Pieces

My summer was spent with children of all ages and hundreds of photographs.

During the day, I would babysit for whatever family needed me (I was the ward babysitter) and/or I would nanny for baby Penny.  Penny is the sweetest, most beautiful baby.  I loved every minute I spent with her.

Penny <3

I would come home from "work" and go straight to the Play Room upstairs, where my project was under way.

I collected all the photographs my family had from 1999 (the year we moved into our home) to the present.  I took them out of bags, boxes, and an enormous cedar chest in the corner of my mom's bedroom.  I spread them out on the carpeted floor and began making piles chronologically.

It was often difficult to discern the month and year of the picture, so I had to become a detective.  I would scrutinize the length of hair, the height, the number of missing teeth in order to place them in the proper order.  When I finished a year I would go buy a photo album, create a label, and put the album together.  Some years required two albums to fit the great number of pictures.

It was a very lengthy, very time-consuming task. And I loved it.  Truly.

I love projects like these.  I loved putting things together and creating a valuable, treasured product.  I love organizing what was chaos for so long.  I love reliving my history and that of my family.  I love watching progression in the still moments captured by film.

What I loved the most was that I could look at those pictures and remember not just striking that pose, but also what was happening at the time, out of reach of the camera's lens.  I remember why we took that photo, why we were wearing those outfits, where we were and why it was worthy of remembering.

This is what I love.  Pieces of history, captured forever, organizing them so they can be more easily enjoyed.

I only wish I had waited to complete this project this semester, so it would count for my Personal History project. :)

<3 Mel