Say Cheese!

I have a confession to make. I'm a photo-a-holic. I am completely & totally obsessed with photos. I have 2.5 trillion pics of my kids, their cousins, teammates & friends. I buy a bazillion of even my kids' worst school portraits... although I usually forget to give them out to friends and family. I have about 1 billion pictures of each of my kids standing on the soccer field with their back to me... apparently I like that shot. I am also obsessed with other peoples' pictures. When G.G. died a few years ago, I scanned all of her photos onto my computer so the whole family can have copies of all of her memories. I can (& have) waste a whole day on Flickr or Facebook looking at photos of complete strangers. As a kid, I spent hours and hours looking at my parents' yearbooks. Anyway, I think you get the point... I love pictures.

I have a problem. I was born without an organization gene. I'm kind of notorious for coming up with organizational "systems" that never work. I spend days and days organizing, say, my linen closet, then I forget what the heck the "system" was & mayhem takes over. Out of all of the "systems" I've had through the years, only the laundry system has been perfected and utilized well. Well, the CLOTHES laundry is perfected, I'm still fighting with the towels. Anyway, I digress...

Putting two & two together... my house & my computers are all being taken over with photos. I have two big chests full, 1/2 million bags full, boxes & boxes & bins full. On this computer alone, I have over 11,000 pictures & 260 files... (and many more I haven't put into My Pictures folder) and I have taken many, many off & put them onto an external hard drive. I scrapbooked the year 2000, all pictures before & after are in limbo. I don't have any idea of where to start putting them is some sort of order.

Have I told you about my sister-in-law, Amy? I've heard rumors that she sometimes reads my blog. She's great. She is "Queen of all Organizing". I've honestly never met a more organized person. I like to use the excuse that she has a much bigger house, but I know in my heart that if I had a big house, I'd just have a series of more messes & that if she lived in a small box of an apartment, it would still look great. It's just the way she rolls.

Amy & her husband, Gary, have a son, Jack, who is exactly 11 months younger than Ben. They live on Cape Cod & Ben LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to visit his cousin. Last May, they treated Ben to a trip to the Cape to spend a long weekend with Jack. It was "Grandparents & Special Friend" day at Jack's school & Ben was Jack's "Special Friend" for the day. Knowing Amy & Gary, I knew the rest of their weekend would be full of adventures. I sent Ben with his camera and was looking forward to seeing pictures of their adventures & hearing all about it. Ben took pictures... 3 to be exact. Two of the new addition to Amy & Gary's house & 1 of their new big flat screen TV. His stories consisted of "it was fun". AARGH!

Anyway, when Amy came down to Florida later that month for Megan's graduation. She brought pictures of Jack & Ben's adventures, complete with a nice collage of their weekend and a written synopsis of what they had done. So thoughtful... and organized of her!!! I was really impressed & appreciative.

Fast forward to today. I have spent the past 2.5 hours looking for those pictures! I can NOT find them anywhere!!! In my defense, that was a very stressful time, as we were dealing with some issues around here, but I know that even if I wasn't dealing with those issues, there is no guarantee I would know where those pictures are. So, the whole point of this post is to say: Amy, can you PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE send me those pictures?! Either the prints or through email or any of the photo websites, whatever is easiest for you. I will gladly pay for them if you do the prints. K? Thanks!