When I woke up this morning and went to check my email I found the computer screen black.  I rebooted, only nothing would happen. Our hard drive is TOAST.  My husband told me not to worry, we back up daily to an external hard drive, so I relaxed and looked at this as a minor bump in the road.  I went to the public library (hooray for libraries!) and emailed important people to let them know I would be computer-less for a while while we sorted everything out.

After shopping around we shelled out money we don’t have to buy a new computer. My husband checked out the external hard drive to recover the data and learns that for whatever reason the last back-up was JUNE 2.  You know, BEFORE the baby learned to sit, had her first swim, took her first bath in the sink, we took our trip to WY, before HOURS AND HOURS of client work.

WAIT!  my husband tells me, “I can take the old hard drive out, put it in a case and run it as an external and remove all of our documents”.  So, off he trots to Fry’s Electronics to purchase more computer equipment we don’t have the money for.

-insert children returning from school and eating dinner here-

I left to attend a fundraiser meeting for the kids’ school. On the way home I got stuck behind a car doing 15 in a 25 zone, and THEY flipped me off. When I get home, 2 kids are awake and one isn’t even in bed.  I’m upset, tired, frustrated and a myrid of other things and I yell at my husband.

When things calm down, he tells me that he ran a diagnostic on the hard drive and it FAILED, not failing, but FAILED.  He downloaded freeware to recover info on dead hard drives and nothing worked.  Which means, all those picture of the baby, all that client work…GONE, gone, gone.

I want to cry….and then I feel guilty. guilty for yelling at my husband, guilty for feeling so upset about computer issues.  I mean really, we’re all still alive and short of a minor cold the baby and Aaron have we are all healthy, my husband is employed, we have health insurance, a roof over our head- the list goes on.

The sun will come out tomorrow and it will be better, my pity party will be over.  But right now, I think I need to go apologize (how many is that tonight Jaylee?) to my husband and go to bed. I’ve had enough for one day.

p.s. did I mention that there are mosquitos all over, INSIDE my house?  icing on the cake people.

p.p.s., its friday morning, i just spent an hour reading preslee’s story.  who freakin’ cares about my stupid computer issues?  life is too short.  i may have lost pictures, but i still have 3 children to photograph well into the future. lost data is only a small bump in the road of life.  i’m going to try not to waste another min worrying about it.

As soon as the baby could sit up, I scheduled a “I-can-sit-now” photo shoot with Sarah for Monday the 30th.  Its been on the books for oh, at least 2 or 3 weeks now.  But, late sunday night i remembered I had a yard of Hop Dot that was collecting dust on the shelf.  About 11am Monday morning I decided to make the baby a new dress to wear for her photo shoot.

It turned out NOTHING like I was envisioning, it is WAY cuter with an unexpected vintage feel to it.  I didn’t really finish it in time, the bodice lining is not tacked down, but I knew she could still wear it for her photo session.  This week I’ll attach the lining and make a pair of bloomers out of the red fabric (just a random quilting fabric I found at JoAnn’s).

I didn’t have time to buy a zipper so I dug through my stash and found a dark pink one, but it was 3″ too short.  I sewed it in anyway and then added a vintage button to the top.  Again, turned out way cuter than I could have hoped!

The combination of Sarah’s mad photo skills matched with the baby’s adorable face- I knew no matter what she wore, the photos would be great!

Well, the kids got home from school before I could get everything listed…so there are more items to come.  First off though, my new fav., hand embroidered and appliqued reusable lunch/snack bags.

I recently made some of these for my son and he LOVES it, they are lined in vinyl which makes them super easy for cleaning!  This set is in the shop.

Also listed- printable birthday labels!  A few more designs to come this weekend (or after the kids are in bed!)

Also waiting to be listed- baby bibs, baby shirts, & vintage little boy patterns!

look; something from the “unfinished projects” pile!!  It’s a sneak peek….

I’ll be doing a small shop update tomorrow or Friday and this is part of it.

Yesterday, the kids noticed a rainbow while the monsoon rolled in.  No matter how many times I have seen a rainbow I can’t help but want to photograph it.

Happy Wednesday!

My laundry keeps piling up, my hours of sleep keep going down, the half finished projects keep piling up, and the weeds are taking over my front and back yard.  Why?  I keep getting distracted.  Take yesterday for example, while I could have been catching up on the above mentioned items I found myself here with Jaylee.

We took a trip to Scottsdale to check out the childrens clothes at H&M.  I found the above dress, now I need to find a fun grey cardigan to go over it so she can wear it this winter.

Currently the dishwasher is only half loaded because I got all distracted with photo editing and blogging…but what I really want it a nap. le sigh.  Hope my blog post didn’t distract you from something you should be doing

For dinner tonight- fresh blackberries over real whipped cream (my kids asked when I’m going to buy the fake stuff…then I launched into an under appreciated lecture about how one day they will be grateful their mother taught them to appreciate real food) over pancakes.  Thankfully the kids don’t like bacon.  Means more for Aaron & I.

Last Thursday my son’s bed broke…again.  My husband assured me he could repair it (again) with wood glue.  I said, “no, we’re going to Goodwill, I saw a great twin bed there last week”.  He protested, but we went anyway.

We did get my son a great 1960’s solid wood twin bed (that now we need a box spring for), that I may or may not paint in the future….While we were there we spotted this little chair.

We both liked it (nary a protest from my husband), for $18 we took it home.  I cleaned it up (although it didn’t need much cleaning at all).  Aaron wanted it in the dining room/office/family room because their aren’t any comfy chairs in there, but the dining room walls are yellow.

I decided a pillow with both yellow and blue was in order to tie everything together.  The white linen I thrifted a few years ago, the yellow and blue knit I picked up at SAS.  I keep seeing variations on the Union Jack in pillow, throws, stationary etc and really like it.  I didn’t realize until after I made it that this Union Jack pillow is in the colors of the swedish flag!  Ha Ha!

I think it ties in nicely- and we all like sitting in the chair.  Hooray for Goodwill!

Thank you to everyone who weighed in on the whole cooking thing.  Seems like a nice mix, a good number of you cook regularly and some of you support the take-out theory!  Some of you mentioned the crock pot-I agree, it makes life easier and should be used at least once a week!  I recently acquired a recipe for Crock Pot Lasagna- that I have since tweaked, if anyone is interested let me know.

In an attempt to simplify here is what we’ve got on the menu for this week:

• Potato Soup
• Waffles
• Leftovers (have to finish the above mentioned lasagna)
• chicken salad sandwiches (using Costco canned chicken)

Friday, I might be able to convince the husband to order from Anise; and feed the kids frozen fish sticks.  What are you eating this week? Any easy, tasty recipes you want to share?

sorry about the comments thing not working yesterday- thank you for the emails.  Please- share with me how often you cook, really I do want to know!  Is cooking 7 nights a week with 3 kids just crazy, or is everyone doing it?

Today was the first day of school, and the first day of Kindergarten for my oldest daughter.  She was so nervous and worried but did really well and didn’t cry until lunch.  When she saw the encouraging “I (heart) U” note I left in her lunch box she said she got sad, missed me and cried.  Poor girl, she asked me not to put more notes in her lunch they make her too sad.

I spent my nearly kid free day (babies are so easy- they almost don’t count), brunching with friends, catching up on laundry (all three baskets folded and put away- thank you very much!), and steam mopping the nasty accumulation of summer grime and wet pool feet off all of the tile in the house.  It was nice to have a clean quiet house for a few hours.

After the calm came the storm!  Three kids, two with homework (needing assistance) and dinner to cook, quickly, as my husband had church obligations tonight.  It got me thinking….how many of you really cook every night?  Do you order in a few nights a week, cook every night, have lots of cereal or sandwich nights?  I typically cook 7 nights a week and wonder if maybe I am doing too much….?