Recovering The Past

Despite waking up to the kids fighting this morning, today has been a wonderful day--peaceful (after the morning squabbles were over), relaxing and enjoyable. Brian and I were--for the most part--able to watch both sessions of conference without interruption! I'm not even kidding. I know there are lots of amazing mothers out there who find creative ways to have their kids pay attention to conference, too, but I'm not there yet. I just feel grateful for having gotten to watch it myself. I did, however, take a few seconds to tell my kids why Conference is so important to me. Oh, and I'm just remembering that the kids did get a little of Conference because Camp recognized a reference to the stripling warriors and commented that he likes all the stories of the Book of Mormon. Anyway....

I was in such a good mood afterward that I even let the kids build toilet paper fortifications and have a marshmallow fight even though I just cleaned the carpets this week. Brian voiced his disbelief at my leniency. I told him its important to live a little. Ha Ha. It's amazing (and pathetic) how often the subject of my carpet finds its way into my blogs and conversation. It really is important to me to have clean carpets. It takes a great deal of effort, and causes a significant amount of stress, but it just makes such a difference to have clean carpet. And I'm trying to sell my house, remember, so the carpet has got to look good. As a kid, my grandma Hatch always kept her carpets remarkably clean despite the millions of kids traipsing in and out all the time. It makes me happy to know that she would be impressed to see my carpets now. I know having clean carpet is really, really low on the importance scale, but it gives me a little thrill none the less. Anyway....

Oh, my heavens! You know what I did this week? I successfully transferred over 6400 picture and video files from old hard drives onto our current computer! I had been feeling really sad lately because I've realized that it is already so hard for me to remember specifics of when Camp and Jane were little, and all the records I had to jog my memory were contained on two old hard drives tucked away in the bottom of my file cabinet. I had at least removed and saved them before we tossed our two former computers, but I had no idea how--and if really--I would ever be able to have access to those files again. I'd put off calling a computer guy forever, mainly because of what I feared it might cost, but my need to reminisce finally compelled me to take action. And I didn't end up calling a computer guy at all. Instead, I turned to the source of all worldly truth and knowledge--Google. I did a search for "how do I transfer pictures from old hard drives to my new computer" and a few minutes later, I was on the phone ordering two hard drive cases for a total of just around 25 bucks. When the cases came, I did another Google search for how to install the hard drives into the cases and connect them to my laptop, and before long, I was sorting through thousands of pictures and videos of my babies with a big smile on my face. Oh, and I was especially excited to watch one of the videos--for two reasons. First, it seriously made me giddy to be reminded of how darling Janey Mac was as a little girl, and secondly, I was singing in the back ground and I sounded on tune! You never really know what you sound like when you're singing--you know what I mean? We had friends growing up who were convinced they sang really well, but to our whole family, they sounded somewhat awful. I realize it sounds horrible to say that, but really it was about self-reflection. We had always thought that we sang on-tune enough, but how were we to ever really know? It takes a really close friend to tell you your singing stinks, and we'd never had that kind of friend. Wait a minute! I wonder if my mom ever asked Pam Alger if our singing stunk or not. She would have given us the truth, for sure. Anyway...it seems reasonable that it might be easier to be objective about one's own singing when he/she listens to it as a third person, if you will. I've often wondered at the people auditioning for American Idol with clearly no singing talent. Do they really think they sound good? For sure the delusion will be over once they actually see and hear themselves performing on TV, I've thought. Do you think it is possible that they might hear themselves and still believe they sound amazing? Hmmmm.....It would sure be horrible to find out that not only do I not sing in tune, but I can't even identify when someone else is singing in tune.. Oh, well. I'm choosing to believe that in that video, if not at any other time, I was singing on tune. And that's cool--cool because I love that song. It's the song that I cried and cried to as I drove down the dark highway to meet up with Brian when we were really struggling in our first year of marriage, and it's the song I cried and cried again to when I sat in the Doctor's waiting room after my second D&C. It just means something to me. Something totally unrelated to the lyrics of the song.

Back to the point. The point is--I've finally recovered the past. I'm pretty much a computer wizard by now, and one happy lady, too. I amaze myself. By the way, Google will totally be on my list of my 32 favorite things this year.