Lessons learned...renewal

A week before Christmas, my external hard drive started acting funny. I was immediately angry at myself, because, in the back of a drawer in the office, was a brand new external hard drive, one that I had bought at least two years earlier when our computer had crashed. Then, we had been able to recover everything, and I had immediately bought the extra external hard drive, in case we had troubles again.

But I didn't even open it. It sat in the back of the drawer for more than 2 years. I would see it and think, "Ya know, I should back up everything on to that today," and then move on and forget.

So the right before Christmas, when the hard drive started having problems, I immediately transferred everything onto it...but it didn't all transfer. In fact, most of the pictures didn't.

I felt sick. That terrible pit in the stomach we all hate feeling. I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want it to ruin Christmas. So I unplugged both hard drives, and tried to push it to the back of my mind.

Christmas was wonderful, New Years was great, vacation in Utah relaxing. But in the back of my mind, in the pit of my stomach, the fear that those pictures were lost gnawed at me. Dreading having to deal with the reality of having lost all photos from 2006-2014 (2015-2017 were backed up on iCloud), I finally dropped off the hard drives at a repair store, and was told they'd do their best.

I didn't sleep much the next two nights. The pit in my stomach grew, being almost certain that all photos from Hattie, Anna, and Niels' births were gone. All of our time in Texas. Half our time in Wisconsin. So many memories. I prayed for a miracle, even just to be able to recover even some of the pictures, and asked the girls forgiveness for having made such a huge mistake. They were two pretty crappy days.

Then Thursday, the store called with the news that they had pulled a TON of data off the hard drive. For privacy reasons, they didn't open to check to see if everything worked, but they assured me that there was a lot there.

I started to hope. I still dreaded picking it up, and having to actually face it.

When I plugged it in, I nearly cried. It was all there! I skimmed through quickly...well, almost all there. They hadn't been able to recover pictures from November 2013 through 2017. But, remember, 2015-2017 were on iCloud. Which meant that I really only lost 2 months of 2013 and all of 2014.

All things considered, much better than expected.

And somehow (I think miraculously) 2014 was the year I was most active on Instagram and Facebook, before taking a 3 year hiatus. I also printed a photo book that year, AND it was the last time I blogged regularly on here.

Over the last two days, I've spent hours pouring over snapfish, shutterfly, facebook, instagram, and blogspot...and anywhere else...and I've pulled up about 330 pictures. And because those were the pictures printed and shared, they are among the best of the year. I've asked family and friends if they can search through their pictures and send me anything they've got with us in it.

I also have been uploading the pictures from 2006-2013 to Amazon Photos since 8 am. They are still uploading now...not even halfway done.

So, that was not a short story, but here's the lessons learned.

1. Don't wait 2+ years to back up your pictures. In other words, don't be dumb.

2. Have copies on your hard drive AND on the cloud somewhere. You won't regret the $ per year they may charge. I've had hard drives fail me twice now and just don't trust it anymore.

3. I really should instagram/facebook/blog more. I think in the past I've always viewed social media as a way to communicate with others. It certainly IS that, but it can be more. I need to view it as a way of documenting life...my kids' lives more than anything.

4. Listening to promptings. I had seen that unopened hard drive SO many times...I even moved it across the country and packed it up. I felt so many times that I should do it. But I always had an excuse, a lame one.

After talking with a friend while swimming today, she talked about how she sets apart a specific time every week to blog, so that at the end of the year she can print it all out. I've always struggled with making the time to blog, between kids, house, homeschool...endless list. But after talking with her, I'm pretty sure I can budget an hour a week to sit down and write...there is always less tv for me to watch. I love writing. I used to be good at it. So here I am, with a new year and a new purpose, focusing on recording history for my family instead of only sharing it with others.

P.S. There will be pictures in the next post. I'm having to download all the iCloud stuff, and it'll take a while to get it all organized again.