Photos to destruction

Oh boy, have I been knee-deep in the process of moving items from one computer to another. Instead of doing it the easy way (just putting all the information onto an external hard drive and dealing with it later) I went through EVERYTHING on the old computer first. This meant sifting through thousands upon thousands of pictures and movies that I had made ... old documents of things I had written, and because one is always afraid that they will lose something, I had copies upon copies of chapters -- duplicate city.

This was the time to take care of it all. And it has been a chore. I even gave up at the end and dumped about 100 folders of pictures on the desktop of the new computer, and I try to go through a bunch whenever I can. I am taking the pictures from separate folders and placing them into one folder by year. But, I am going through each photo and dumping ones I don't really need. Like ... does one really need 7 million pictures of sunsets on Lake Sunapee?

Going through each year's worth of folders, there is a definite pattern to my life. Each summer begins at the lake, with countless photos of the boat going in, pictures of Mount Sunapee in the background with snow on the slopes and the kids swimming in the lake. Then the summer progresses and soon we are at the Vineyard, and then there are just hundreds upon hundreds of those pictures! I have debated whether I should put them all together or keep them separated by year? Right now it would be quite a big deal to merge them ... I am thinking it won't happen!

Then after the Vineyard there are sunsets! It is as though I panic at the thought of no longer seeing sunsets on the lake, so I record them dutifully! I am keeping maybe two a year -- they really are beautiful, but a tad redundant. Next there are the pictures of the boat going out of the lake and the fall colors. Every year I take pictures of the cottage as we leave it to take the boat out. Again, cottage hasn't changed much ... plenty of weeding to do there. Then we have the Thanksgiving pictures, a few random shots of this and that, then Christmas.

And then we move into the following year! And tons and tons and tons of shots of the kids in ski races. The only thing that has changed over the years in that regard is their GS suits! An occasional shot here and there of all the snow we've received (or not) and then we move into Easter, which is often at my sister's house and easily recognizable as such.

Then spring comes and whammo, the shots of me in the woods and on mountains become quite plentiful! It's kind of funny. I had no idea that I lived such a predictable life!

Of course, there are full file folders full of trips to wherever I have gone -- London, Scotland, Sedona -- so many photos, so little time!

So I have been busy doing that, skiing and lastly, being driven batty by my husband, who does not work this time of year and hence wakes up like a small child and demands to know what we are going to do today. He in fact, just came into the office and said he didn't want to bug me because he was afraid he would end up in my blog!!! Ha. We are in the midst of designing the master bathroom and preparing for a major renovation; and I have already chosen what I want for the vanity, but he wants to go check out other options.

You see, I make my mind up very easily. I picture in my head what I want, and then I know when I see it if it is right. I saw it, I said that was it, but Peter is the opposite. He needs to see hundreds of different possibilities before he makes a decision. Now, sometimes I just follow him around as he goes through this process, but then again, sometimes I am not in the mood to waste time just to appease someone. And that would be the case today! He also believes that if I am sitting at my computer writing, then I am wasting my time, so therefore not so many blogs get written because truly, does anyone want to read on a daily basis how my husband is driving me nuts?

I know I don't! And it's a double-edged sword; because once he starts on this project (which is really a major renovation that includes one half of the upstairs) he will become obsessed with that and will do nothing else. That is the good news. The bad news is that my house will be under construction and I start to hyperventilate at the thought. Seriously. My whole married life has included a major renovation and living in construction and I am seriously over it. The sound of the compressor going off haunts me; the banging, the noise, the mess. Oh sure, sure sure, Pollyanna is looking forward to her new bathroom. It will be fabulous. But the not so sunny side of me is anticipating the months of hell that will ensue, for these things do not go quickly. And there I go, hyperventilating!!!

HELP!