Why Now?

Looking back to my previous post, I commented that I was sad about the Hi-8 video of Ian degrading.  Analog videos are known to degrade over time.  The video I was watching was about 19 years old.  Ian is now 22.  It needed to be preserved.  There are about 20 cassettes just like it that my father-in-law left us. 

You might ask, "Why are you just taking care of these old videos now, Karina?"

For the same reason I have neglected a lot of things in my life.  There's just too much on my I'll-get-to-that-later  list.  Here are a few more items on that list that I have yet to tackle.

• organize my recipes
• add some healthy, possibly meat-free recipes to my collection
• shred my taxes from 2001 and beyond (I think I only need the last 3 years, right?)
• photograph ALL Lucas' artwork from Kindergarten and First Grade
• go through my closet and organize (I believe this item NEVER leaves my list)
• re-pot the house plants whose roots are ready to explode out of their pots
• painting projects I bought paint for but never started
• de-clutter the various junk drawers in our home

You get the idea.  The 20 or so video cassettes are also part of the list, but I think John and I can convert the good ones and discard the empty or messed up ones within a few weeks.

This project did bring up a tense conversation between John and me. John was annoyed that I planned on paying Costco to convert all these videos into digital format.  He said he can do it himself except he needed to clear space in his hard drive (video requires a lot of Gigabytes) and he needed to clear the space on his desk for the two camcorders he needed to feed the video into his computer....He hasn't found the time to do any of this for the last 5 years.  I don't completely understand the process he described.  I do understand that if I pay Costco $17.99, they will convert 2 hours of video and put it into a DVD for me within 3 weeks. 

This conversation got John started on setting up his computer to do the conversion.  I did not MAKE him do this.  I did not ASK him to do this, but just like that "to do" list I have above, he may have also felt like these tapes had been neglected long enough.  John converted two Hi-8 cassettes into digital format that night.  We also ended up watching little 3-year old Ian open presents at Christmas. But really, that took all evening. My "to-do" list will grow before I can check video tapes off that list.  And here's the other thing, that to-do list involves things... things I haven't kept organized, things I haven't started, things I haven't worn or touched....

This bring to mind the stuff, the stuff, the stuff... that takes my time and energy when I'm not working, sleeping, eating, or taking care of whatever Lucas needs at the moment (Ian doesn't ask Mom for much these days).  I have been seriously considering a major overhaul of the stuff in this apartment. 

I would like to spend my time here on Earth in a better way (since I am over the hill... and heading down!) The more time I spend with my stuff.. and it's good stuff...  the more I think I don't want to spend another minute with extraenous stuff.  Why should part of my Sunday be all about shoving my purses into a cabinet? 

I think this topic deserves its own post.... to be continued.

(the above image is from Kristen Lamb's blog about "The Junk Drawer of Life")