Pear Honey - it really isn't honey.
It is more of a preserves or a jam.

My grandmother's recipe for Pear Honey originally appeared in September of 2012 on my first blog "The Life and Times at Scorpion Ranch" - but I wanted to rewrite and update it here, because it is important to me and I want to tell this story about my family and my heritage and it is a darn good recipe!!

I'm thrilled to be able to add a scanned copy of the original recipe card from my mother's recipe collection.  

Scanning, saving, and documenting family stories is why I started Creating Memories Now
and I hope you enjoy the pictures and stories that I share.  Scanning old recipe cards is a great way to digitize family memories.
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Pear Honey is my Grandma Rosie's recipe and has been made every year for as long as I can remember.  After Mom passed away, I started making it and sending to friends and family for Christmas.
I even remember that my mother made it in 2001 on September 10 and when I gave a jar to a friend; he remarked ... "this Pear Honey is innocent" --- it was made the day before 9/11.
It also ushers in fall for me.  Mom usually made it around Labor Day or a week or so later - and even though it is usually 100*+ when I make it here in Las Vegas, it immediately takes me back to fall.  

Behold the batch from 2012......as well as a scanned copy from one of my Grandmother's recipe notebooks.  
​Her handwriting gives me all the feels.  

Recently, I was working with a client’s photo collection; and as part of the job, there were 4 albums of photos.  Two were slide-in type albums and two were….(insert dramatic music here) magnetic albums! 

It seems simple enough to remove the photos, right?  ...since the process to get them IN the album was pretty simple.  Pull back the plastic, stick down the photo, put the plastic back.  ... and repeat......

For removal: Same concept in reverse, right?  However, you will find that the removal is not nearly as easy as the initial placement – heat, humidity, time, and GLUE have all had their way with the photos. 

There is nothing magnetic about these albums. 

ABC . . . easy as 123 --- it isn't just a Jackson 5 song.

The ABC's of Photo Organizing

Before you get overwhelmed with which snapshots and printed photos to keep, follow a few simple guidelines to stay on track.
You'll be making 3 piles of photos during the process... and keep some sticky notes close by.... (more on that later)

A stands for Album
These are the photos that are the most important.  The photos that are album-worthy.  If you were going to frame photos for a gallery wall, these the photos you would choose from.  As you're sorting your snapshots, remember that this should NOT be the largest pile.  Less is more, because you really do want the "A" photos to be the most personal and the most cherished. Your "A" photos definitely need backed-up after they've been scanned and digitized.

B stands for Box
These snapshots and photos are important enough to keep, and you definitely want to store the loose in archival-quality boxes for long-term storage.  If digitized, you'll want to make sure these "B" photos are backed up.

C stands for Can
These photos can go directly into the trash can or your delete file.  Be brave.  Toss duplicates, blurry, and excess scenery-type photos.  If you're sorting digital files, and you're not quite brave enough to truly delete, make a 'delete' folder and drag the terrible and excessive photos into that folder.  Remember, you're paring down and want to have usable files and piles.  

S stands for Story
Here's the super-important part -- and why you need the sticky notes.  If the photo tells a STORY, jot a note about it and stick to the back of the photo.  Today's high-powered (and fast!) scanners can scan both sides of a photo at once, so your story can be preserved.  FYI.....Try to resist writing on the back of printed photos with pens of any sort, graphite pencils work much better and an art pencil (lead 4B or 6B) is the best - or use a sticky note - we've all got those.

The ABC's of photo organizing can be used for your loose snapshots as well as your digital photos. 
If you have questions or want to explore how to move beyond the piles and get your snapshots and printed photos scanned, send me a note.  I have the newest types of scanners and can also help with information about backing up your collection of digital photos.  

Upcoming blog posts will include more information about sorting, safeguarding, and online storage of your photos.

If you're thinking about doing a photo organization project, either by yourself, or with the help of a Photo Organizer, you should think about the project itself and what would you like to get out of it.  

It is a journey....best started with a single step.  

Start with the simple stuff.  What all do you have?  

• Slides?
• Snapshots?
• Magnetic Albums that need a makeover?  (more on that in an upcoming blog post)
• Professional albums that you'd like a backup of ?
• Vintage photos in frames?
• Other Memorabilia or documents that you'd like a digital record of?

I'm a big believer in keeping "like things" together.  Get everything in one place, so you really know how much you've got.  If you have lots of moving parts, you'll want to do the project in phases.   

I always go through an assessment with clients (or folks asking my advice) and these are things you should think about as you decide how to move forward.  

Where are your photos now?

• Do you know about how many you've got?
• What format are your photos in now?  Digital?  Printed?
• Are you the main picture-taker in the family?  Who else in your family takes pictures?
• Do you have a current system for organizing?
• Do you throw pictures away or delete them?  Or do you save everything?

Taking all of those assessment questions a step further...

• In a perfect world, how would you like your photos organized?  
• Do you want them in plain view or tucked away?
• Do you want to be able to share the photos with family members and friends?  Via photo books?  Digitally?
• What has gotten in the way of this process in the past?  (time? money? space? technology issues?)

And another batch of questions as you think about the project....

• How involved do you want to be (every step of the way? not at all?)
• Do you have a timeline for any of the individual phases?  Maybe an upcoming special occasion that needs an album?
• How much time do YOU have to commit to the process?
• Do you want other people involved in the process?

As with any organizing or de-cluttering project, sometimes you have to get out of your own head and look at the end goal and work towards that.  

There are many benefits to having the project finished and being able to know where a photo is and access it quickly - isn't that what we're all wanting?  

Besides, it sure makes "Throw-Back-Thursdays" on Facebook a fun thing to contribute to!!

Get a load of this picture of my Dad!  It was 1969, he was lining up the family on the day of my little sister's baptism.  I'm sure he felt like he was herding cats - adults, grandparents, in-laws, cousins, --- it was quite the family affair!  
And seriously, how much do you love the camera he's holding?  That camera took sooo many of the pictures that house my family's memories.  This picture makes me smile in SO many ways!  Little did we know the "Slide Project" had been set in motion way back then - and all because of that camera.....

Fast forward 40+ years (43 to be exact) and my sisters and I had this idea to organize the family slides into a usable system.  One sister drove from Colorado with a carload of Kodak carousels and a slide projector borrowed from her school (and extra bulbs, thank goodness!) and the other came from  San Diego, ALSO with a slide projector in tow.  What we thought would be a "couple of hours" of watching slides and telling a few stories turned into so much more.  

We refer to it as the Slide Project.  We started with close to 11,000 slides - in boxes, carousels and loose items.  We had two slide projectors going -- sorting, loading the slides into slide projectors AND recording what we knew about each and every slide.  We reduced the numbers by taking out badly focused pictures, duplicates and slides that didn't tell much of a story.  Honestly, how many fuzzy pictures of zoo animals do we need when there are no family members in them?  

Thankfully, my parents had spent a summer (back in the 90's) going through the carousels writing down a simple description of the slides they were watching.  Those summaries were invaluable - but there was still a TON of work that week.  We spent 5, 8-hour days at my dining room table and projecting the slides onto the wall.  We bundled the slides into neat piles of 50 and off they went to get scanned.  The week was long and tiring but everyone agrees that the Slide Project really was one of the greatest accomplishments we've done.  

That Christmas, we gave everyone in the family flash drives of the project and Dad got a digital frame and within minutes of opening the frame, he had that flash drive in place and those slides played 24/7 in his apartment for the next few years.  It was a beautiful thing knowing that he could enjoy our family's legacy and robust history during his final years.  What a true blessing.  He often told stories of how he would just watch the slide show on his digital frame and enjoy the flood of memories they brought back.

That week of working on the Slide Project (final tally was 11,000 slides reduced to under 3,000) was full of laughter, tears, and frustration, but most of all -- lots of story-telling.  We were able to condense slides for cousins, aunts and uncles and sent slides and digital images to them as well.  

The Slide Project and the resulting "feels" have been on my mind ever since.  I just knew that there must be a way to share the love of the resulting project with others.  This year, I decided that I wanted to branch out, push the envelope, step out of my comfort zone, and help others with Slide Projects of their own.  

All of that led to Creating Memories Now.   Sharing my passion - isn't that really what life is all about?

Do you have slides or photographs sitting in a box (or boxes) screaming to be seen and enjoyed?  

I'd love to help.  Let me know in the comments below if you or your family has done something similar or if it is something that has always been on your "to do" list.  

Here's to the Slide Project!  The excitement of discovery awaits!  #NoMoreShoeboxes

Here are some of the pictures Dad took that day and because of the Slide Project, I can share them with you today.