Special

 I have grown to hate the word "special."

 And it's all because of Orelia.

 Somehow among her friends, the word "special" as become the get-out-of-jail-free card with regards to not having to share something.

 "No, it's special to me," is uttered again and again.

 Orelia and her friends will often even go up to one another and ask "Can I use that or is it special to you?"  (Clearly they need a lesson on not setting themselves up for failure.)

 I'm sure somewhere along the way I taught Orelia that "special" items were okay to put away during play dates and not share with friends.

 This was meant to be limited to the number one lovey stuffed animal or perhaps a Halloween costume, and was in no way meant to encompass ever piece of tat we own that somehow becomes "special" based on the passing breeze.

 Four year olds can be quite funny.

 I, too, am learning a lesson about special-ness, lately.

 As I've mentioned many times before, I struggle to keep up with the number of photos I take.

 It is very easy to find the most "special" photos in the bunch and the least "special."  That probably only takes a few minutes per 100 photos.  It's the deciding which medium "special" photos should be deleted and which should be saved forever to never be looked at again.  Hmm.

 Now that it's the end of the year and I am motivated to find the best of my 2016 photos (to go into a photo book), I have realized how little I care for sorting through these "medium special" photos for hours with basically zero payoff.

This post contains random photos from the past few months that I have just gotten around to finding.

 The end of the year method is to find the best photos, add them to my favorites, and bulk delete about half of the others and THAT IS ENOUGH.

I feel better already.

The true special photos, just like the real special things in life, are easy to find.  The rest are nonsense.