It was coming for a while, but it’s official- my external hard drive bit the dust yesterday. Fortunately, I was able to upload all of my 2008 and 2009 client pictures to the online backup service I am now using (smugmug) before the premature demise. Unfortunately, I lost all of my personal 2007 family photos. Maybe. I am giving my IT guy the drive tommorrow with the hopes he can rescue some of the family pix off of there. But, on the bright side 2007 was still during the time that I was printing everything so even though the pix were lost digitally, I still have everything printed. So that’s something.

Bought a brand new external hard drive yesterday and already backed up everything on my computer. But what a pain in the butt.

And to top off the fabulousness of losing a few thousand pictures, Timmy started with a 101.6­­° fever yesterday afternoon. We are off to the doctor this morning. No other symptoms, just a fever. But after the pneumonia debacle (where he had a fever, a tiny little cold with a barely there cough, but had pneumonia nonetheless and I didn’t know it) we can’t be too careful.

Fun times.

One bit of good news, though. The big boys just finished Math Olympiads for the year and came in 2nd (Patrick) and 3rd (Jack) places overall out of over 25 4th and 5th graders. They are so smart and thank god they are good at math, cause already this year I’m getting lost.

So the pictures are lost, but here is the found. Someone on the route to school was throwing away a bunch of old furniture,  so I garbage picked took a great old little chair (I have big plans for it, too as a photography prop) off of the curb. Well, Jack freaked out, telling me I was stealing and committing a “federal offense” and proceeded to grab the chair out of my hands to put it back on the curb! I went back and took it anyway.  Then we walked by our neighbors with the chair in the wagon and the little girl asked what the chair was for, with Jack responding (with his head hanging low) “my mom stole it”. I swear, that kid will throw you under the bus faster than you can say “garbage picking”. But her reply? “That’s okay, my mom stole a dresser.”

He hasn’t taken off the Buzz Lightyear costume in two days.

Timmy was invited to his friends birthday party which was a come dressed as your favorite princess or superhero. Since the boy will not even drink out of princess themed cups (and I’m not even kidding. It happened at school and he wouldn’t do it.) he went the superhero route with Buzz Lightyear. And wore it the whole rest of the day. And then all day today too.

Glad I’m getting my money’s worth out of 2007’s Halloween costume.

Hope everyone has a happy St. Patrick’s Day today.

As I mentioned yesterday, there’s going to be significant Timmy photo overload this week. As Spring arrives (please god. I’m finished with the cold and drearies.) and the bsquared calendar starts filling up again, there will be far less ‘personal’ pictures and many more session pictures.

Took this one just this morning. Went for a (much needed but only a drop in the weightloss bucket) walk and saw this first little tiny sign of spring coming.

Here’s Timmy’s newest ‘friend’ named (by him) Lumpy. We picked him up at Target two weeks ago. He’s fun.

Having an ipod is like making the best mix tape ever. Only without all the dj’s talking over the song and ruining your tape, or hearing background noise cause you are holding up your cassette player to the stereo. You will only get this if you are in your 30’s or older. I’m so glad I stole John’s ipod when he won it 2 Christmases ago. If you are unfamiliar with that story, he came home after winning it and asked me if it got Mets games on AM radio. After that, I quickly decided he should not have the ipod and that I should.

Depeche Mode is coming to the Garden in August. Robin, my concert going partner will be about a week away from having her first baby so I think she will probably be sitting that one out. Although, it would be a really good story to tell your kid that they were born at a Depeche Mode concert…  So, anyone want to go with me?? (this is Robin and I at The Cure this past summer. With the point n shoot, so ignore picture quality please.)

Started on a new bsquared project where I am uploading every. single. picture. I have ever taken (both personal and clients) to an online photohosting and storage site. I tried this in December with Mozy, but have had nothing but problems with them (although their customer service is fantastic, the programs were just not working).  So on another photographer’s reccomendation, I am using SmugMug and loving them. The process is slow going (the picture files are so freakin huge) but I’m feeling much better knowing that god forbid something happens with my computer or external hard drive, all my (and yours) pictures will be safe and retrievable. And I’m also using them for the client slide shows. The whole site is layed out so nicely and is very easy to use/navigate. Very happy so far. In the last 6 days since starting, I have uploaded almost 15,000 pictures. And that’s only bsquared 2008 shoots up to the “T” families/shoots. That does not include any of my personal pictures from 2006-2009, nor 2009  or 2007 clients. I think it’ll be a while longer till I’m done, huh? I can’t wait to see the final # of pictures. Staggering!

I hope my cousin Billy is making good headway on securing my 40th birthday present. Bill, you have 6 more months! And if you have picture dates in mind for you guys, call me.  Aaahhhhhh….Edward Norton.

I’m still loving the Kindle. Just finished Revolutionary Road, The Stand, The Reader and Run for Your Life (James Patterson).  Now halfway into An Almost Perfect Moment (so funny. I think you have to be Jewish to really get it) and The Piano Teacher next I think, with another 10 still unread, and a list of  23 more books that I want to get. Helps keep me busy. You know, since I’m not busy enough! If you recall, I pinked the crap out of it so no boys in this house would get any bright ideas.

Off to upload/backup more pictures and Brian and Eric (aka Ogy who is Brian’s brother) are coming over later today to work on some band stuff.  Eric is great enough to play with Timmy while B and I work, but the poor guy…last week Timmy febreezed Eric to within an inch of his life! Well, at least he was smelling fresh for the rest of the day. Or week.