The Crash, Again

My hard drive crashed last Sunday.  The last seven months of pictures, work, Amy's meticulously completed baby book.  It made me sadder than it should.  It seemed like everything that I had worked on for the past three months was gone.

Since then, nine days, I've been watching the recovery program rescue bits at an agonizingly slow pace.  Every day the number goes up but who knows if any of it will actually work.

It has obviously thrown my week off.  I've felt pretty listless about it all.  I'm starting to feel a bit better, especially since Heber was able to recover some of the pictures from the past few months from our camera SD card.  I'm trying to hold onto some hope that we'll recover the baby book but trying to not have too high of expectations.

In an effort to cheer myself up, I went into my favorite site, the Botanical Gardens in DC.  When I'm feeling blue, I take myself to someplace I really like.  The Gardens are so peaceful, even with two wild kids and tourists, it still calms my soul.  We wandered around the plants and checked out the children's garden.

 

 

I had a few minutes left on my meter by the time we were done in the garden so we headed over to the Native American Museum, which honestly has never been one of my favorites.  There was a special Inca exhibit on the third floor so we wandered up that way because I have a soft spot for Inca culture.  It turns out there was a great children's interactive section.

To have two major bad things happen this month, I started to think we were have a streak of bad luck.  Whenever I feel this way, the universe has a way of making my problems feel completely insignificant (you know, after I've had a good long time to be frustrated and mad about them).

The conclusion that I've reached is that everyone is struggling.  Every single person I know (who is speaking honestly about what is really happening, not just the surface conversation), every single one is having a hard time.  They are all struggling through a challenge, and are utterly overwhelmed by life.  We are all struggling through it (and I'm not just talking about those of us in the toddler phase of parenthood).

I guess the only thing left here is to keep trying.  To hope, beyond hope, that the data will be recovered.  To find solace in the tender mercies of God in our life.  When I found those pictures on my SD card that I so carefully erase and organize on my hard drive every month and yet there they were, I knew that God was answering my prayer to have some pictures from this past year.  It was all the photos that I was the most heartbroken to lose, there they turned up.  If that isn't a testament that God is aware of us and wants to help us, I don't know what is.

The numbers will keep ticking up and I'll keep hoping.