Into the dustbin of history
Hubs got on a cleaning kick the other night and insisted we clean clutter out of our living room. And since our photo albums were falling apart and we had nice new ones we'd gotten for xmas, we decided to stay up until 2am putting all the pictures in the new albums. Along the way, we found some we felt we had no use for.
We have to be careful because Hubs' dad is a clean freak and he actually went through their old family pictures and threw out A LOT of them. His criteria included things like the picture was off-centre, or blurry, or someone had a weird face, or it was too bright. So now Hubs doesn't have many pictures from his childhood left. Weird.
Anyway, I scanned a couple that we are throwing away:
When we lived in Vegas, we came back to Vancouver for a week for a wedding. While we were in town we visited some friends of ours and they had a chinchilla. And Hubby took a picture of it. Why, I don't know. Bye, bye, chinchilla.
Some of you know about our sordid past when we were in Amway. We used to go to all the functions and events. They were boring as hell, but the food never disappointed. This is a guy we met at a function, and we can't remember who he was or why he's been chillin' in our family photo album for the past 8 years.
This is one of Hubs' brothers at his parents' house in Dartmouth. He's about 18 or 19 here. He is now married, living in Edmonton and they are expecting their third child.
This is a shot of one of my best friends' wedding reception in 1999. They have since split up, and she is much happier now with someone else and they are the parents of two adorable children. I wasn't sure about keeping pictures from her wedding, but I decided it's part of our history, and I kept most of them. Plus I was pregnant at the time and had a really cute maternity dress on that day.
This is the Seattle Space Needle, circa 1997. Hubs and I were engaged, and we went there for the day with Hub's brother Jenson and our friend Tyson. We found a carnival and spent the afternoon going on rides, then realized we didn't have enough money left to go up the Space Needle.
This is the Mormon temple in Seattle, same trip. We were married there the next year. I have tons of pictures of this place, so I'm throwing this one out, because it's the only one without one of us in it. We aren't believing or practicing Mormons anymore.
Hubby went hiking with his friend Paul at Shannon Falls once. He took lots of scenery pictures. This was the least cool one.
I went with my family on a road trip to Salt Lake City, Utah, for my cousin's wedding. SLC is like Mecca for Mormons. I took this picture of the Church Headquarters. I have NO IDEA why. It's no architectural wonder or anything. The one picture my sister and I wanted was of us in front of the huge organ where the Tabernacle Choir sings, but while we turned out great, the background was completely black!
This dumbass picture is of the Hubs posing in front of a McDonald's in Las Vegas. Ha ha, look, it's a giant drink and fries! I thought the building looked cool. I don't anymore. Quite possibly one of the lamest pictures I've ever taken.
I have no idea who this nice couple is. But like Amway Guy, they have been hanging out in the family photo album for about eight years. I know we met them at our friends' wedding reception in Vegas, but neither me nor Hubby know who they were.
So long, vague memories!
We have to be careful because Hubs' dad is a clean freak and he actually went through their old family pictures and threw out A LOT of them. His criteria included things like the picture was off-centre, or blurry, or someone had a weird face, or it was too bright. So now Hubs doesn't have many pictures from his childhood left. Weird.
Anyway, I scanned a couple that we are throwing away:
When we lived in Vegas, we came back to Vancouver for a week for a wedding. While we were in town we visited some friends of ours and they had a chinchilla. And Hubby took a picture of it. Why, I don't know. Bye, bye, chinchilla.
Some of you know about our sordid past when we were in Amway. We used to go to all the functions and events. They were boring as hell, but the food never disappointed. This is a guy we met at a function, and we can't remember who he was or why he's been chillin' in our family photo album for the past 8 years.
This is one of Hubs' brothers at his parents' house in Dartmouth. He's about 18 or 19 here. He is now married, living in Edmonton and they are expecting their third child.
This is a shot of one of my best friends' wedding reception in 1999. They have since split up, and she is much happier now with someone else and they are the parents of two adorable children. I wasn't sure about keeping pictures from her wedding, but I decided it's part of our history, and I kept most of them. Plus I was pregnant at the time and had a really cute maternity dress on that day.
This is the Seattle Space Needle, circa 1997. Hubs and I were engaged, and we went there for the day with Hub's brother Jenson and our friend Tyson. We found a carnival and spent the afternoon going on rides, then realized we didn't have enough money left to go up the Space Needle.
This is the Mormon temple in Seattle, same trip. We were married there the next year. I have tons of pictures of this place, so I'm throwing this one out, because it's the only one without one of us in it. We aren't believing or practicing Mormons anymore.
Hubby went hiking with his friend Paul at Shannon Falls once. He took lots of scenery pictures. This was the least cool one.
I went with my family on a road trip to Salt Lake City, Utah, for my cousin's wedding. SLC is like Mecca for Mormons. I took this picture of the Church Headquarters. I have NO IDEA why. It's no architectural wonder or anything. The one picture my sister and I wanted was of us in front of the huge organ where the Tabernacle Choir sings, but while we turned out great, the background was completely black!
This dumbass picture is of the Hubs posing in front of a McDonald's in Las Vegas. Ha ha, look, it's a giant drink and fries! I thought the building looked cool. I don't anymore. Quite possibly one of the lamest pictures I've ever taken.
I have no idea who this nice couple is. But like Amway Guy, they have been hanging out in the family photo album for about eight years. I know we met them at our friends' wedding reception in Vegas, but neither me nor Hubby know who they were. So long, vague memories!
hee, those pictures are funny. You should make up stories about the people you don't remember.
Posted by
dawnmarie |
5:02 AM
I have tons of pictures like that from high school and college of people that I either don't know or could give two shits about.
What's Amway?
Posted by
Toni |
6:33 AM
Amway is a multi-level marketing company (also now known as Quixtar) where you buy in as a distributor and sell their household products like dish soap and laundry crap. Then you try to get people to join under you and you make a percentage of what they sell and buy. It's a whole lot of work for not much money.
They did have a nice skin care and cosmetics line that I liked, and I used to do shows and clinics and stuff. I liked that part.
Posted by
Bex |
10:11 AM
Funny thing is, I just did something similar on Saturday night after you guys left. I was looking at photos and ended up throwing out a bunch of them. I just couldn't see myself ever needing them again, but I *love* Dawn's idea. Find some more and make up some stories!
Posted by
Anonymous |
7:24 PM
I forgot to say that I really like the one of the Space Needle.
Posted by
Anonymous |
7:25 PM
Isn't it bad ju-ju or something to throw away a "graven image"? I wouldn't risk it - I used to even cringe at throwing away the cropped scrappy bits of photos I placed in my scrapbook. (I don't scrapbook anymore.)
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:34 PM
I've done that, too. Thrown out pictures of people i haven't talked to in years and will never talk to again. And shots of other peoples' pets and yeah. Been there. Done it. :)
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:13 PM
I've thrown away dozens of pictures - especially the ones from my ugly phase in high school (....OK, so that was the entire 5 years, whatever!) I even threw out a few from my grad/prom. I kept only the good ones - the ones I would look at and remember the event with fondness.
If you want to talk about bad-karma or whatever, I once ripped pages out of my journal because I was so embarassed by how dumb I was at the time. I was thinking "if I died and someone read this...is that how I want to be remembered?? No! (rip,rip!).
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:46 PM
Whether it's bad ju-ju or not, I feel cleansed when I get rid of that stuff!
And the journal thing, yeah, I've been tempted to throw away journal entries, but I haven't actually done it. I see my old journals in the box when I go to get something, and I cringe even thinking about what's in there!
Posted by
Bex |
9:01 PM
But *why* do you feel like you have to throw away those things in your history that are unattractive or do not portray you in a positive way? Those were true and legitimate feelings at the time, written in sincerity. In addition, it's so unfair to the past - those things you scrawled in the rage of teenage hormones are what makes history charming, IMHO.
Anyway, just think what you're doing: you're editing the icky bits of your life out and presenting a revisionist history to the world. Too many people have done this so that our view of history and historical figures is not in the least bit 'real.'
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:34 PM
I guess if I was a historical figure it would matter more, but what information I decide to turf doesn't erase it from my past or make it not a part of who I am. I can still appreciate the feelings I had at the time without having the evidence in my hands. I, personally, would rather not relive some of it word-for-word. I really enjoy reading my old journals, but when I threw those pages out I felt better for doing so - it felt like I had really overcome the major issue I had written about and felt better for it!! There are plenty more "icky" stuff in those journals for my posterity to see about me, if they ever want to. Besides, I don't write in my journals for others who may/may not read them someday. I do it for myself, so I can record my thoughts and the meaningful events in my life. I'm currently keeping a journal of our 10-month old daughter's first year of life, written in 1st person, instead of a scrapbook.
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:10 PM
OMG...i was totally in amway. i was only in it to impress this guy i was screwing in college. he needed me on his "team." i was a total awesome amway girl too. i had the whole spiel memorized the day after i joined, gave them one of my alumni mailing lists. damn, i was whipped on that dude. i wonder if he's still racking up points for toilet paper...
Posted by
Anonymous |
1:36 PM
So erica, are you telling me you lost your dream?
Posted by
Bex |
11:31 AM
that's exactly what i'm saying...i've been hitting the bottle pretty hard ever since!
Posted by
Anonymous |
4:25 PM
What a great post - I need to do that one day. Gotta lose all the old boyfriend pics. Although Adam and Evan will probably get a kick out of making fun of them.
One time, I was going through photos with a friend in high school and I had a bunch of boring scenery ones. So we took goofy pics of ourselves and cut them and pasted them over the scenery ones so it looked like we were dancing on mountains and hanging out of trees and stuff. They were pretty funny. We were probably baked at the time...
Posted by
Miss Kelly |
6:18 PM
Hi. I'm Dianne, Kelly's sister in law. I have been reading her blog and everyone she is linked to, because quite frankly I'm bored. Anyways your pics of the Seattle temple cracked me up, being born a mormon, I know all about those crazy pics of buildings that you wonder why you have them. Don't worry, I am NOT a practicing member anymore, just ask Kelly......
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:57 PM
Nice to "meet" you Dianne! ;)
Posted by
Bex |
11:16 AM