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.

The Accident

Heber was in a car accident this week.  He (thankfully) is fine as is the other driver but the truck is totaled. It's been a bit stressful as we've tried to deal with the aftermath and buying a new car. 

 

I've spent the past couple of days thinking how lucky we are.  How can I think that?  Well, there were so many things that could have gone a lot worse.  Heber is ok (I don't know what I would have done if he had been injured), the other people are relatively uninjured.  After hitting the car ahead, his car swerved into another lane and there happened to be no traffic in that lane at the time.  You see, it could have been so much worse.  I just really feel like Heavenly Father was watching out for us in the whole situation.

As I was getting online to reserve a rental car, I saw that the last time I'd rented a car was a year ago this week.  That is just a week past our move to Virginia and we were still in the crazy hotel phase.  Somehow, this how experience with the accident made this last year come full circle.  I remember renting that car, at that point, I had never rented a car myself before and I had to learn how to do it.  When the call came that Heber had been in an accident, I knew that I needed to address the immediate needs and just got it done.  This is something I wouldn't have known what to do a year ago and here we are with all these lessons learned.
 
So, it's the end of an era as we say goodbye to the old truck.  I'm not particularly sentimental when it comes to the truck but it's been a part of our lives for a long time.  It's funny, the night before it happened, I took a bunch of pictures of the kids in the truck playing.  It's like it was meant to be.

 

We spent Saturday buying a new (to us) car.  It's a Subaru Outback and we are excited.  I can only hope it runs as well and as long as the last.