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You know how you have things on your to-do list that you seldom do? Like clean out closets, go through boxes in the garage, and generally purge your life of stuff you don't need? I've been working on that lately.

Since I move often, you'd think I wouldn't have much junk. Let's face it, I'm not really a pack rat. I don't form unnatural attachments to things. Unlike my mom, I throw away butter bowls and plastic cups.

But I've still managed to amass a lot of stuff. I am a single gal who lives in a four-bedroom house and every closet is full. The attic is packed with Christmas decorations. The garage has tons of boxes. Where did I get all of this junk and how can I get rid of most of it so that I don't have to move it again?

Last week I cleaned out my closets. Now I'm ready to tackle my garage.

I've been out of comission with strep throat for three straight days, but I finally felt like walking out in the garage this afternoon to figure out just what's out there. Half of my boxes? Photos. Thousands and thousands of photos.

For years I've been meaning to start a massive scanning project so that I'll have electronic pictures and be able to get rid of the tons of photo albums. Many are full of quickly fading Polaroids. Some contain pics of people I don't even know.

I found an online service today that will scan in your memories for 5 cents a photo, which is a bargain if you don't have 25K of them. But since it would take the GDP of a small African village to finance my family memories, I've decided to scan them in myself.

I started my little project late this afternoon. So far I've scanned in hundreds. But it's barely made a dent in my first box. Of 20 boxes or so.

This may take awhile. Maybe I'll be done in time to drag down and go through the Christmas decorations.