Friday Randomness
Let’s see if I regret using up several random type items in one post during NaBloPoMo. I have a couple more recipes and book reviews for you, so we’ll see what happens after that. For now, I will keep today’s post to 5 items.
One of our local Little Free Libraries has been converted to a food pantry for those losing SNAP benefits due to the government shutdown. I hate this. I mean, it’s a great idea, but I hate that it’s come to this. Thankfully, my county is handing out pre-loaded debit cards to folks that get SNAP, so at least there’s that.
My decluttering project continues. I gave away this leather satchel type book bag from my graduate school days. I have no idea why I have kept it this long, except that I like it. But I haven’t used it in about 30 years, I don’t think.
I found 4 photo albums that were my mom’s. One is solely pictures of her cats, Merry and Pippen. The other three are 90% bad pictures of Juneau. The street she lived on, trees she liked, etc. She didn’t have a good eye for photography, so often things are out of focus or centered wrong or whatever. I have a bunch of shoe boxes full of pictures from the last 40+ years. Well, mostly from about 40 years ago until about 10 years ago, when we stopped using a film camera. Lots of pictures of when Maya was a baby. I have photo albums, but these are the pictures that didn’t make the cut. So I’m thinking I will get rid of most of the pictures from my mom’s albums, and go through my pictures and see which ones I want to keep. I started yesterday, and I got from 3 shoe boxes down to 1.5, throwing out duplicates or blurry ones or pictures where someone’s eyes are closed, that kind of thing. Next I will need to put them in order, then go through the albums. It’s a project, I’ll tell you.
Apropos of Wednesday’s picture of the walker at the BART station, I have this picture from several years ago. A single crutch, discarded jauntily in front of a traditional Chinese medicine establishment. I assumed the person was immediately healed and sprinted off, but who knows.
Lastly, here are some photos of trees from my walk yesterday. Left to right, some fall foliage, a grapefruit tree with ripening fruit, and a persimmon tree. I don’t like persimmons, but I think they’re pretty on trees.
44 Comments
StephLove
I would have such a hard time culling photos, but it’s a good project because when you are done you will have only the best ones.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen grapefruit on a tree. Oranges, yes, all the time when I spent a semester in Spain and in botanical gardens, but never grapefruit.
Maybe the TCM center left the crutch there as advertising.
J
Culling the photos was difficult for sure, especially when so many are of people. I just got in the zone and said, ‘is this a good picture?’ If the answer was no, out it went.
I like your idea of advertising for the crutch!
Nicole MacPherson
In my Calgary neighbourhood, there was a little free food library on our street. It started during the pandemic, and I hope it helped people. I think it did!
J
It’s a great idea. I mean, there are food banks and other places as well, but the more ways to help, the better.
Jenny
All the photos from back in my parent’s day were terrible. Remember this was before digital cameras- you just pointed the camera, clicked, waited weeks until it was developed and hoped for the best. I don’t think people were trying to take really quality photos, just trying to capture memories. Now that we have iphones, people are more interested in making photos better.
Ha ha, that crutch in front of the Chinese medicine place… yes, they were obviously cured and sprinted off! So funny.
J
You make a good point about the intention behind photos for most people back then. Just trying to capture a moment. So all of the pictures of my mom’s town, they definitely meant something to her. I remember when Maya was an infant, I was frustrated that I wasn’t getting good pictures, and Ted told me that the key was to not worry about the expense of the film and developing, just take a bunch, and keep the ones that turned out. Well, the best of the best went into photo albums, and now we have level 2 that I am going to keep and put in photo albums, and then there will be level three, which will be leftovers if I run out of photo albums, and will go back in a box. Then level 4, which are the ones I threw out. I mean, it’s nice that we went to the zoo and took a picture of a hippo, but I don’t need to keep that hippo picture anymore. At least I hope not, since it’s gone now.
NGS
Last weekend I spent a LOT of time culling photos. Now I have two totes in my guest room and I have to figure out what to do with them. I think I might scan a lot of photos of me (baby NGS!) and do a blog post or two and organize the rest of them into albums.
My mom was notorious for her bad photography so it was easy for us to throw away a lot of photos. But there are some fun ones in there!
J
Yay! Looking forward to seeing pics of Baby NGS!
Margaret
I had to get rid of a bunch of photos when my mom died; I had certain rules I followed but it was still hard. Our governor is doing what he can to provide food assistance but the WA budget isn’t in great shape as it is. 🙁
J
I’ve never been able to throw out pictures of people, it’s always really hard. This time I just went for it and found it wasn’t difficult at all. Crazy, right?
Lisa's Yarns
My parents gave me some boxes of photos from HS/college a few years ago. I went through them all and then threw everything away! I have a few albums of that time of my life and feel like that is sufficient. But I am not a keeper! I’m glad we have digital photos now but then you lose the ability to easily pass those along to family/friends. Like it would be so overwhelming to had someone give me access to every photo my mom has taken on her phone as surely she is not culling them! But then it’s more equitable because every family member could have a copy whereas someone will have to take the photo albums she compiled from when they got married through the 90s when she stopped putting photo albums together!
J
I don’t have albums for the earliest photos that I found, so I’m glad for that. Digital photos…maybe I should print some up and put them in an album? Easy enough at CVS.
Tierney
I love the autumn trees. I’m a fan of persimmons, on trees and to eat!
J
My mom loved persimmons too, both the crunchy kind and the soft kind.
nance
You know, I was just thinking of whether or not to start dropping some food into the Little Frees around town. I’m so irritated and sad that this is where we are right now. The chaos, the cruelty … I can’t even.
Love the photo of the abandoned crutch in front of the medical building. If that’s not a great testimonial, I don’t know what is.
At some (dreadful, awful, hopefully still distant) point, I have to tackle my own photo project quite similar to yours. You’ve given me some great pointers on culling the massive stacks I’m going to have to deal with. Ted’s rationale is also so smart and helpful.
J
The photo project feels overwhelming, but now that I’ve started I feel like there is momentum, which is a good thing. The closet felt overwhelming too, but I got through that, so I know this will be a success.
Sam
I really like the satchel! I’d find that type of photo project totally overhelming–glad you’re getting started. I tend to be less sentimental about most things, so I would have a hard time getting the energy up to sort them.
J
Well, this has been a project in the making for probably the last 20 years…since we stopped using a film camera. Overdue to say the least.
ernie
I find it difficult to get rid of photos, even bad ones. what’s wrong with me? I inherited my uncle’s photo albums when he passed a few years ago. He was the last surviving memeber of his family. I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. For now.
The crutch photo outside a Chinese medicine healting building. Yes – let’s imagine the injurred was healed and sprinted off. Or skipped away, full of joy.
Setting up that little free library as a food pantry is brilliant. Hoping this nonsense ends soon.
J
I’m so glad that my cousin inherited the photo albums from my grandma, and not me. That would have been too much! I can barely manage the pictures we have already, obviously.
DB Stewart
More little free libraries in the world please (whatever helping items they contain).
J
The food thing is new around here, though I know in the early days of the pandemic some were used for food. I just don’t remember seeing it.
Melissa
Sorting photos and similar ones is so hard. I’m almost finished sorting through all the things I kept for the kids—report cards, awards, selected pieces of schoolwork and photos. I scanned a lot and am making photobooks (3 for each) and then culled until each child’s stuff fitted in a shallow A3 box that they can take away and decide what they want to keep. I wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t take up too much room for them. It is a big project though.
I can’t believe you keep finding abandoned mobility aids when you are out. Very weird!
J
I love that you have done that for your kids, what a gift! I don’t think I have any of my daughter’s report cards. Does she have them somewhere? Unlikely.
Lisa
Ha! I like that “immediately healed” bit!
Going through my mother’s photos was hard. My oldest brother took all I didn’t want. I kept the ones I was in, like vacations and childhood albums. I tried to keep up on printing out digital photos, but somewhere along the line they got away from me. Now I feel they are “trapped.”
Lisa
I’ll add, the little libraries having food it a wonderful idea! Today Oregon issued full SNAP benefits.
J
California did too, but not sure if everyone got them or not. The government is doing a real push pull on this, aren’t they? Impossible to plan.
J
Maybe I’ll start a new project when I finish dealing with these photos, and print up photos from our phones, and put them in an album. Hmmm.
AC
Sorting and casting off pics is hard.
J
So hard!
Martha
I have done the same with photos over the last few years. I also took a walk down memory lane with all my old yearbooks when my good friend who I’ve known since 6th grade came to visit, and then I tossed them too. My kids aren’t going to want that stuff. Decluttering is an ongoing project for me and no matter how often I go through things I always find more to get rid of the next time around. First the walker and now the crutch, lol. What’s going on with the spontaneous healing around there?!
J
I could totally get rid of yearbooks…perhaps I should.
PocoBrat
Love all the visuals in the post, J–hard to pick a favorite…
J
Thanks Maya!
Tobia | craftaliciousme
That photo project sounds like a lot.
I am really admiring your resilience to go through all the stuff and deal with it.
That cructch…. you are on a roll. NExt you fid a protheses…
The content of the lirbary… wow. Thinsg are dire.
J
LOL on the prosthetic limb!
Sarah
Oh I love that satchel so much!
J
I did love it and got good use out of it, but it’s bulky and heavy. I am glad it went to a good home.
Stephany
I did one of those photo organizing projects one year. It’s so much work! I ended up buying a specific photo box so I could organize my photos into different categories: dad side of the family, mom side of the family, me as a baby, me and my brother, etc. This is the one I have: https://www.containerstore.com/s/office/craft-hobby/iris-6-case-5-x-7-photo-and-craft-storage-box/12d?productId=11000325. They have bigger ones, too!
J
WOW, that is super organized, isn’t it? If I don’t find room for all of my photos in the albums, I will keep them in the box they are in now. It has little index card sized tabs where you can write categories and so on, which I have never done, but seems like a good solution should the problem present itself. If not, I may use it for something else, it’s a nice box!
San
That leather satchel is lovely.
J
It is lovely, I think the new owner is going to enjoy it!
Michelle G.
Sorting through photos is SO hard. I feel for you. Sometimes bad photography is the best, especially in this day of polished and AI enhanced photos.
I laughed out loud at your thought about the discarded crutch – the owner was healed!
J
Old photography, especially pictures taken by someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing, is such a crap shoot, right? But as someone mentioned, often it was looking for a memory rather than a great photo.