Photographs and Memories
OK, so I stole the title from A Jim Croce song. If he doesn't like it, I'll change it.
A number of years ago (like just after 2001), we were so short on cash that I didn't want to spend the funds on film development. I had lots of those freebie rolls of film that certain mail-order processors give out, though. So, I started using them and putting the exposed rolls in the freezer. The freezer does a pretty good job of preserving the latent image.
After that, I started buying film again. After all, the pictures that I take now will be family treasures in the future. It doesn't make sense to just let my camera sit around while the kids have experiences and move on. So, more film got stored.
Now is the time to start getting that film processed. We have maybe twenty rolls left. What we do now is take two old rolls in every time we finish off a new roll. Sometimes, we take old rolls in, anyhow.
It's an adventure because we never know what we're going to get back. We always look forward to picking up processed film from Wal-Mart.
It's a challenge to number the rolls when we get them back. We need to figure out what year they were taken, and give them an appropriate number.
Yesterday, I picked up 2003-03, 2003-04, and 2006-07. There will be gaps in the other years, but I have processed seven rolls of film so far this year. They are all sitting here in my office somewhere. Also, since I get the digital album service CDs, they are all on my computer. I wasn't going to spend money having them scanned when I have my own scanner, but it takes such a long time to properly scan a whole roll that it's worth the trouble. They don't scan them to the resolution that I can, and they give me compressed .JPG files instead of the high-quality .BMP files that I can get from the scanner. Still, if I want to print them or goof with them in photo shop, I can always scan in the appropriate negative.
So this time, I got some chick pictures (with the mother hens, of course), some from our trip to the beach on Lake Michigan, and some from Proud Equestrians. I have some real cute ones of a girl with her horse, and more of her with a foal that she's raising. I'll post them later.
I got another roll full of flowers and the like. I think I was testing those closeup lenses that I bought a while back.
Roll # 2003-04 contains some good memories.
Remember, we moved to the Cadillac area in August 2003. These pictures were from the spring of that year, when we were really trying to figure out how we could possibly move to a place with at least a little land. Actually, Mary just wanted to move. She looked at some houses on a postage stamp in Warren. We could have gotten a bit more house than we had, but we would still be living on a tiny piece of land in a crowded suburb. I flat-out rejected the idea. It was all too much like exchanging one jail for another.
Around the Detroit area, there is a system of parks called the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Parks. I grew up on the border of Lower Huron Metropark. When we lived in Ferndale, we liked to go to Kensington Metropark.
Since we like to go to Kensington, and because there are three Metroparks (Lower Huron, Willow, and Oakwoods) near my family of origin, we bought a sticker for our van. Armed with that sticker, we went to some of the other parks.
Up near the north end of Lake Saint Claire (that's a relatively small lake between lakes Huron and Michigan) are some Metroparks that we had never explored, so we went there. We walked through some trails in the woods and through pastures.
We visited a farm on one of the parks.
When we saw one of the workers gathering eggs, we asked if we could buy some. He grabbed some right out of the nest and sold them to us. Surprise! Some were blue. We thought that it was kind of yucky that some downy feathers were stuck to some. Now, it's just par for the course to get them like that. We wash the stuff off of them before giving them out, but we don't worry too much about it now.
Anyhow, that one dozen eggs made it up to the cottage with us the next weekend. At that time, Mary was looking at the real estate ads. I thought she was silly for doing that, since there was no way we could afford to move and escape from Detroit.
Little did I know that we would be looking at a house near Manistee, Michigan in just a few short weeks. Little did I know (or have faith) that Mary would be interviewing, accepting a job, and dragging all of us up here.
And life has never been the same. (For which we thank God every time we think about it.)
So let this be encouragement for anyone who is hurting now. God moves in His own time, but when he does, he does so decisively. When he dies, hang on and enjoy the ride!
A number of years ago (like just after 2001), we were so short on cash that I didn't want to spend the funds on film development. I had lots of those freebie rolls of film that certain mail-order processors give out, though. So, I started using them and putting the exposed rolls in the freezer. The freezer does a pretty good job of preserving the latent image.
After that, I started buying film again. After all, the pictures that I take now will be family treasures in the future. It doesn't make sense to just let my camera sit around while the kids have experiences and move on. So, more film got stored.
Now is the time to start getting that film processed. We have maybe twenty rolls left. What we do now is take two old rolls in every time we finish off a new roll. Sometimes, we take old rolls in, anyhow.
It's an adventure because we never know what we're going to get back. We always look forward to picking up processed film from Wal-Mart.
It's a challenge to number the rolls when we get them back. We need to figure out what year they were taken, and give them an appropriate number.
Yesterday, I picked up 2003-03, 2003-04, and 2006-07. There will be gaps in the other years, but I have processed seven rolls of film so far this year. They are all sitting here in my office somewhere. Also, since I get the digital album service CDs, they are all on my computer. I wasn't going to spend money having them scanned when I have my own scanner, but it takes such a long time to properly scan a whole roll that it's worth the trouble. They don't scan them to the resolution that I can, and they give me compressed .JPG files instead of the high-quality .BMP files that I can get from the scanner. Still, if I want to print them or goof with them in photo shop, I can always scan in the appropriate negative.
So this time, I got some chick pictures (with the mother hens, of course), some from our trip to the beach on Lake Michigan, and some from Proud Equestrians. I have some real cute ones of a girl with her horse, and more of her with a foal that she's raising. I'll post them later.
I got another roll full of flowers and the like. I think I was testing those closeup lenses that I bought a while back.
Roll # 2003-04 contains some good memories.
Remember, we moved to the Cadillac area in August 2003. These pictures were from the spring of that year, when we were really trying to figure out how we could possibly move to a place with at least a little land. Actually, Mary just wanted to move. She looked at some houses on a postage stamp in Warren. We could have gotten a bit more house than we had, but we would still be living on a tiny piece of land in a crowded suburb. I flat-out rejected the idea. It was all too much like exchanging one jail for another.
Around the Detroit area, there is a system of parks called the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Parks. I grew up on the border of Lower Huron Metropark. When we lived in Ferndale, we liked to go to Kensington Metropark.
Since we like to go to Kensington, and because there are three Metroparks (Lower Huron, Willow, and Oakwoods) near my family of origin, we bought a sticker for our van. Armed with that sticker, we went to some of the other parks.
Up near the north end of Lake Saint Claire (that's a relatively small lake between lakes Huron and Michigan) are some Metroparks that we had never explored, so we went there. We walked through some trails in the woods and through pastures.
We visited a farm on one of the parks.
When we saw one of the workers gathering eggs, we asked if we could buy some. He grabbed some right out of the nest and sold them to us. Surprise! Some were blue. We thought that it was kind of yucky that some downy feathers were stuck to some. Now, it's just par for the course to get them like that. We wash the stuff off of them before giving them out, but we don't worry too much about it now.
Anyhow, that one dozen eggs made it up to the cottage with us the next weekend. At that time, Mary was looking at the real estate ads. I thought she was silly for doing that, since there was no way we could afford to move and escape from Detroit.
Little did I know that we would be looking at a house near Manistee, Michigan in just a few short weeks. Little did I know (or have faith) that Mary would be interviewing, accepting a job, and dragging all of us up here.
And life has never been the same. (For which we thank God every time we think about it.)
So let this be encouragement for anyone who is hurting now. God moves in His own time, but when he does, he does so decisively. When he dies, hang on and enjoy the ride!
posted by Nerd in the Country at 11:37 PM
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