Friday, December 12, 2008

Mother of All HumDingers

Sometimes, even the little black box can’t be saved.

Well it’s finally happened friends. That teeny-tiny straw that broke the camels back has landed with the force of an atom bomb on my psyche.

No one died or got sick or lost their job or anything that horrible.

It was just a small electrical glitch. But one that had me fleeing the house to sob in private in the car, as not to scare my kids. By the way if you want a good cry, plug in Josh Groban’s ‘NOEL’ CD. And if you’re anywhere near a hormonal or emotional wreck, it will tip the scales and let you wail. For once I was glad it was dark early so as not to scare the other motorists with my way-ugly sad face. Come-on the only people who make sad look good are actors. We real humans can really contort those facial muscles into something quite grotesque when emotionally out-of-it.

What could be so horrible?

Seven years of digital movies and family pictures – Erased! I’ve got all of this year’s pictures on my laptop. But a few months ago my wonderful husband put all of our family pictures and home movies on a hard drive. Then he wisely copied them onto yet another portable hard drive. TWO BACK-UPS! I have always meant to make scrapbooks and photo albums for the kids and our family. I know of their importance – Geezzz I was a Creative Memories Consultant years ago. I preached that stuff. But I kept putting it off. All those pictures were still in digital form saved on computers.

About two months ago Evo-man was running through a room and his foot caught the electrical cord attached to one of the boxes and sent it flying. Back up number 1 = Toast!

Yeah, Yeah, we should have immediately made an extra copy. But life happened and we didn’t.

Last night Prince Erik took out our master portable hard drive because he wanted to look at a few things. Plugged the sucker in and…

Well, you know,

It made a funny clicking sound,

And absolutely nothing happened.

My husband, the computer genius (he really is), tried every trick he knew and couldn’t recover those precious files. All hope is not lost. He called the manufacturer of the Hard Drive and they said that for around $1,900 to $2,500 they could TRY to recover them for us. Joy! More money – with no guarantee’s. Seems to be the new direction of my life.

So now held in limbo are Christmas get-togethers, our family’s trip to Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, California and Nauvoo. Missing is family reunions and relatives (some no longer here). Gone is the Princess Trip I took with just my girls to Disneyland, my first Half-Marathon etc. But the part that hurts the most- Is - gone are all my pictures of Princess and Hope as babies. I can just imagine, but I really don’t want to, them growing up never having a baby picture of themselves, and it’s killing me.

I guess I should just rename my blog ‘The Whining Place’. I’m sorry you’ve had to endure my recent rants and raves of late. It just seems to be all going wrong. All the other stuff kind-of seem insignificant now. Sure roofs get holes, and kitchens fall apart, and dryers go ka-putt, money get’s tourniquet-tight. But those are just things. And that type of stuff can always be replaced. Memories can’t! So until they invent a time-machine and I can go back and recapture all those wonderful events; or, if by some miracle our hard drive can be recovered, I’ll just have to get busy writing. Recording the memories I have of the past seven years or so. There will be some record of it, that won’t be forgotten, even if it is just stories.

It was really hard to think of something good as a result – but here it is. Gone are all my fat pictures! Wahoo! And I did learn a lesson – Next time have 5 back-ups, photo albums etc.

On great news, after a week of washing dishes in the Master Bathroom, my husband rigged this here TEMPORARY hill-billy sink back in the shell of our former kitchen.




Yeah! Believe me this really makes me happy. I am going to have to lay down some plastic so as not to warp the sub-floor before we can finish it. It is very temporary so don’t send CPS telling them we are living in squalor – O.K. More like glorified camping.

And I’m having fun planning my dream kitchen. Butterscotch cabinets with a walnut glaze over it.

Oh, and Thanks for sticking around. I promise my posts won’t always be such downers.

16 comments:

Sara said...

That's terrible. :(

Hopefully you can get some back that you sent to relatives

Dawn Zorer said...

Thanks for making my life look good.
I hope things get better soon.
hugs, hugs, hugs,
Dawn

Jennifer said...

Oh my goodness! My worst fear!!! I just totally cried when I read your post! I really hope you can get it back. I think its well worth the $2000!

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh! Now I have to get serious about uploading my pics to smugmug so I can pay them to keep everything backed up for me. That's just awful!

Kiwi said...

My heart broke when I heard what happened. I don't know what I'd do if I lost all my pictures. Now that I'm doing more photography I'm crazy about backing up files on my external hard drive and also buring DVDs that I put in a safety deposit box. I've also looked into online storage but decided against it when I realized that it would take forever to upload all my pictures plus I hate paying monthly fees. I wish we lived closer to each other because then I'd probably have more photos of your family. I have all the pictures from the past 3 family reunions. Let me know if you want me to send you copies.

fawndear said...

Kiwi - I think burning the CD's is an excellent idea and then storeing them elsewhere is smart. Those are both things that I regret not doing.

Sara said...

That is so sad about your pictures. Worse than the kitchen! My pics are all over a table in my un-used schoolroom. Dh did make copies on CD's last week, of the digitals, but the non-digitals are at risk.

Faith said...

Oh, Fawn! I always imagined survivors of a devastating flood mourning the loss of their family photos, and wondered how they could live through that loss. I go practically mental if my husband doesn't burn them on to a disk right away after they go onto the hard drive. I'll pray that God will have mercy on you and that somehow you'll get those beloved pictures back!

Cheri said...

Fawn - agree with some of the other comments - start asking all those other people you know what pictures they have of your family in the "missing years", get them, and do the backups!

Umm - and I probably ought to do backups too!

Keep dreaming of that beautiful kitchen heading your way!

fawndear said...

Now that it's sunk in a bit. It's not all that bad. Yes, I bet I can get some pictures of relatives of the big family events and even pictures of when they decided to visit us.

Plus when I do get those pictures I'll have a lot less to worry about putting in albums.

So things are looking up.

Jonathan and Cheri said...

Aawwww Fawn! I am so sorry to hear that. Do you feel like it's one big test? I lost my camera on the last day of a 2 week honeymoon with Jonathan - we had over 200 pictures. I am still super sad! But yours is definitely a lot more memories. I hope you find the time to write a journal of the stories you remember to the photos you lost - stories will keep those lost photos alive =)

Trena Doll said...

I'm glad you finally got your big cry. You were definitely overdue. I'll look through my negatives (I know, I'm slow - didn't go digital w/the photos until '07) and see what I can find of your kids from the missing years.
I like your idea of writing the memories down. I recommend having the kids do the same. You'll be surprised at the things they remember that you may have forgotten (even w/photos).
Keep going, dearest. You'll be fine.

Unknown said...

Seriously what more can happen? Heres hoping 2009 is a much better year!

Pam's Pride said...

HUGS!! That is awful about your pics! When I got a digital camera a few years ago I started getting all of the pictures put on CD's...I had two copies of all of the CD's made so I could give one to my MIL to store in her safe. I figure the likelyhood of both of our houses being destroyed (at the same time) is pretty slim to none and she is really good about putting stuff up so I am hoping I have at least one safe copy!

Alisha said...

We had the same thing happen this summer! All our digital pictures were gone! Even if you can't afford it now - keep the hard drive. Maybe in a few years you will be able to scrape the money together for it. We spent around $1000, but it was worth it. We also went with a company where we didn't have to pay if they couldn't get anything off the hard drive.
Big hugs!

RavenM said...

I like the hillbilly sink fawndear. We have a shop sink on a stand in our kitchen lol. stuff keeps happening to put off spending our money on our unfinished kitchen. Someday :)