Devastated

A terrible thing happened recently and I am beyond devastated about it.  The back story is long and ridiculous, but in short:  I needed to change my accounts with Google/gmail to rearrange the listed "administrators" on my little blog here.  The new account was created, the blog transferred and the old account deleted... before realizing (because I am a complete idiot) that all of the photos stored on my blog, were actually stored on Picasa, a Google product that I didn't bother to transfer before deleting the old account.  So while the blog itself still exists, every single photo posted after January of 2010 (when I switched from Photobucket to just uploading through Blogger to Picasa)... is gone.  Google has ZERO live technical support available and we (Craig and I) have tried everything we can possibly think of to resolve it.  Google's help page that is used for restoring deleted accounts gives a message of "internal error" every time we follow the steps/prompts for restoring.  We have tried reading and posting in online forums for help, called multiple phone numbers that Google has posted (no one actually talks to you though) and contacted various friends with more computer knowledge/connections than we have.  It's feeling hopeless.  After 30 days, accounts are supposedly unrecoverable and it has been 20 so far.  I have been in denial and cried about it.  Sorta' feels like a part of my life has been erased.  I still have all the pictures on hard drive.  But this has been my online scrapbook/journal for the past five years and I have put SO MANY HOURS of my time into this, forfeiting sleep on tons of nights just to document the story of us.  I don't know what to do now.  I still plan to keep blogging but I feel like I should go back and re-do some of the most important memories:  birthdays, important milestones, holidays, etc.  Otherwise, it's just 3 1/2 years of writing - some of which will not make sense without a picture attached.  What would you do?  And do you by any chance have any solutions we haven't thought of?

So very sad...

1000

This is my...

1000th post!

Wow! 1000. That's equivalent to A LOT of time dedicated to memory keeping in an online journal!

I can't believe it's been so long since my first entry in June of 2008, when I was just trying to get away from my previous monthly e-mails to family and friends with picture- and milestone-updates of Will. I remember a bunch of of those e-mail recipients telling me they were bummed that I wasn't planning to continue them, but I just reassured them that popping onto a blog would be just as easy and less invasive than e-mails. I was able to announce and document my pregnancy with Sophie here and later add several "series" posts such as weekly dinners, Tot School and library reading lists. Now, I tend to forget that I have readers beyond my usual commenters and followers, and it always catches me off guard when an unexpected family member or friend tells me they love my blog. I'm flattered! And it just makes this hobby that much more enjoyable.

Despite my slight decline in posting the past few months, I do LOVE blogging and have no intentions of stopping. I love being able to look back on our lives (in pictures and stories) in such an easy and organized location. I also love reading LOTS of other blogs and looking at tons of pictures in a much more story-telling format than, say, Facebook would allow.

So, just for fun... here's a little time capsule of my blogging stats to date:

**First post: June 20, 2008 (a little over 3 years and 8 months ago)

**Fewest posts per month since starting: 6 (September '08 and September '09)

**Highest posts per month since starting: 42 (October 2010)

**Current monthly post average: teens and 20's

**Total number of page views (since June of 2009 when the "stats page" dates back to): 41,084

**Most popular post (since June of 2009) based on page views: Bakin' Cookies on July 15, 2010 (really?)

**Page views last month: 1,740

**Followers (publicly): 19

**Profile Views: 1,879

**Number of countries where page views have come from other than the U.S.: 9 (kinda' freaky)

**Number of times I've changed my background: 2 (since the original)

**Number of times I've stayed up past midnight to blog: countless

It'll be fun to see how those stats have changed after the next 1000 posts!

Guess What's Turning Three!

My Blog!

It all began June 20, 2008. And at a little over 800 posts in three years... I'd say that's an addiction. Wouldn't you? ;)
Happy Blogging Anniversary to me!

Pardon My Absence...

Please pardon my absence this week...

I'm currently in the middle of a really, REALLY fascinating 40 hour training program for breastfeeding counseling this week. I am learning so much and thoroughly enjoying every minute of my classes. I've gotten to network with some really interesting women from all over the country and world (one lady has come all the way overseas from Qatar in the middle east!!) and learned about how many of them support breastfeeding mothers in their various programs/clinics/hospitals: doulas, nurses, dietitians, peer counselors (WIC breastfeeding), Help Me Grow, social workers, etc. etc. The two women facilitating the training are so intelligent and inspiring.

I'm also having to unlearn some outdated information even from college and the early part of my career in WIC because of the astounding amount of information they're providing with new studies that have come out in the last year or so. Things have changed! For example (for those of you who've breastfed or learned anything about breastfeeding): the concept of fore and hind milk and which is higher in fat and calories? Totally out the window. Not consistent enough to be true information to stress to mothers when counseling. What??? It also turns out the number of additional calories a breastfeeding woman needs in her diet is probably much less than was previously believed... because previous testing was done on cows! (I still say just follow your own appetite. It has to depend on the woman.) Oh! And almost NO babies are "lactose intolerant" as I've long suspected despite the fact that soooooo many scripts from our patients' docs use that as a diagnosis for formula changes.

As I sit and listen to all this information, I am learning so much more about my own breastfeeding experiences - why Will probably had difficulty latching, why his nursing sessions were so long, etc. - and wishing I could do it all over again. I loved breastfeeding! And while I'm a little baby crazy this week (haha!) I'd love to just rewind time and get to do it all over with my own two babes. I watched (not kidding) THE MOST BEAUTIFUL VIDEO I've ever seen of a newborn baby moving through the nine (known) steps of natural attachment on his mother's chest in the first hour after birth. I had tears in my eyes and I was just so in awe of the miracle of women's bodies (seriously, ladies, we are awesome!) and the instincts of a newborn. These tiny babies are so smart when given the chance to show us!

The whole training is making me all the more passionate about encouraging and supporting breastfeeding and also making me think about furthering my education and perhaps my career in the direction of lactation consulting or even, perhaps, as a doula. That would definitely be years from now IF it happened. I would want my kids to be grown before I'd consider being in an on-call position (for births). It's all just so cool and fascinating... and I love it!

Anyway, there is so much I want to post from last week and the weekend - we were busy and I hate getting behind 'cause life doesn't exactly slow down! But right now my evenings are devoted to studying the material we're learning each night after I do all of my normal family duties. Umm... anyone out there who's gone back to school with a baby or young child(ren), I commend you! This is only a week and it already feels a bit overwhelming! Wow. So glad I finished college before having babies.

So, wish me luck! I have an exam to pass on Friday!

My New Blogging Corner :)

Well, friends, we are status-post hard drive crash here at our house... hence my recent disappearance.

Craig actually built our main computer several years ago and it's just getting a little old. Never fear... all our important stuff is saved on the external hard drive. But we had to wait for the new (computer) hard drive to ship and for Craig to install and rebuild a little.

On top of that, he's been working on rearranging some things and doing some shelf switch-a-roos to accommodate a little computer nook in our old bedroom (walk-in) closet.

We actually have two walk-in closets in our bedroom - the original that was way too small for both of us and the main one that Craig built where we currently house all our clothes. The original closet has just been housing luggage, rarely-worn stuff, Craig's suits, the pack 'n play and other overflow. We've moved out all of the clothes and things and left only the luggage and some tubs of linens (spare sheets, etc.) on one end. On the opposite end, Craig put in a couple, simple shelves and rewired some things up from the basement, through the attic and into this closet so that we can set up our computer here. It's not fancy, but it's sooooo much better than the dungeon basement amongst the creepy-crawlies.

So if you walk in this closet and look to the left, you see the above pictured view. If you look to the right, you see some storage shelves, tubs, and luggage. Craig removed all the white hanging racks and shelves and patched/repainted before putting in the new shelves.

Our "cozy", little house once boasted a guest bedroom and a den/office on the first floor. :) But two kids and two "bedrooms" later... we have resorted to computing in a closet. LOL Our basement is not exactly a dark and dingy cellar - but it's not formally finished (yet) and having the main computer upstairs is just so much nicer. We do have a laptop in the living room, but it's even older and really only used to check something once in awhile, i.e. fantasy football for Craig, e-mail, etc for me. All my pictures and such are saved on the external hard drive attached to the desktop computer.

I'm just grateful that my husband's a genius and can fix anything. As my dad used to say, "If he can't fix it... it ain't broke". ;) I, on the other hand, have abandoned all problem-solving skills since being married to Craig. For example, the first time he said I could get back on the computer and start working, I couldn't get the external hard drive to be recognized by the computer. It was clearly turned on but just wasn't registering. So I came downstairs to where he was just sitting down to relax and told him my problem. He said "did you try restarting? Maybe it just hasn't recognized it." So I did, and nothing. I came back down to ask what I should do next and he went up to check. And... it was unplugged. :) Craig said to me: "that's what I love about you... your problem-solving skills are uncanny". LOL Oops.

Anywho... it's actually been quite nice having multiple evenings in a row to just hang out with Craig and do nothing else. We really should "unplug" more often. We've spent a few too many nights staying up way too late and just talking. Feels like old times. Like in high school, when we used to sit on the phone for three hours at a time. Or in college, when we layed around (responsibility-free) in one of our college houses just talking. Too bad our late nights of talking now have to be followed up with a 6-7 a.m. wake time and full day of work and childcare. Hmm. I'm kind of paying the price this week. Must go to bed early tonight!

Problem is: I have a ridiculous number of posts that have been piling up in my head during this blogging dry spell and just begging to be written. Not good for the go-to-bed-early motive.

So, I'm curious...

Where do you blog?

I'm sure, for most of you, it's a laptop that comes with you wherever you feel like sitting. But where do you sit?

A Blogging Milestone

Guess what.

This is my 500th blog post!!!

500! That's insane!

I never would have guessed how much I would fall in love with blogging. :)

Anyway, I thought I would celebrate this milestone with a list of things I am thankful for today.

So here goes:

1) A beautiful "fall" day despite the forecasted rain.

2) The general health of my family. As long as we have our health, we can handle any curve ball life throws our way.

3) A nap on the couch.

4) Time out to cook and try a new recipe, which is only afforded on weekends.

5) Parchment paper. :)

6) The (temporary) coziness of eating dinner around a card table while our table is being refinished. Key word: temporary. It's way too small.

7) The endless talents and skills of my husband. He is amazing to me.

8) Hand-me-down kids clothes!

9) The smiles and laughter our kids provide for us daily.

10) My job.

Also, just wanted to say thank you to all of you who continue to read my babbling.

It always surprises me when someone I don't see often (and had no idea read my blog) comments to me about how they enjoy keeping up with our little family.

Well, I enjoy writing here!

But I always appreciate the support too. :)

Blogging has opened up a surprising network of awesome people and information I never knew existed. But more importantly, it helps me keep up with friends and family that I care so much about, but would never have time to connect with in this much detail during such a busy time of our lives. It helps to keep "a small world" feeling at our fingertips.

Anyway, thanks again for reading!

Under Construction

I'm working on a new feature in my side bar per my friend Sarah's suggestion:

Labels!

Do you like how I jumped on that instantly, Sarah? ;)

I've thought in the past that I would like to do this.

It's not difficult, just VERY tedious.

And I hope it gives someone, some time, an easier time finding something they're looking for.

Also, I'm not really sure how Blogger handles this as I "re-publish" each post.

There isn't an option to just "save" so I don't know if each and every post is then sent to those of you who follow me in a Google reader or RSS feed or whatever you call it.

If it does... my deepest appologies! That would be soooo annoying, and I'm sorry.

I've gotten through a little over 150 posts so far.

Just 300 more to go...

This & That

Life's been a little on the heavy side lately.

A lot actually.

I know I shouldn't complain because we have it so good the majority of the time, and our "problems" might be the stuff others would gladly take over the tougher things they're dealing with.

But when it involves family relationships and threatens to rock the very foundation you were built from...

Well. It just sucks.

Without further elaborating, I'll just say that I've been a bit absent from the blogosphere lately and have found it much more important to spend time loving on my own little family and chilling out with my husband in the evenings instead of pouring over the computer. (I don't feel too bad though because it seems lots of my favorite bloggers are taking a little blogging hiatus! :) Summer will do that to ya'!) I do miss my beloved blog and am frequently feeling the itch to just "write something". But it's also been quite freeing to just put it aside and not even think about it.

So...

Here's a brief recap of what we've been up to this past week.

Always the climber.

Off she goes to find some other off-limits spot she can now reach with the stool. :)

Brushing teeth.

Another post-bath evening in jammies with a little ice cream, a few good books and a fuzzy blanket on the lawn. If you're looking for some new good children's books, check out Pepi Sings a New Song and Alphabeep - a couple of Will's favorites this week. We've also got about 12 or so other books checked out right now on the subject of trees, plants and seeds.

One of the other books is called Sunflower House and is very enchanting about a little boy who planted a circle of sunflowers with his dad and he and his friends played all summer in the center of these "mammoth" flowers. After reading it outside, Will pointed out that the corn field is taller than him right now!

Last Wednesday, I enjoyed a much needed girls night with some super fun ladies, a good game of Balderdash and some yummy drinks and snacks.

Princess Sophia! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this little tutu skirt on her. There was no special occasion for it - just that I wanted her to get some wear out of it. You can't really see the bodysuit but it has a cute, little winged-creature and says "happy" on it.

The skirt is actually a little big and should fit her for quite awhile. I think it will look pretty cute with some black tights and a black bodysuit in the colder weather season.

If only she were a little bit taller... :)

On Saturday we attended a cook-out at Molly & Brian's house in honor of my Aunt Sharon and cousin Nick being in from out of state and also my cousin Abbey's recent engagement! So exciting to have another wedding in the family after quite awhile without one.

Will and Cora - best buddies - got to play together again in Cora's new, little pool and SUPER COOL play room. I didn't get many pictures of this day or of the play room at all 'cause my stupid camera battery died on me again. Boo. But here are the few that I managed to capture.

Beautiful, little Cora.

Daddy & Sophia

Skees family gathering = best food EVER! There is an impressive palate and love of food in this family and this meal did not disappoint!

Stella skinny-dipping!

Say a prayer for us. I'm sure God has a plan here.

And I'm just praying hard that He guides us down which ever path we should go and restores the relationships that mean so much to me/us.

Happy Blogging Anniversary To Me!

On June 20, 2008, I decided to stop invading the e-mail inboxes of my dear family and friends and start a blog where I could post updates of our little family in an easily accessible (but not forcefully-in-your-face) location. Now, two years and nearly 400 posts later, my blog is still going strong! Yeah!

It has literally changed my life in many ways.

• I pretty much never write in my journal anymore. I blog so regularly and so detailed that it's mostly unneccesary to keep a written journal.
• I pretty much never leave home without my camera... except to go to work. :)
• I've lost sleep from staying up way later than I should a few nights a week just to feed my addiction with organized pictures and typed descriptions of my kids' every move.
• I've met lots of new people and learned SO MUCH from reading other blogs and networking in the "blogosphere".
• I've created an awesome record of our life so far that I already enjoy looking back on to see the changes in our children as they grow.

As I'm sure you can tell, I'm not all that computer literate. I haven't gotten fancy with my background and I don't have any cool side bar trinkets to wow you with. I've kept it simple and am all about the detailed content. So far this year, I've more than doubled my total posts for 2009! I've got a lot to say, people!

So, thank you to Blogger for making this so easy (most of the time) and thank you to all our family and friends for your comments and compliments whether ON the blog or in person. I truly enjoy writing these posts and I love the ease in which I can now keep in touch with our loved ones.

No Comment

A few people brought to my attention that comments were somehow disabled below my posts. I'm not sure how that happened but I had been messing with my settings a little bit about a week ago and I am definitely not the most computer literate person in the world. So my appologies... and I think I have repaired that. So thanks for the heads up and feel free to comment to your hearts content. LOL :)

Now my new dilemma is figuring out how to post pictures without using Photobucket because I somehow downloaded a huge virus from visiting that site! That is just creepy and very violating! Thankfully, my husband is a genius and managed to do a complete overhaul of our computer. So that's fixed too. Casey, when you have time, can you to show me how you post pictures?

Believe it or not...

...my husband reads my blog... every day!

This is funny for 2 reasons:
1) We live in the same house and he lives/sees first-hand all the stuff I write about.
2) HE is the one that told me blogging is for geeks (remember the Star Trek comment?). So the fact that he faithfully reads my posts... well, what does that make him?

P.S. I love you Craig!

Blogger = Trekkie?

When I first mentioned to Craig that I was thinking of blogging, his response (with moderate sarcasm) was: "Cool. And then maybe later we can dress up in Star Trek outfits and watch all the movies in full costume." When I asked what he meant, he just said "That's what people who blog do." I laughed but decided to try it out anyway. After all, in the not so distant past, Craig had an AOL buddy list and a myspace page...

I belong to an online forum with other moms who have June 2007 babies. They are an awesome group of women whom I have come to depend on for advice, support and simply a shared life experience. Many of them have been blogging for quite awhile as a means of connecting with family and friends. Per their advice, I'm giving this a try and we'll see where it goes.

And, for the record, I don't know the first thing about Star Trek.

Hi. I'm new here.

I've always had a passion for journaling and record keeping. A friend gave me a journal for a birthday gift in the 7th grade and I've been writing down my thoughts and life events ever since. We have shelves full of captioned photo albums. My 1 year old son's baby book is up to date. And our computer's external hard drive is organized with thousands of digital pictures and video clips by event and chronoligical order.

Is this anal? Maybe. But this is my hobby.

So blogging seemed like a fun addition to this hobby. And a great way to keep family and friends updated on what's new without invading their e-mail boxes with my life story. Just view as you please!

On my blog, I will post news, photos, random thoughts, and milestones about Will, Craig and myself. I named my blog Live Laugh Love (original, I know) because I love that mindset and I think it is a reminder to live each day to the fullest.