To Logan

Not trying to be a debbie downer here today but I think about some somber things, probably more than I should, but that is me. Anyway, I often think about how I would go on living if something ever happened to Logan. I know I would, as many many many people have done, but it just kills me inside to think about it. But sometimes what actually makes me feel even worse (but to be honest, both of these thougths often wake me up at night and keep me up) is what if something happened to me.

I do not worry about Logan not having a great life, he has a daddy that loves him, an abeula that loves him more than all her 4 children, and auntie lisa & uncle shawn that treat him as if he was their own child, and many many many many more family members that would love him forever and give him the life he so deserves. But I think, what if something happened to me when he was this little, how would he ever knew how much I loved him and how much joy he brought to my life. I know he would hear stories and see pictures and read notes on my blog and facebook if he wanted to get an idea, but its not everything. For months (or perhaps 20 months) I have thought about writing a letter to him incase anything did happen. He could read it and know what I really felt and how much he meant to me, but just the idea of writing it brings me to tears and I dont know if I could ever get anything down. A friend of mine said to make a video that way he could see and hear me (and that it might be easier), but all he would see is me crying like a baby :) I do want to write the letter but I just dont know if I will be able to. I guess it doesnt need to be something incredible and beautifully written, it just needs to be my feelings, but it still is a little overwhelming to me.

But one day on my way home from work I heard a song on my iPod that I thought was beautiful and it brought me to tears (I have become a wuss, I know). I actually mentioned it on facebook and few other moms said they also cried and had to stop. But I also hear some songs that are happy and also really encompass my joy and make me think of logan. There are also some songs that I remember hearing and dancing and singing to with Logan. I like music, and want him to like music, and I feel like music is a big part of my day. So I thought until I have the courage (or the words) to write that letter I could document the songs that make me think of him and moments we spent together. I know there are more, but I am going to just start with the 2 that always make me think of him and show my love.

"In My Arms" by Plumb
"Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti & Spearhead

One song is the sad one that made me cry in the car.

The other is a song that was playing on my iPod when Logan was just learning to laugh. I was doing the dishes and he was in his bouncy seat watching me and when I would sing and come close to him he would smile, laugh and kick his feet. It was great!

Photo Project

I am a fairly organized kind of gal. I like bins to put things in, and excel spreadsheets to track what I need to buy, and shopping lists made in order of the grocery store departments, and thousands of file folders on computers to make it super easy when I need to find something. Not only do I enjoy putting things in the correct place, it also helps when you are short on time cause you can find what you need quickly. But to be very honest, I love organizing things, I am a nerd/dork, and have never tried to hide that fact.

Backtrack to June 2010 (aka when Logan changed my life forever). I was taking tons of pictures of the cutest little guy in the universe with my little canon camera in a pretty blue case. I would take some pictures, then download them into the "Logan" folder on my desktop, and then post them to facebook (in the Logan folder) and also into shutterfly on the Logan shared site. Sometimes I would post them on the blog, but I know I cant fool you all, so Im not going to say that was always part of the process. I would then back the photos up on our portable hard drive and delete them from my desktop. Anyway, it was going well. Pictures were organized and I knew what I was doing. About a month later I got a smart phone with a good camera, and realized that I could take more pictures cause it was easier at times. However, didnt have any clue how to get them off the phone, so this is really where the story goes downhill.

I was slowly taking more and more pictures on my phone (which were just sitting on my phone), then in August my family moved to TX and brought with them more cameras. I dont own those cameras and couldnt put their pictures in my "Logan" folder. So one more obstacle. Cut to Sep/Oct/Nov (dont remember which month) and Ian got us a really fancy camera (a digital SLR) and since it took such great pictures Ian wanted us to use it but have it save the picture as a CR2 instead of a JPG. Dont really know what the difference is other than a CR2 is a higher picture quality. So at this point we had 2 cameras, 2 smart phones, and family cameras all taking pictures of our precious little guy.

Sounds not that bad, well, you have never delt with CR2 files. They are HUGE and you have to have special software on your computer to see them. So for me to download them and try to post them online I had to convert them to a JPG. Ian got me a program to do this, it was not easy. I was back at work. I had no extra time. I stopped downloading the pictures so the memory card on the nice camera filled up. We got a 2nd memory card (so really we had 3 at this point). Then we had no clue what pictures were on which card and the cards would move from camera to camera as they filled up. Since I couldnt convert the pictures easily they all stayed on the cards, but some would be converted and therefore saved on my desktop.

I am getting confused just trying to tell this story. Let me just jump to the current project. I was sick of not knowing where the photos were, of picking up a camera to take a picture to be told the card was full and that I missed the shot. Of just being incredibly disorganized. SO, I decided to do something about it.

I was going to put all of the pictures where they belong, I made a folder for each month of Logans life thus far. It has the month and the year (since he was born on the 3rd it was easy) and what month of his life it was. I then when through each memory card and downloaded all the files onto my desktop. I then had to cross reference to what was already saved, and then discoved we had pictures saved on both our external hard drives and my desktop, and sometimes in multiple folders in each (for example christmas 2010 was found in like 5 places). As I started dumping photos to my desktop I used up all the memory, so I had to stop and delete all duplicate photos and convert any CR2s to JPGs to free up space.

The program I had been using to do the conversion no longer worked (it was a free trial) but Ian found me another one that looked just as confusing. I played around with it for a couple hours and then realized it was actually an easy process, so win #1! So I converted, and deleted duplicates, and cross-checked, and made notes about the status of each memory card, and transfered from the desktop to the external drives, and backed up anything not logan related. And put the holiday photos on my shutterfly account (to share at a later time), and now am at a stopping point until Thursday.

Basically everything is organized that I have. It feels great! I still have to go into each month and better organize by date (since each memory card had different file #s and the phone too) the pictures are not in order in each month. BUT I want to wait until I can get more photos. My goad is on Thursday to copy all the pictures Lisa has of Logan and add them into my folders and I can have even more to save and then post on Shutterfly (which I went in and deleted everything in his share site for a fresh start). By the end of February his photos will be all organized and backup and ready to eternity.

But as I tackled it this project it shocked me at how bad it had gotten. It was a disaster and it consumed me for a few days as I was trying to figure out how to get it all sorted. But its good now and I can go on with my life (ha ha julie).

If you hung in there and read this all good for you, in a few weeks you will be rewarded by seeing all the photos I could find of logan for the past 20 months and marvel at how much he has grown and how he isnt a little baby anymore.