...sometimes forgotten ones...
BrownDog's Human
love your photos! walking down memory lane is a hoot, isn't it? thanks for sharing your memories with us.
wags, bailey unleashed
Great post! I have so many pictures from my kids growing that I am so scared to lose. I like your advice too about the way we worry about ourselves in photos. I have hardly any pictures of my mom over the years because she always says that very thing.
what great photos! Thanks so much for sharing!
That was an absolutely awesome post. I love your photos, and I'm so glad they came back on that perfect DVD. I couldn't agree more about photos of yourself. Now we need to convince my husband who refuses to allow me to take his photo, something that we'll all someday regret.
Beautiful!
That was a really cool thing to do, I had never even heard of that service (the price did seem good too) It must have been quite a project to get them ready. But what great photos and memories. Gosh, I have some many photo albums and boxes full of photos. You are so right about seeing ourselves in photos....when we think we look awful today, 10 years down the road looks pretty good.
Jan, Wag 'n Woof Pets
I love all the photos! You can post all you want, doesn't bother me! ;) Was that really the only time we ever played music together? I would have thought for sure we did at least a few other times, but I don't remember. Glad we have pictures! You know what's really crazy is that as I look through these older photos I see my face in yours so much! Especially that one of you with Kevin in pre-school! I'm probably close the same age as you in that picture. Now I see what people mean when they say we look so much alike! :)
Also - I'm glad we have fun and happy pictures from Gettysburg because I remember being quite miserable half the time on that trip! haha
These r lovely pictures. I used to hate having my picture taken. To the point that I avoided it at all costs. Now I embrace it. I love to chronicle my outfits and my memories. I have almost no pictures of colleges or highschool or my 20s. I regret that now so I'm making sure it won't happen again
Urban hounds
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