A Busy Week

Another week has flown by.  I had planned to post a couple of times this week, but things got a bit busy.  (you'll see why later in this post...)  I am slowing down and remembering all the blessings I have had this week and sharing five of them here.  Friday Fave Fives is my weekly way to show how blessed I am. (the link takes you to where you can read more and join in)

1.  Hummingbirds at my feeder!  I've been waiting ALL SUMMER for them to do more than just fly by.  I think bright red flowers have helped.

 

2.  Indonesian Independence Day.  August 17.  Eighty years since independence was declared from The Netherlands.  If you have been reading my blog for very long, you will know that my family and I lived in Indonesia for about ten years when we were missionaries doing linguistics and Bible translation for a small tribe on the island of New Guinea (the Indonesia side, province of what is now Papua). 'Tujubelas Agustus' is Indonesia's Fourth of July.  We were invited to attend the ceremony in Columbus as Rocket Girl has an Indonesian co-worker.  We had a wonderful time.  The food, language, and clothes brought back so many memories.  And we met many delightful people

3.  I think I mentioned earlies this year that I had sent a photo to a friend that I had taken on my visit to Innis Mor, Aran Islands, Ireland last year and she made a watercolor painting of it.  I love it and had it framed. I am thankful that my friend made me this memento of my Ireland trip. This is the photo she used...

4.  A small but very loving thing... Nurse Girl knows I love maple oat scones and can seldom find them.  Last weekend, she happened on a bakery that had some!  And she bought one and brought it home to me!

5.  I saved the best for last.  This is why we have been so busy.  Remember that Chaplain Dan (older son) came to visit in June?  One additional reason he flew out here was to explore the possibility of moving to this area.  Well, shortly after his return to Arizona, he was offered a position here which he accepted!  Yes!  PAL and her parents arrived this week and are staying with us until they find their own home!  I haven't even taken a single photo.  But we have spent all our days and evenings just enjoying their company.

How was your week?

Willow's Week Mid May

All of a sudden, it was Friday night! And I realized I hadn't posted my Friday Fave Fives.  Where did the week go??

1. Mother's Day.  None of my children live in driving distance but they are always good to call or text to wish me a Happy Mother's Day.  Makes my whole week.

2. A couple of things have pushed me to start scanning my photos.  Mission Aviation Fellowship is writing an article on how they have helped bring Bible translations to groups of people who don't have the Bible in their languages.  Since MAF was an intregal part of our ministry in Indonesia, they asked us for information and photos of our time there.  So we did that and dug out some photos and scanned them.  Then our kids' house mom in their boarding school hostel has been posting on facebook lots of pictures she has been scanning.  So...I've been inspired!  And since organizing and scanning my pictures has been a goal of mine for YEARS, I jumped in this week and have begun.

Me in the Papuan jungle 1987

3. I got to do that drive to Santa Barbara again this week to pick up World's Best Neighbor from the airport there.  This week I took some time to stop by and visit with a former coworker from Indonesia who lives there.  We had a great chat.  I took her photo to share with my kids who knew her as "Aunt Marge", but she made me promise not to post it on social media.  (But for eighty-seven, she's looking good!)

And of course I had to stop and snap a photo of the Isla Vista pier

4. On Wednesday, we decided to get in a long walk along the beach and through the town before the rain came.  Oh, it was wonderful to watch the waves roll in and smell that sea air.

Surfers Point

Mission San Buenaventura

5.  Rain!  It is so unusual for Southern California to have rain in May.  I loved just listening to those drops hit the ground.

A Little Advice Here

This summer I have a goal.  I want to organize my photos.  Somehow, probably because I truly do care, I have become the caretaker of many family pictures from both sides of my family.  Therefore, I have hundreds of photos of ancestors, none of which were ever organized in albums.  I think what happened was that people sent copies of pictures they had to share with other family members and so what has filtered down to me are the 'extras' nobody needed.  Also, it's possible that many of the pictures came from collections people found when a family member died.  I have already done much of the organizing of 'family group', 'individual', and 'decade'.  Attempts have been made to identify the people in the photos.  Unidentifiable photos have already been tossed.

I am also facing the task of archiving the photos from my own family.  Because we have a huge number of photos of our work in Indonesia besides the usual family adventures and school pictures, there is an additional level to dealing with them.  What is historically significant and should be saved for the Moskona people?

  Where is the cross over line between private and ministry photos?

I've begun the task of scanning the photos and have been trying to decide how to deal with the already scanned pictures.  As I see it, I have four options.  They are:

1.  Scan all photos except the obvious blurry and truly bad ones.  Put all scanned photos into albums.  I call this method the 'archiving the memories' method.  Until now, I have been storing photos in photo boxes and photo albums of varying archival quality.  Since there are many larger photos from 5"x7" to 8"x10", and even bigger, I had put these in sheet protectors in large three ring binders.  Now I am in the scanning stage and simply replacing the scanned photos into the albums and binders.

 Do I really need to keep photos of the USO swimming hole in San Marcos, TX or the snow on top of Snowqualmie Pass just because my dad was there?

2.  Scan all photos as above.  Keep picture copies of the best in an album and store the rest in photo boxes (organized).  This is the abbreviated archiving the memories option.

3.  Scan only the best photos and keep those in an album.  Discard the rest of the pictures.

4.  Scan only the best and save no hard copies and have only the CDs available to view on a digital photo frame device.  CDs could also be sent to appropriate recipients.

I would love to hear from people who have worked on photo archive projects.  What option did you choose and why?  Did you encounter any special problems?  What do you wish you had done differently, and what would you do differently now?  I want your opinions, please.