Deleting Memories?

Last night I started doing a chore which I have been putting off for years. Sorting through our digital collection of photos. I LOVE taking photos, but I a self-confessed photo hoarder. The other day our computer wouldn't let me download more photo's because the hard drive was full, and we have a very large hard drive! I knew then that it was time to try and de-clutter (at least a little).

The reason that I find it so hard to delete photo's is because they are memories. Even the bad ones. I hate feeling that I am deleting a little part of our childrens lives, no matter how small (or blurry). But at the same time I finally realised that by not deleting them, and getting them sorted, then the good memories are not useful, as there is just way, way too much to go through to actually find what I am looking for.

I decided to take baby steps, and to only get rid of the ones that are really blurry, of people's backs, and where there are multiple images of virtually the same thing. This is probably a step that most of you manage to do at the time of taking the photo's, but I am really disorganised and very good at procrastinating. I figured that even if I only get rid of a third or a quarter of them, that is a really good start. (I often have a problem with not doing things, because I will only do it if I feel I can do it perfectly, so this is hard for me!)
 
There was a completly unexpected side effect of doing this for a couple of hours. My confidence in my parenting increased. A lot! I had chosen the year 2007, which is when my boys were 2 and 5 years. There were pictures of them painting, crafting, dressing up, in the snow, eating ice out of the bird bath, and the best thing? They looked really, genuinely, completley happy. It made me feel happy. And what's more, I felt like a really good mum. Something that I don't feel on a day to day basis as I make school lunches, do groceries, nag about doing homework. All the day to day things that we have to do as mothers don't make me feel like a good parent, but looking at these two gorgeous little paint covered creatures made me feel really really good, which is something I haven't been feeling a lot recently.

Are you good with organising photo's? What things do you do that make you feel like a good parent?