Day 117: Recovery

I am feeling a bit better today. Last night, I was so heartbroken over losing so many pictures. I know so many of them are just gone. Most I can't even remember specifically because I had been storing pictures for the past couple of years. I can think of a few specifically that are gone. The biggest blow were the pictures from her first few days of life. Those are moments that are just gone and she was so stinkin' tiny.

I know a lot of my pictures can be downloaded from Facebook, which is a new feature with the updated page. I hadn't used it before. But I spent a few hours last night digging through all my emails for the past few years searching for pictures I had emailed to friends, family, Chad. I even dug through the emails to Lil Bit's birthmom to salvage a few pictures.

I was able to save enough that I don't feel quite so upset. I saved probably about 50-60 of the 200. But it was something. I know the pictures of her riding the train with her brothers at Austin's Park are gone. I didn't email them to anyone. But I can live without them. As hard as it is, I realized that the pictures are irreplaceable because of the memories that dim so quickly. I need to make it a point to start writing about the memories from those first days before they fade.

I did learn that I need to upload the pictures from my phone onto a computer pretty regularly from now on. I did learn never update the phone without help from a trained professional. I also learned to email myself the pictures because gmail stores them forever if all else fails. I also realized that the true gift is that I have my little girl to look at and love AND I am certainly not hurting for pictures of her.

I think I was partially just exhausted from a very long frustrating day. While I love technology, I think I use it more than I understand it. I want it to work, but don't want to bother learning how it works or comprehending all the technical knowledge. I will be rethinking that stance. It does seem strange to me that our lives have become so surrounded with technology that most of us barely know how to use and few know how to fix or trouble shoot. I worry someday technology will crash and we'll all be lost without email or instantaneously being able to contact each other or track our whereabout through foursquare.

I think part of my emotions were because she is turning one in a week and this year has gone way too fast. I can't believe how quickly the time flew by. I imagined having a baby and thought these days would stretch out luxuriously, having time to savor each milestone, each second. Instead, I feel like I'm riding shotgun in a Nascar race. I already am trying not to cry that my baby is almost a toddler. I am gonna be a wreck next week.

Took a few more pictures today, trying to refill my phone album. Lil Bit finally left her sunglasses on. I put mine on first and then hers, maybe that was the key, she just wanted to imitate me. So the world wasn't ending and I learned to be more careful with backing up my phone. I also understand better now how sad my mom must have been when all my baby pictures turned out washed out. Back in the early 70s when you took pictures, hoped for the best, and waited a week to get them back.

Funny, the older I get, the more I am able to see my parents, especially my mom as a person. She was much younger than I am when she had me. I think about how challenging she had it, living so far away from her mother, without the benefit of so much of the technology we take for granted. I wish I could fix those pictures for her. I am sure she still feels some loss of those moments. Hopefully, the pictures of her grandchildren are filling the void, they certainly are filling her walls.

Day 118: Tears

I don't have anything good to say tonight. I spent all day updating my iPhone which erased my iTunes and then I synced to reupdate my Ipod settings onto my iPhone.

I spent literally 7 hours today at work letting my phone do its thing then another couple of hours messing with getting my music back.

Now, I went to look through my pictures and they are all gone. Some of the pictures on my phone were so precious and they are gone. I don't know how many pictures I lost but a few hundred at least.

I am just in tears right now. I lost some really and truly precious pictures and I am heartbroken. I have a few that I've uploaded to facebook, but you can't get them back off facebook and a few I've emailed, but most are just gone. I really truly am just beside myself. I wish I had left well enough alone.

Day 245: Technology

This week my sister surprised my brother-in-law with a new smart phone, and of course it was buy one, get one so she got one too. They have spent the last few days downloading aps and playing new games. Just now, my BIL downloaded the giant fart button. We woke the napping baby by laughing at the gross sounds emanating from his cell phone. My mom's birthday present from me was a web cam so we can video chat with the baby. Living several states apart, the web cam allows us to share her cuteness live. Personally, I have been using my cell phone almost exclusively rather than drag out the lap top for most things in the past year.

A few years ago, I didn't even think a cell phone was a necessity. I thought if I am not home when someone calls, they can leave a message. I had just gotten one right after meeting my husband. I still have that ancient flip phone in a drawer because I can't bear to lose one of my husband's first text messages. He wrote, "You were my best friend before I ever met you. I just waited this whole time to know your face. You have far exceeded the expectations of my dreams." I still smile thinking of those precious words. Don't tell anyone he is such a softie!

I can't imagine living without the laptop or iPhone or the ability to video chat with grandparents and husband. I think about the military wives during World War II or Vietnam who would go months or longer without hearing from their husbands. Chad and I tend to go about a week between phone calls and a few days between emails, but it took us a few deployments to develop a rhythm and for me to feel more secure between contacts.

Twenty years ago, if you didn't know something off the top of your head, you had to find a book and look it up. If you didn't have a set of encyclopedias, you were stuck. Now, we were watching a movie and couldn't think of what we had seen the primary actor in. I can pull out my iPhone and check my IMDB application in seconds and have his entire bio, filmography, etc. at my fingertips.

While the technology has downsides for education because we've gotten away from memorizing facts and expecting students to carry a certain amount of knowledge in their heads, it is certainly a magical tool for keeping in touch, sharing pictures, keeping up with bills, banking, communicating instantly. Funny how things, we couldn't even conceive a few years ago are the same things we couldn't live without now.

I will admit there are times I play more games than I should, but primarily technology is a fantastic tool for keeping close the people I love.