Double Sorting Rainbow From My Mother - Lots of Work

I feel bad blogging on days like yesterday and today because I spend so much time working on my mothers stuff, that I don't do anything else and have nothing much to share. 

I t seems like my life is so boring and who would want to read about it? Truly, most days, that is how I feel but I know if no one reads it, it doesn't matter because it is a history in itself for my girls and their families. 

It is a reference source for many other family members and friends when they ask for a favorite recipe, or some type of health information, I can tell them to "go to my blog" and search for the post they want. I can't share how many times I myself have looked up recipes for things if I don't make them often. 

With that, I know I am busy. I know that I still have a ton of work to do on my mothers history, estate, sorting, scanning etc. I am doing my best. However, I do get frustrated with my mother at times when the mountain of stuff is overwhelming and I want to share with her how frustrating it is to spend days and day sorting. I have spent MONTHS of my life sorting her stuff and organizing thing. I transferred over 180 super 8 movies to dvd and listed everyone on every video in order etc. 


I am a VERY organized person when I have the time to be and I really do like everything in its place but feel like that has gone out the window the past few years with the amount of stuff I have had to sort through. 


Sorting is only part of the issue. The scanning is the bigger issue now that Walmart has changed out their scanners. There is no place to go to get fast scanners that can capture many photos as once and then allow you to edit them before you save them. 


So, I am overwhelmed looking at the stacks of pictures. I spent all today working on the two bins and finally I finished sorting those two bins and still have several more in the garage! 

Then, there is the writing up the history or typing up the history to go with the picture. You can understand my frustration if you read back a few years when I posted about all the sorting I did.

With that, I was feeling a bit discouraged and feeling frustrated that I am doing 99% alone as my family doesn't see the value in doing any of it so there I was feeling discouraged when what pictures do I find..... Of course rainbows!!!! 

It was just what I needed to make me realize that my mother is still over it all. She has led me to some amazing discoveries in the past few months. Things have come to me that probably never would have if I hadn't been willing to edit her book and sort, organize, scan, and share what I find. 

I have sorted through 10 scrap books, the binders pictured above are empty, I threw three away and reused three. The problem I am having is that I have about 12 bins at my sisters that I sorted before. I have files for all the things I sorting into piles at the moment and at some point will need to merge the files.


I still have several bins that need to be sorted in the next few days and once I finish those, I will need to merge the piles / files and then move onto scanning. I have a specific pile that needs scanning now as the items need to be included into the book so that is a priority and then finishing the edit as I am 2/5th the way done. I still have 150 pages. 

I found some fun pins that my mother collected in her travels all over the world that I think the younger grand-children may like. They were so old that the fabric / foam they were pinned on deteriorated and made them sticky so I cleaned them all and will put them with the stuff for the grandchildren to pick from at the next family reunion. 

I don't know how exciting my blogs will be for the next few days as I really want to get this stuff organized. I still have many bins at my sisters that are all newspaper articles that need to be put into date/ order and scanned. I at least have them by month but there are several bins full of articles. Just today, I spent hours pulling apart one scrapbook that was one week of my mothers life in the 1950's when she was traveling the world. The entire book was different news clippings and pictures, programs etc. I have that much stuff for every week for over a year of her life! 

I am SO grateful for scanning and having electronic copies so that everyone can have copies and that they are easy to access and you can blow them up to read them etc. 

I truly realize how blessed we are to live in a time where everything is at our fingertips and that newspapers are a thing of the past. I was trying to explain to my youngest today how famous my mother was having photographers following her every move for a year of her life and then often after that. 

I now understand why my mother behaved as she did in her later life having been under that much attention, you can't make a wrong move or they write articles on it.That would be a tremendous amount of pressure to endure for any length of time.

I am grateful to have such an amazing mother that was willing to sacrifice a life of fame and fortune to have 8 children! Who took lots of pictures of each of her kids and kept all their programs and some art etc. She made audio tapes of us speaking and videos of us through the years. She was the master family history hoarder! I know at some point I will be grateful for her "hoarding" as it will give us understanding of our families past. I will be VERY excited when I have it all organized and digitized so we all can benefit from it!