I Need Ten Of Me - Seriously Never Ending

I have been working at least 8 hours a day or more on transferring my family history tapes from reel to reel and cassette to digital files.

I have been keeping track on how many tapes I have done after the first sitting as I needed some way to see that I was making some progress on the mountain of stuff.

I am super close to finishing the small reel to reels which I think is probably a good thing as those are the letters to my grandparents when we lived in Alaska and other towns further away from them. Each tape is super full and takes at least an hour each to record.

Many of the tapes were actually my mother recording musicals off the television for her teaching days so I have been super happy that I don't need to record all of them over and have focused hard on trying to get through them.

As you can see, I have done nearly 75 small reel to reel tapes, yet I have only done fifty cassette tapes!

Part of the reason that it is taking so long to record cassettes tapes over is that my mother was easily able to put many different events on cassette tapes verses having to deal with reels. There is usually only one event on the reels but the cassettes have many different things. It takes lots of times to stop and go saving so many things from different days and events.

I am almost finished with the small and medium reels, I only have about five left of the medium and small. The problem comes when I look at the over 75 large reel to reel tapes left that can be up to 12 hours long.

The third and fourth pictures are the "keep" box of the family tapes of different types and sizes. It is a small box so far and isn't packed very great.

The next picture is the "get rid of" box which is a medium size Home Depot box and it is packed with reels to get rid of. The next picture here is the get rid of box holding cassettes! There aren't many as it takes FOREVER to listen and copy with cassettes.

I haven't done even 1/2 of one of the small bins of cassette tapes bins. These two are the larger (not shoebox sized) bins and then I have a HUGE bin of tapes as well. Looking through it, I also realized I have another box of 50 VHS tapes to view as well. I have a box of mini VHS tapes in my closet somewhere that need to be viewed and transferred over as well.

I feel overwhelmed but also feel like I am obsessing about this. I just want so much to have it done and out of my life. I am working so hard on it and in the past two days, I have found an interview of my mother in Japan as a National Beauty Contest representative from the U.S. It is such an adorable interview and I love the way she makes people feel when she visits with them.

I also found a talk my mother gave about one of my great-great grandmothers and the struggles she had to overcome in coming to the U.S.

There are so many treasures and listening to my grandparents speaking to each of us kids when we were little and how much they loved us is so wonderful. I am remembering many things about my childhood since listening to the tapes. I am appreciating my mother more listening to all she had going on and raising 8 kids, it has been amazing.

I have been blessed with an amazing mother and ancestors and know that "this too shall pass" and I am happy I am getting through it. It is wonderful to have so many memories when I know others have none.

Have a BLESSED Day!