Your Organized Picture Legacy
When my son Ian's first birthday arrived, and as the first of 3 boys, I learned really fast that candles and a 1-year-old don’t mix. Freaked out by the flame, but totally enthralled by the chocolate gooey homemade frosting, Ian proceeded to make a mask out of chocolate icing. This moment is ever etched into my memory because I had the good sense to take a picture and not to let the moment evaporate. So began the beginning of piles and piles of birthday memorabilia pictures.
I love those pictures. They transport me back in time (that won't return) when my devilish little boys crawled around in diapers -and little else- while discovering carpet fur and snails. Recently, I got a call from Margaret. Her sentiments are typical. “I’ve got at least five years of memories that are stuffed into a giant box that sits on the floor of my home office. It is filled with overwhelming piles of photos that I'm truly terrified to tackle.” Getting these precious memories into a safe and accessible place is not impossible, however, it didn’t get into this pile overnight and it won't go away with a wave of a magic wand. It will take commitment and time to conquer and recapture the meaning behind “why we keep what we keep.”
The good news is that with a professional photo organizer beside you, the work will get done. The best part is that you don’t have to wait till you’re a grandparent to finally accomplish this. Where to do this and what system you use is as varied as there are photos in your pile, but a photo organizer can come to your rescue and help you determine which one is best suited to your needs.
Organizing your digital images can be transformative with all the tools now available. Photobook programs are cropping up everywhere, and another service an organizer can provide is to help you decide which one is best for you. My middle son Evan’s first cardboard sculpture of the back-to-the-future car will be ever remembered. This will bring a smile to his face and, hopefully, one day, to his own family. Sharing our lives through our picture legacy is one that brings meaning and pleasure into our lives. Hiring a photo organizer can be one of the best investments of your life.
Dear Amy-
We are happy to write to you about Eileen Koff.
Both of us are musicians and teachers; Dorothea Cook is a violinist who teaches in the Community Music Programs at Stony Brook University, at the Knox School, and has a private violin teaching studio; Peter Winkler is a composer and professor in the music department at Stony Brook.
We live in an old house filled with the residue of many years of family life. We had read many books about organizing, but we really needed the hands-on experience of working with a wise and thoughtful professional to turn our good intentions into reality.
We met Eileen Koff at an open house at Innovative Nutrition, the health store in Setauket, and quickly decided that she was what we had been looking for.
Eileen doesn't do your organizing for you. She is a teacher and a very good one.
One of her important lessons is that it's not just about organizing things. We are learning from her that to be organized, you have to understand yourself, your values, what you love, and what your true priorities are. Sorting all that out isn't always easy, and it can require some serious soul-searching.
The organizing process involves both tangible and intangible things; it involves time-management as well as decisions about what to throw out, what to keep, and where things go.
Like all good teachers, Eileen can sometimes make you a bit uncomfortable, as she challenges your old habits and ways of doing things. But as she says, it takes the eyes of a stranger to help you see your surroundings as they truly are.
The transformation of our house will not happen overnight, but Eileen is teaching us skills that we will be using for many years to come. Best,
- Dorothea Cook and Peter Winkler