I live among rock stars!

A look back at the last 15 days...

On Thursday, February 13th, I awoke and started preparing for my work day in unbelievable pain. I winced with every step.  My boys followed me around the house asking what I was doing.  I told them I was getting ready for work, and they were shaking their heads..."um, no, Mom, this is why you have sick days.  There is no way you can go to work like this."  Of course they were right.  I secured a sub and returned to bed.

I couldn't get in to see my doctor until the following Tuesday -six days later.  I was immobile, and nothing touched the pain, so even a trip to an Immediate Care Facility was out of the question.  Finally on Sunday I saw a doctor online and got some medication for what we determined was sciatic pain.  I also reached out to my neighbors for prayer.  One of my neighbors, whom I just met, called me and offered to come walk me through some stretches - she's a physical therapist.  If not for her, I would likely still be bedridden. She insisted I see a PT, and I did.  I am now four appointments in with three more scheduled.  I returned to work one week after the pain started.  My gains are very slow.  I still have a long way to go.  I still cannot shop, do laundry, or do basic household tasks, and getting ready for work in the morning is still very slow and challenging, but this post is about my people who...

• delivered every meal to my bed for the first week  - Wyatt is still bringing me breakfast and coffee in bed because the mornings are so difficult
• packed my lunches for work and helped me lay out every single item I would need to make the mornings easier
• drove me to PT (Zach) and missed class to do so because I could not get myself there and could barely walk in the door
• managed the laundry - not to my standards, but I had to give up my standards for the moment, and the clothes got clean
• came home from school to keep me company (Savannah)

That was the family.

Outside of the family, my friends

• sent a care package (thanks Sue)
• made sure Julia got home from school (thanks Nicki)
• prayed (thanks LWYA family, Moms in Prayer, and Bible study friends)
• checked in daily via texts
• offered to bring meals (we declined because Andy loves cooking, and we are a household of adults and almost adults so...)
• insisted I see a PT and even took care of the leg work to find a place, made sure I wouldn't need a referral (so grateful for this persistence) (thanks Linda)

I am doing everything my PT says to do.  I am determined and anxious to return to normal with normal including my Jazzercise routine.  It's been a really discouraging time for me, and I can't say I've been patient but finally seeing improvement helps.

That which was lost has been found!

I work almost daily on my project of archiving files to my Forever account.  You may remember that I mentioned a few posts back that I was afraid we may have lost all original and back up files from Wyatt's adoption journey.  I had to empty and clean out a drawer, and buried in the bottom of it was a flash drive containing those files.  Yay!

I have, however, realized that we have lost some things that I really wish we hadn't. I have not ruled out getting pros to try and retrieve our files, but that is down the road.  In the meantime I have retrieved lots of pictures, and they are so much easier to organize and retrieve using the Forever account.  

Yes, these photos and the other hundreds from this trip are backed up in the Forever account and on an external disc drive.  

Forbidden City

Rickshaw ride in Beijing

Olympic Countdown

Mapping his heritage

Victory sign

This picture is legendary.  I stayed in the room to gather our laundry for the laundry service.  We were overdue.  Wyatt fell into a waist deep pond and didn't realize he could stand resulting in a panic that left Andy no choice but to go in after him.  Andy had no spare shoes, and yes they returned to the room after the laundry was picked up.

first plane ride

last look at China

a new American citizen

One of the first things we learned about Wyatt is that he loved "Cola"

Ultraman moves - He was all about them.

When we journeyed to Julia, the adoption websites were not so polished.  I built a journal using a web account through our Internet provider.  Along with the pictures from our journey to Wyatt, I found that I had backed up that site for Julia on the same flash drive.  I had it printed out, but it is much nicer to have an electronic version, and yes, I can convert it to a PDF for the Forever account too.  So many memories and so much heritage to be stored in one place, accessible from anywhere.  It offers fire and water insurance for peace of mind.  My brother asked how they can guarantee that these memories will be stored with them 100 years beyond my death.  My response: they do, but even if they go belly up, backing up on hard drive is easy to do from that account, so with some warning I can still save the files.  

I only wish I could figure out how to back the blog up to an external disc drive and/or the Forever account.

Just an example of how it looks to organize everything in albums

Winter Dance 2020- The Reveal

If you've read my last two posts, then you know the backstory for the dress.  If not, go ahead and take a peek, I'll wait right here.

Julia's much anticipated dance took place last night.  It was a balmy 35 degrees when the group met for outdoor pictures.  Julia was not a bit phased by that, but some of the girls didn't get in all the pictures as they warmed up in cars. One of the girls had been diagnosed with strep that morning, so a mom ended up waiting in the car after giving up her boots to keep her sick girl warm :) I too would have allowed my child to attend the dance with strep if she felt up to it especially given that the second dose of the antibiotic was taken at dinner before the dance.  I just would have warned her to be cautious not to let anyone drink after her.  After all, I graduated from high school with strep.

One of the moms hired a photographer. I will note which of the pictures were hers. Emma Lanter Photography

She handled that boutonniere like a champ!

Friends since preschool - in fact, L's mom was Zach's 2nd grade teacher, and L was born the year Zach was in her class. Her mom, J's (Julia's date) mom, and I caught up over dinner while the kids ate.

Emma Lanter Photography

best buds

Apparently, they have the moves...lots of fun dancing together.  When I inquired as to why Julia did not get pictures with some of her friends that attended with different groups the response was, "we don't have time for pictures...too busy dancing."  Sometimes you think this social media generation will be just fine :)

From Cheer friends to Soccer friends.  Love, love, love L and her family!!

These three became friends as cheerleading teammates.  All have moved on to other sports.  

Zach showed up to see Julia off to the dance.  

Dance Theme: A Night in Hollywood

Side note: I was home editing the pictures while Julia attended the dance.  By the time she got to the after-party, I had them uploaded in Forever (see my previous post), and because she has the app on her phone, she could easily see them.  Zach and Julia are my two kids who love pictures as much as I do and are anxious to see them, so that worked out great.  I was also able to share the album link with my sister who did Julia's hair so that she could see them all too.

2nd side note: Julia is very pleased with the pictures I got.  However, we turned down the option to have a picture of her with the family taken from the pro, and neither of us is happy with the one we got with my camera.  I switched lenses to be able to get the group shots, and that second lens is definitely not acting right.  It's past time for me to get a lens that combines the range of my two go-to lenses.  If only they weren't so pricey. Sigh.

Forever Photos

Maybe it was the perfect storm:

I spent weeks upon weeks sorting and organizing and mailing family photos.

Then the family computer crashed, and the only thing we could not save were the photos.

Finally, Google hounded me about my diminishing storage space alerting me to the fact that I may soon be unable to send or receive email. After deleting and deleting and deleting and still getting nowhere to empty out my bulging storage shed on Google, I realized that my phone photos are automatically backing up to Google - grr.  I am now faced with purchasing more storage or deleting and deleting and deleting some more.

So we celebrated our local Jazzercise anniversary and along with the fun classes, we met local business owners. I was intrigued by the ambassador from Forever, a photo storage business.

At the time I had just purchased another TB hard drive and was finding pictures saved in multiple places and still missing pictures.  I had memory cards stored in several places, some corrupted and unreadable, and my flash drives were in the same condition.

Forever is hosting a sale through January 31st offering 20% off of everything. It is a cloud based storage site, but unlike Google, if I purchase space on the cloud, I don't have to keep paying for it. Also, unlike Google I still own my photos, and they are stored at the resolution for which I uploaded them.  What did I have to lose? It's on sale.  I have options, so I gave it a try.  I was hooked immediately.  It checks all these boxes:

• Easy upload
• Easy organization (using tags I can identify people) - This would have been priceless for so many school projects, and though I hate to say it -for funeral planning as well.  Tagging photos is as easy as checking the box for all the photos you want to tag and typing in the tag once.  You can easily see what you are tagging because the "thumbnails" are not tiny little images.  I am tagging photos with the names of people, the year, locations and even the ages of the kids. I can see all my tags in a grid, choose one and see all the photos with that tag at once.
• easy options for adding descriptions/thoughts/memories for photos - often lost in the digital world

An example of adding a descriptor - Julia and I are singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" in this photo.  I remembered that when I pulled up the photo but realized that I am probably the only one who would know this, so I added it to the description on the photo.

• no rental, and I can continue to add storage
• full resolution
• on photo matches you can see both photos to see if it is an exact duplicate so you don't tie up space by saving a photo twice
• a membership option where I can basically put future purchases on layaway, get 5% off, and get bonus storage every three months
• the option to purchase prints right from the site
• the option to send in photos, videos or even audio to be digitized in a format that allows them to be stored
• promises to update to the next form of technology
• easy option to share photos with family that also gives them easy download options
• Friends and family can join for free, and you can share your albums with them.  One thing I love is that if you have friends and family on the site and are connected with them, you can share photos.  For example if we vacationed with extended family, and we all uploaded our vacation photos, I could then pull photos I like from other accounts, and family members could pull photos they like from my account. Obviously, I would love for my family to join, but I can't force that.  For now it is still easy enough for me to share what I have.

Cons: The only con I see right now is that while it is easy to download the images in my Forever account to my computer or phone, I would love to have the additional option to send them directly to an SD card, flash drive, or external hard drive without the additional step of moving them out of the download option.  Certainly not a deal breaker, and it's possible that there is an easier way that I am missing at this novice stage.

Intrigued?  Check it out: https://www.forever.com/ambassador/dianeogle

My plan of attack:

Start right where I am.  I plan to start uploading my camera photos for this year only - being very discerning about what I truly want to keep and don't want my kids to have to cull through some day.  

For the archival piece of it, I bought the back up files for my family from the photographer who photographed the kids for years when he went out of business.  I plan to work on digitizing the negatives this year along with loading the digital images.

Each year I plan to buy additional storage and work through a specific archival plan for the year.

Future possibilities

This is my jam.  I may consider becoming an ambassador for this company when I retire.  That is absolutely not an option for now.

I think this would also make for a good wedding gift someday for my kids or even a new parent gift.

Ultimately, this will likely replace the blog as the blog has mostly been the family scrapbook, and I have long considered making it private but typically get pushback when I try that.  

Update: I would say that finding this was quite timely for me, but I am kicking myself for trying to be so discerning with my photos on the old computer.  As I work through backing things up in Forever, I am realizing the breadth of the loss.  I can't find the clean scans of photos of my parents over the years.  I appear to have lost the pics of Zach playing high school football that I purchased from the photographer.  I am holding out hope that the football photos will surface - possibly backed up on a flash drive in my safe deposit box - really hoping our pictures from our 2008 China trip are there too.  The SD card from the China trip is corrupted, and those photos were mysteriously and suddenly corrupted in my Snapfish account. In hindsight with a TB of storage on an external hard drive, I wish I had just created a folder and backed up my entire iPhoto album even though it contained so much that needed to be deleted.  That was exactly my plan the day the computer crashed.  We may still take it somewhere to see if those files can be restored, but I hate to imagine what that would cost.

I would add that one thing I really love is the organization and descriptors.  I worked on a senior year album for Savannah this week, and as I remembered things I added them to the descriptions which allows her children to someday understand the significance of the photo.  Even she didn't remember that we stopped by the hospital to visit my dad so that he could see her all dressed up for a Derby party.  Sharing that for posterity helps future generations to see the key role my parents had in the lives of their grandkids that a senior in high school would make the effort to dress up early and see her grandpa, not to mention that I get to include their nicknames in the descriptions too.

Lastly, one other thing I am doing this year is just making note of the sales on my calendar.  Who doesn't want a good deal?  I noted that at the end of January, you could stack coupons and get 20% off then an additional 20% off of that on storage.  Thus far in February, sales have been announced for 50% off the bigger storage packages as well as 50% off all payment plan storage packages.  Noting these helps me plan for the best sales going forward because I know that I will be adding additional storage down the road. Since many companies tend to repeat their sales, this helps me plan for getting the best bang for my buck going forward.

A Dress Story - She said yes to 3 Dresses!

A Tale of Five Dresses
The Challenge: Find a dress for the formal winter dance that will meet Mom's standards, school's standards and a teenager's fashion standards.  Oh yeah, and while it's a whole other story - do this in two weeks.  While you are at it, secure all accessories, make up, nail appointments, and get the proper alterations in said two weeks too.

Not hard at all.

To be fair Julia started shopping earlier this year.  She went with friends but didn't really like anything.  Of course she didn't follow my rule of trying on even the dresses you don't like because you never know.  We did find a dress that many people agreed was the dress - except Julia.  I get it.  She later pointed out that four people wore that very dress last year, and she wanted something different.

One of our biggest challenges is the plunging neckline.  Halter styles are popular right now, and many of them have plunging necklines.  Julia cannot visualize having fabric sewn in to fix that, so that eliminates many of them.

After hours at the malls, we resorted to online searching.  Julia found a dress she loves (we will call this dress 1), but we could not get it on time.  We finally agreed that we would find something else, and that to avoid this situation next year, I would order dress 1 after I have recovered financially from this dance :) Julia found a navy dress (dress 2) that I thought was really plain, even for her, and wanted to order it.  Because we wouldn't have the dress in our hands until a week before the dance, I convinced her to order a second dress (dress 3) in case that one was an epic fail.  Andy, Savannah, and I had all liked another navy dress better, so we ordered that one (dress 3) too.  Dress 3 arrived first, and we knew immediately that it was a no-go.  The neckline would need an alteration. Julia was so uncomfortable with the neckline that she never even let Andy see her in the dress. Savannah's roommates nailed the best description of the dress - pretty but matronly and even has a Morticia Adams vibe- OUCH!  Dress 3 could only be returned for store credit or exchanged, so we revisited the site looking at new arrivals and found not one, not two, but three contenders.  After much, much wrestling and sending pictures to friends and family members for a vote, Julia chose two (dress 4 and dress 5) of the three dresses.  We placed the order and returned the Adams family dress. 

The two replacement dresses arrived before the original navy one did.  Julia really liked them both.  In fact, she then wrestled with which one to wear to the dance.  We weighed the fact that dress 5 would need the neckline sewn up because it was too low and would need a slit sewn together.  It had two slits, and she found that to be "slutty" looking.  I just found it odd.  The slit that would remain would need to be lowered, and the tulle skirt and liner would need to be hemmed. Dress 4  only needed a hem and possibly a little bit of work on the neckline.  However, the breadth of the needed alterations did not make the decision.  Even though the theme is not really of concern for Julia,  dress 5  fit the dance theme, A Night in Hollywood, better, so Andy cast the deciding vote on that.

I spent almost the rest of the entire day working on that dress. I sewed up a slit, didn't like the heavy thread with the fabric, ripped it out, resewed, was unhappy with it and ripped it out again.  I then sewed up the wrong slit and was happy with the result until I realized my mistake and had to rip it out and start again on the correct one.  GRR!  I sewed up the neckline, found a spot that looked off after that alteration and corrected it and then we took it the seamstress for the hem.  Julia is slightly disappointed that it has to be hemmed.  It falls several inches onto the floor, so it has to be done, but the dress will lose a pretty scalloped design as a result of the new hem.  Julia pointed out that she realizes they have to make the dresses for the tall girls, but she just wished that design had been higher.  I pointed out that no, they don't have to make the dresses for the taller girls.  They can make dresses for girls of average height and girls who are taller and expand the sizing options to average and tall options.  

I will state again how frustrating it is that a dress needs so much work to make everyone happy.  There's really no reason for it in 2020, but I digress.

So what of the other dresses?  We kept them both.  She's a sophomore, and there will be two formal dances each of the next two years.  She likes all of them, and not one of them cost as much as my senior prom dress did some ahem decades ago.  All combined, they cost only about $25-$30 more than it cost to rent a tux for Zach for his senior prom.  Yes, there are other expenses -namely nails and accessories.  She already has shoes she can wear with all three options, and yes, we will still order the dress she loved once I recover from this dance.

Just a side note, dress 2 is prettier than I expected.  She's not a fan of navy because the guys typically wear black suits, so she thinks that's a tacky color combination.  That dress can only be returned for store credit, and we are not likely to shop with that company again, so we will keep it, and she may very well wear it. A bonus is that it needs little alteration and could probably work as a back up in the event of a last minute fail on another dress. If she doesn't wear it, she may have a friend who does.  I like that next year the girls may have enough dresses between them to shop in each others' closets, and they may have jobs to pay for their own dresses :)

So to recap:
dress 1 - a possible (likely) purchase once everything settles down

dress 2  -a keeper, back up, may or may not be worn, but the return isn't worth it

dress 3-the matronly/Adams family dress - returned in exchange for dresses 4 and/or 5

dress 4- hard one about which to make a decision, will likely be worn for another event, so a keeper (side note - this one sold out the day after we bought it)

dress 5 -the dress for this dance

You might have guessed that the highlight colors are small clues to the dress colors, but definitely not exact.


Stay tuned for "The Reveal"

hmm - pondering fashion and plunging necklines

I recently listened to Hugo Jacemet on the radio.  He has written books on men's fashion including a book just on men's shoes. So when I flipped on the radio in my car and hear him introduced on a fun program I enjoy on my ride home, I thought it would be a completely frivolous conversation.  I may have rolled my eyes over this 1st world fashion expert while thoughts of conflict in Iran and Australia on fire fluttered through my head, but I decided to listen anyway - maybe it would be a good distraction.

At some point in the conversation Mr. Jacemet said something to this effect:

A man in a tailored suit is not looking to pick a fight.

A man in a tailored suit is not looking to pick a fight.  Hmm.  So our dress does matter.  Mr. Jacemet does not advocate that men should always be in tailored suits, but he does bemoan the casual look that has completely overtaken everything.

I recently witnessed a situation that went like this.  A class is just beginning instruction when a student tries to slip a muffin out of her bag - a no-no at the computers.  The teacher corrects her, and another student stands up and states, "This is why I can't be in here!" She then proceeds to march out of the room causing one teacher to chase her down while the other continues the lesson.  What does this have to do with our fashion conscious friend?  The student who marched out of the room was wearing pajama pants- basically, simple plaid pull on pants.  Did she arrive at school that morning to work?  I am going with Mr. Jacemet and will say no she did not.

The dress code is a constant battle. This is a school that faced an all out attack from parents over it, and teachers who don't enforce it make the job harder for everyone else.  In the end the dress code was loosened, and I think a message is being sent that maybe we aren't at school to work.  The teachers are.  The teachers have a dress code.  The men all wear ties, and the women are to dress according to a standard that is level with men in ties.  Not all schools.have this.  One of teachers has expressed embarrassment over attending an after school meeting among peers dressed as she would to clean her house.  It makes for some interesting thoughts especially when some schools are putting young men in jackets and ties to motivate them.

So, would a girl dressed up for school pick a fight?  Would a boy?  Would there be something in their brains that says their appearance is important and they have a job to do?

It reminds me of a social media conversation I once had with a friend.  He questioned why the public schools pay more per student than he paid for his children to attend a small, private school?  He stated that he was no homework nazi, but his school outperformed public schools on a smaller budget.  I shared my thoughts including:

• his children's teachers weren't making a living wage
• the school could turn away students who would not be successful
• they did not provide transportation or special education for those who need it

But don't miss this.  I also pointed out that he did not have to be a "homework nazi" to impress upon his kids that school was important and reminded him that:

• They were fed.
• probably expected to be in bed at a reasonable time
• expected to be at school on time and attend unless they were sick
• dressed in clean, appropriate clothing for school

These things all say, this is important.

I see the point of comfortable clothes.  I hear the argument of varying budgets.  I think that we all want to be mindful of each other and expect our students to work at school. What if this simple thing of dressing modestly, maybe even dressed up a bit would make a difference?  It won't fix everything, but it could be a start.

Now about those necklines - I am once again looking for a formal dress for Julia's upcoming dance.  Plunging necklines seem to be the style.  She doesn't care for them, and many of them are not truly plunging- they have flesh-colored fabric or mesh in that gap.  I think it looks weird in pictures and detracts from the effort exerted to do the hair and makeup, so I say no to the plunging neckline.  You would think that in 2020, it wouldn't be so hard to find a pretty dress with an appropriate neckline that doesn't look matronly.  GRR

Starting a new year

Starting a New Year

So here we are at the start of a new year.

Looking back on the past 10 years...
Two of my kids survived their teen years and all that comes with them; first jobs, high school graduation, first dates, learning to drive, etc.  Maybe Andy and I are the survivors on this one.
They've wrestled through shaken faith and come out strong.

All the kids went from little to not so little, and their interests changed over time.  Kids will surprise you in their pursuits, but looking back you can sometimes see that the trajectory was always there.

Our friends become mothers-in-laws and fathers-in-laws, and they became grandparents.  We saw marriages end and friends face widowhood.  We celebrated our friends as they hit big decade birthdays.

Our silver anniversary came and went.

We enjoyed some great vacations. Saw NYC for the first and thus far only time. Rested and refreshed on beautiful beaches. Tubed on the Little Pigeon River. Hiked a few trails.

During the course of the last ten years, we lost. Both my parents are now secure beyond the veil. My grandma by the lake and a brother in law too.  Other ties have been severed.  New ones have been formed.

I got myself addicted to "This is Us." lol
IKEA may have won a bit of my heart in the last ten years too.


The years piled up quickly, and I found myself sitting in an office this summer looking over the numbers for my projected retirement. Just a couple of months before the year ended, I started the final required year of employment for full retirement - not that I plan to retire in a year.

Andy went from days to nights to days and worked with a few departments and ended the year in a new position.

We both gained pounds, wrinkles and gray hairs.

My van made it through all the years though it looks pretty beat up.  Our roof was replaced, and the rest of the house, well it's tired and worn.  Some places just need paint.  Others need to be stripped bare to the bones and then restored with new flooring and/or drywall.  Pipes still leak.

We filled our house with family to ring in the new year.  I hope everyone had fun.  Andy and I pondered the night when it was all said and done and didn't feel confident that it was a good party, but we got a kick out of the nieces and nephews. Ira and Regan were here sans parents.  They may have had too much sugar to celebrate. I don't think I took a single picture.

Since starting the new year, I've lost. The sapphire from the ring Andy gave me probably 15 years ago that I've worn daily since. 10,000 pictures or so that were stored on our old computer. It gave up the day I tried to back them up to an external hard drive.  It wasn't the backing up that killed the computer.  I never even got the hard drive plugged in.  I simply opened the picture file, and it died.  I can't even let myself consider what images may not be backed up elsewhere because of failed memory cards and flash drives.

Even still, I started the year hopeful.  Two of my kids are on track to receive bachelor's degrees in a few months.  I am trying the Everyday app to work on building good habits one day at a time.  Once again I have started the year making a thankful list day by day.  So bring on the Roaring Twenties - may they roar with blessings, hope, joy, and laughter- lots of laughter.