Swinging :)

Charmed by a Christmas Pyramid

Crash and Conundrum

Y'all.  Our laptop suffered a devastating crash about a week and a half ago.  It is only two years old, we have never EVER had anything near this kind of problem with our Macs, and it was really, really bad.  Not my-kid-spilled-milk-on-my-computer bad, because that, apparently, is way easier to fix than our problem.  Nope, this is the sorry-there-are-big-problems-with-your-hard-drive-and-even-the-recovery-software-you-paid-over-$100-for-tells-you-that-this-is-really-bad kind of bad.

I just went through the files that the recovery software was able to save, and you guys, it is all the junk.  I have about 50 pictures out of the thousands I have taken over the last year.  And beyond that, do you know what was saved?  One audiobook and the pictures that were in the trash.  UGH.  All the pictures of my babies since last Christmas are gone.  All the pictures from our 10th anniversary trip are gone.

By the look of things, this particular crash is more severe than the normal hard disk crash.  The people at Apple say they will replace the computer, but data recovery is up to us.  And beyond what we've already done, we'd really be looking at $1000 or more to recover the missing photos, if they are even recoverable at all.

So at this point, the only place that the best of my pictures exist is on Facebook.  And those are small enough files that they are not truly printable, because they'll never look good blown up to just about any size. 

What I'm trying to work through at the moment is whether or not it is worth it to try to recover these missing pictures.  Because I do still have the ones on Facebook, it is not a total loss.  But it does mean that I will never be able to print them successfully.  Is this a big deal?  I can't decide.  Up until Clara was born and the busyness of three kids prevented me from posting all the time, this blog was the place I stored all my pictures, I never printed a thing, and it didn't bother me in the least.  And I have still not printed much.

But, y'all, seriously, last week I was going to have stuff printed to fill a bunch of frames!  The timing on this crash stinks. 

So the lesson of the day is this: BACK UP YOUR FILES.

{Face palm.}

Why Photography? The Days are Long, but the Years are Short.

Although my presence in this particular corner of the internet has waned lately, I think it's fairly clear that I've got a new hobby that's been absorbing me lately.  Someone asked me recently how and why I got into photography, and I thought I'd write about it a bit.

My interest in photography has everything to do with my children.  I hadn't been a mother for long before I experienced for the first time that mix of poignant love and fear that the moments in their precious lives and in our life together are so rich yet so fleeting.  That maybe you missed something; that perhaps there's something precious that you have forgotten.

I value this blog so much because it's our family record of a precious set of years when my oldest kids were very small.  There's no way I'd remember so many of these marvelous details if I had not written them down in detail (e.g. Noah loved hot tea as a toddler and asked for it every day; his expressions are the same and will probably never change, etc.).  And I've found that photography is very similar; that I can catch moments that I'd otherwise miss (I'd probably even forget to blog them or run out of time to do so).  Also, like writing, I can compose and edit a photo to reflect the feeling with that particular memory, or to show off/emphasize an aspect of that child or that event.

So that's why I began learning this new skill: it's all an effort to remember the little things that are so very delightful to look back on later.  And I'm enjoying it thoroughly!

My First Attempt at Backlighting

Y'all Remember?

Y'all remember when I used to write words on this blog?  Like, full sentences strung together in coherent thoughts? 

Yeah, me too.

:)

I actually have a post rolling around in my head.  If I ever get to it, I'll write it out.  In the meantime, I just wanted to drop in and say hello! 

The First Bike Ride

 The training wheels came off!

 Their faces crack me up.

In fact, Noah has a lot of amazing faces.

Faces, I'm telling you.

He's had super expressive facial expressions since he was an infant.

 Frustration/concentration.

 Sometimes he's a thinker. :)

 And believe it or not, this is not an extreme face for him. We see this one almost daily.

 Nathan went up and down the driveway dozens of times.

  "Mom! Take a picture of my feet off the ground!"

 Everybody. :)