how many gigabytes?!?!?

so today . . . i have been working on my digital picture files. i've been taking digital photos for quite a few years with no good system for organizing them. so now that i have this wonderful new computer, i am trying to get my pictures organized. at first i thought i would just transfer one file at a time to the new computer, edit it, save it to my external hard drive, and then move on to the next one. it sounded like a great idea, but somehow it hasn't quite worked out that way . . .

i just have too many photos. the problem is that i love to take pictures. i take multiples of everything, and i never delete anything (not even the blurry ones!) it is kind of hard to organize digital pictures when you can only see 15 or 20 of them at a time on your computer screen, and you have hundreds to deal with. and since i have no system, it is just a mess!

the truth is that most of these photos will never be printed. i have plans to scrapbook them, but i don't know how i will ever get caught up. i enjoy scrapbooking--the feel of the paper, deciding which pictures go together, creating color schemes for layouts--but it is time consuming, and i don't want it to just become another chore that needs to be done. so mostly i enjoy my favorite photos on my screensaver.

but i am thinking about creating one of those bound books you can make on sites like "snapfish" for each year. i could put a new folder on my desktop, and as the year progresses i could copy my favorite photos into that folder. then in january of each year i could make a book. i would still have the fun of creating pages and arranging photos, but i could do the whole year in one book and it would be done. then i could just scrapbook for fun. i made one of those books this year, and i love it. i spent a few days laying it out and then just waited for it to be delivered, and now it is done and ready to be enjoyed. and it kind of has an importance to it, because it is a real book.
so it is time to take charge. i am going back through each file and deleting ruthlessly (well, maybe not ruthlessly, but i am deleting multiples and terrible pictures. really.) it is such a huge job, but i am determined to get it done--and then keep it up, because i love taking pictures and i'm never going to stop . . .