<sigh>

Really not a sigh.


There were tears today. Not a ton, but some just the same.


I get very attached to my photos. I love taking pictures. Was crazy about before I started keeping scrapbooks at age 8. I took a good number of the childhood pictures that exist of my brother and sister with whatever point and shoot my parents had around at the time. I am still craving an SLR, just like I wanted back then, only now I'd like a digi one with a fast lens or two, esp one with a huge zoom!


But this has nothing to do with that.



I found out today that every photo I've taken since my camera (Nikon Coolpix 8800D) came home from Nikon's ICU in January is GONE. Just gone.



My niece's first bday, including pics of her with my 90 yr old grandmother

Our annual trek to the RPI Big Red Freakout

Rachel's winter flute recital

My pre-op surgery pics (only shots I took of my expanders)

The chronology of my hair growth from Jan til now

Our day in NYC, including the shock on Rachel's face when she saw we were going to A Chorus Line for her birthday (front row seats too!)

Our entire Disney trip- the Princess and Pirate party pics, Rachel's birthday dinner pics with Cinderella and crew, our 4 parks in one day adventure, our pics documenting that Rachel and I actually rode the Tower of Terror for the first time. Same for the Dinosaur ride. I even got cast members to take pictures of the two of us together on my camera.

Then, there's Rachel's 10th bday party at the roller rink. I was the only one there with a camera. The pics of the cool cake (looked like a present). The group shot. The girls dancing in the center of the rink. The couples only skate with poor Joey, the only boy, the only one not coupled up (hey- they are only 9 and 10! LOL)


All gone. It breaks my heart. I know there are worse things in the world. Heck- I've had cancer and I know there are worse things than even that. Still makes me sad. Very sad.


It was out of my control. I went to burn a CD from my flash card (the day I made that last entry). Dh has the CD burner on his computer. It was going slow because it was actually stuck. When dh came home, he said he'd take care of it. He burned a CD. Sadly, I was printing pics that day for my sister in law and there was a CD from November in the drive. He copied that CD instead of my card. He said there was a thing that said "files waiting to be copied" already, so he just let those be copied. Never copied my card. Gave me the CD, which I assumed was my Jan-March pics. I went to get them printed today and was crushed.



The bad news is that after he gave me that CD, I re-formatted the card. It's my normal routine. Once I burn a CD or two off my card, I reformat the card. It's a huge 4 gig card. I can actually store over 1000 photos on it, but I don't like to have a backlog of more than 200-300. I'm always so *(&*( careful. I don't save my pics on a harddrive. I don't let them sit too long on the flash card (I have one that went bad). I'm just kicking myself for not checking that CD since it was burned by someone else. Then, we went to a christening on Sunday and I took more photos on the card. I suspect they are gone forever, but I will send it off to a friend (hi Sue) who's going to see if anything can be recovered. I suspect they are gone forever.


So, no Disney pics to share. No new hair pics. Nothing.



On the other hand, I did actually finish 6 layouts at the crop. I know that doesn't sound like a lot for 8-9 hours (it was a 10 hr crop), but it is for me. You have to include time for 3 meals, visiting, chatting, wandering, and even a little shopping in that time too. I was convinced by my tablemates to enter the page contest (I'd long given up on contests for various reasons) and I won second place! Got a very nice Making Memories album with matching papers and such.


So, no new photos, but you do get to see some layouts. :)

This first one is my grandmother on her 90th birthday. I have more photos to scrap from this and some journaling to hide somewhere. This party was the weekend after I had that fateful diagnostic mammogram. I was with my father's side of the extended family and didn't want to say a word because I didn't want to take anything away from the event. I eventually told my cousin Tracey.. hadn't seen her since I was about 8 or 9. Turns out she's a radiation tech. Asked her some questions, but never needed the answers since I had the mastectomies instead of surgery! Oh yes.. this is the award winning layout too. For my scrappy friends, it's all Basic Grey, a photo turn thingie from 7 Gypsies, and a doodling template I borrowed from Sony (Crafter's Workshop).

This second layout is from the following weekend. It's from my niece's naming ceremony. (More BG paper and rubons, the star and script are cut by hand). Now, this was actual day before my first surgery. Still didn't tell anyone. Only my sister, my brother in law, my husband and Rachel and I knew. Same reasons. I probably need to journal this day as well. We left their house and took Rachel to Patria's so she could take her to school in the morning. Boy, that was hard. We did it again the night before the big surgery in Sept too.

I think I'm just making myself sadder tonight reliving these moments. But it's all good. Except the lost photos. Not good.