worst day of my life...literally.

I have been so crazy busy lately. I went to Utah for my anniversary and to Colorado to visit my family, etc etc. I have been thinking of blogging and what I have been wanting to write. Well I sat down to blog my last post (about my anniversary) and then doom came upon me.

I was happily going to write about 3 more posts after that one. But I could not find the pictures that I wanted to use. Every time that I brought up the uploader, it was only bringing up a few random pictures. I kept thinking to myself, "oh gosh the stupid blogger uploader is at it again."

I go to open iPhoto in my dock. When it opens.. the same random pictures pop up.  I try to scroll through events. Nothing. I go to last import. Nothing. I go to my pictures file outside of iPhoto. Nothing.

I am sitting there and my whole body is tingling. I know that you are supposed to back up your computer. I had backed up my Gateway a million times. Not a Mac. Well yes.. but not very often...Why would I have to back that up??... was my naive thinking.

Now I am searching frantically, and starting to cry. Every photo. Every video. Everything. GONE.

I call Jordan, to tell him the preliminaries and then I really start crying. He soothes me and tells me that I will find it. This is silly... but not really... but I just start praying in my head. I can not just have lost every photo for the past 3 years.

I start searching the internet and figure the very best thing to do was call Apple support. I did. I was on the phone with 3 different representatives (crying hysterically) for 2 1/2 hours. They took me through the ups and downs of my computer. They connected to me via internet so they could see my screen. Each was very helpful, but each time, came up empty handed.

It was even supposed to cost me 50 bucks to talk to Apple because my applecare expired. They waived the fee because they ended up deciding there was a glitch in my iPhoto, a random, must be my bad day in the universe glitch.

The realization is starting to sink in. I don't care about losing photos from high school or even ones of Jordan and I. But Hallie. Sweet little Hallie. There are pictures of her that are my favorite burned into my memory. I want these back I must have them back!

The last apple rep told me about this software.... Data Recovery 3. It is 100 dollars and its not an apple product, but they recommend it.

I downloaded it immediately. Hallie's life of pictures is priceless. I have to have them back.

The software pulled up 50,000 jpegs of randomness. That is 27 GB. So I started the sorting. I have found pictures. Fortunately, If you or anyone you know has posted anything to facebook in your life ever, I probably have found it. Unfortunately, most of the ones of Hallie are gone. I have ones from Jordan and I before she was born, but pretty much nothing after the fact. I am still sorting. Only about 14,000 more to go.

So that is my post. The worst day of my life. Losing all of Hallie's pictures and videos. I have been neglecting scrapbooking for some reason, and now I am kicking myself. I was neglecting finishing my iMovie of the last year because of some random photos I didn't have yet, so that is gone too.

Jordan has been so good to have my try to look at the bigger picture. I have her newborns, and her 6 month and some random ones from my phone from the past 4 months. That helps when I'm at home sorting and about to cry. 

I now have a TB of a hard dive and I will be backing up my computer monthly.

So moral of the story. If you have pictures of your children back up your computer immediately. It is the worst feeling in the world to lose them all. It will probably be the worst day of your life.

Also, if any of you have pictures you have taken of Hallie, or if I have sent you any or anything, will you please e-mail them to me? I would like some pictures of my child's life. Thanks...