{this moment}

{this moment} - Joining Amanda in a Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Busy Fingers

Several days in a moving vehicle can yield quite a lot of knitting. Of course, not as much as this knitter's mind thought. In anticipation of our trip and extended stay, I packed a whole lot of yarn including my three WIPs. The squishy sweater and two pairs of socks resided in the front seat basket crowding my feet and making my husband question my sanity. He does not understand how I could possibly sit in such a cramped manner for hours. I tell him I must have something to occupy me while he drives. What if he decides not to stop and I don't have anything to do! It could happen.

The rest of the yarn and patterns were buried in the back of the car underneath too many clothes and other must haves. The other bag was there though, in case I needed it. I thought I would have at least one FO by the time the trip concluded. I forget that my hands get tired, my attention wanders, and I have a few passengers to entertain. Fortunately I did accomplish a few things. The sleeves for the sweater were started and finished. They have been happily joined with the sweater body and the decreases have begun. I remember how quickly the kiddos' sweaters went at this point, so I am hoping to have a sweater finished soon. The purple socks now have a heel and the confetti eggs have toes.

I even had a few moments while visiting my sister in law and her family for knitting. Our car repair saga continued, and it required a day in the service center. With kiddos who love the outdoors, it was easy to grab my knitting and watch as they bounced, explored and laughed a whole lot.

The reading this week has been confined to mostly audiobooks. I did grab a few moments here and there to read pages from A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Another futuristic dystopian novel. It is good though. Our audiobooks included an E.B. White marathon as well as a few others I had borrowed from the library. My kiddos enjoy audiobooks as much as I do, so it makes travel enjoyable.

Distractions

In the middle of the chaos of moving, I pulled out my sewing machine and attempted to finish the remaining two quilts for my brothers. With half-packed boxes and detritus strewn about my bedroom, I set to work. I ignored everything for a whole day to sew. Fortunately the kiddos were engaged in their own crafty pursuits. I was able to piece both remaining quilts. They came together fairly quickly once I started and had a plan.

Once pieced, I wanted to do a little free motion quilting on my oldest youngest brother's quilt. I put it aside to grab my manual and attachments only to realize they had been packed. Hmm...With a few more hours left in the day, I decided to quilt the other one. I searched youtube a bit for an idea of how to quilt dresden plate quilt blocks. With the knowledge gleaned from that resource, I set to work outlining each flower petal individually. It took a long time to do all nine flowers despite the small size of the quilt (approx 60" square). I loved the finished result. I sewed the binding on one side and set it aside to hand sewn it completely onto the quilt.

My nails were destroyed using chemical cleaners in the bathrooms. We use vinegar and baking soda exclusively but wanted something a bit tougher for move-out

The quilt sat for the rest of our stay in our home. I finally decided to finish it while we stayed at my parents' home. With a sick little boy curled beside me, I sewed on the binding. It went quickly. I folded the finished quilt and texted my brother and Dave to tell them that we could now leave. The quilt was done.

I am not sure what I would be able to accomplish if it weren't for stress and a huge list of to-do items. When faced with an overwhelming life, I need a bit of distraction. Fortunately this was such a welcome one. I almost don't want to give it away.

Comedy of Errors

The last six weeks have been chock full of craziness. When Dave found out about the opportunity for our family to travel, we quickly convened and jumped at the chance. The initial date for our departure and arrival in Washington D.C. kept shifting. Dave was finally able to nail it down after a week and a half of uncertainty. I set to work packing boxes. We rented a storage unit and began moving our things little by little. Eventually we had only beds, a chair or two and kitchen supplies.

Dave then received a letter in the mail one weekend in March telling him that he was included in the promotional process at his employer. The process would take place while we would be gone. Lots of talk about staying and not going, preparing for the interview process and general disbelief at the timing occupied most of that weekend. The following week found us very unsure as to whether we would even be going or not. I worried about living temporarily with my parents since we had to move out of our home. Dave worried about everything. Finally it was decided that our family would still travel, but that Dave would return for the testing process. It was a big relief.

The kiddos were great through it all. However they soon began to get sick with a stomach virus. We were homebound without many of our creature comforts for what seemed like an eternity. As each child improved another fell victim to the virus. Fortunately Dave and I escaped. 

As the date came closer, Dave moved more of our possessions out of the house last week. We planned our moves strategically and decided he would take the last Friday before our departure off work to clear out the garage and help clean up the house before we turned over the keys. Much to our dismay he became ill and ended up in the hospital most of the day. His visit to the hospital caused a lot of anxiety, since we didn't know what was wrong for a bit of time. Fortunately he was released with a diagnosis and was on the mend. With the help of my youngest brother and his nephew, we were able to empty the house on Saturday. Dave supervised since he couldn't help as much as usual. 

The whole family worked together on Sunday to clean bathrooms, refrigerator, stove and cabinets. As we packed up to return to my parents' home, Benton began to complain of a stomach ache. The extent of the ache was revealed when he vomited after being buckled into his carseat. It was a mess. we threw towels over him and drove to my parents' home. One of us cleaned up Benton while the other took all the carseats out of the car and began that cleanup process.

The next few days were spent lounging and recuperating. The car was serviced resulting in quite a few more repairs than we anticipated. It was even taken back as it appeared something was not done right. Finally we set off on our adventure last Thursday. Our trip has been full of recovering kiddos, too much highway food and a whole lot of audiobooks. We are recovering for a few days with Dave's sister. The break in the drive is nice and the kiddos are enjoying their cousin and a whole of tramping.

{this moment}

{this moment} - Joining Amanda in a Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Aine spotted this hummingbird nest at my parent's home. We spent quite a bit of time watching the hummingbird fly to and from the nest with bits and bobs of fluff

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along.

{this moment}

{this moment} - Joining Amanda in a Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Pictures of our Life

Most of you know I killed my laptop a few weeks ago with the shower nozzle(this should serve as a cautionary tale to all - do not watch netflix while scrubbing your shower even if your laptop is "far enough" away from the water). I was able to get it repaired after a bit. When I received the computer back, Dave and I made sure to back up the files. The biggest issue was the photos. Some had been sporadically backed up, but we wanted everything covered. So Dave copied everything to an external drive.

The computer seemed to be working well. I upgraded to Mac OS Lion and played with the new changes. I noticed that my computer now had a few quirks which had nothing to do with Lion. First the optical disk drive would not work. Secondly the fan never shut off, and when running sounded like my laptop could take off at any moment. It was loud. So back to the Apple store I went. The tech, or should I say Genius, took a look at my laptop and advised me that it needed to be sent for service again. The drive would be replaced and the fan issue addressed. It would be covered by the previous repair. I handed over the laptop and waited. Soon I received an email asking that I contact Apple Depot about my repair. I knew this could not be good. I was informed that engineering wanted to examine my computer. Could they send me a new one? After a bit of discussion I consented. All my data would be lost, but the machine would work. I felt comfortable since my photos were saved and that was my biggest concern.

When my new machine arrived, I feet to work reloading my photos. I imported the iPhoto library and waited. The process took forever. When it was done, I had almost 60,000 photos. I noticed I had many duplicates and some were just faces from the bigger pictures. All of my folders were gone. UGH! It was a mess. I couldn't even open iPhoto without my system becoming unresponsive. I imported my newest photos and tried updating my blog with photos from Benton's birthday and a quilt I have been making. It was so slow. I knew something was wrong.

Enter the interwebs. After a quick search, I realized I moved the library in the wrong manner. I now had a photo for every thumbnail, face, modification, etc.

So, I deleted the file from my Pictures folder. I moved the entire Library to the trash. Whoosh. gone.

I then connected our external drive to my laptop. I opened the picture folder on the drive and found my photo library backup. I dragged that iPhoto library into the pictures folder on my laptop to make a copy. Voila. My old iPhoto library was restored. I now had my photos, folders and groupings.

Except those few I had imported to the old library. The 20 or so photos from the week. The photos of the quilts I am finishing for my brothers. The photos of the kiddos at swimming lessons. The photos of Benton's 4th birthday. Huge, heavy sigh. I never delete the photos off my memory card. Just ask my husband. It drives him crazy. I have 1585 photos on the card, but not these photos. For some reason I selected "delete photos from camera" when I imported them. They are gone. I tried retrieving them with exif untrasher. No luck.

So in the future do not import the library when you change machines. Copy it into the pictures folder. Do not delete photos from your camera's memory card unless you are certain they are saved. And finally make good memories and live in the moment. The photos may not remain to remind you.