Spring cleaning, of the digital kind.
I hooked up the good old external hard drive to my computer and discovered that it held around 72,000 images. After a bit of deleting I am now at just under 60,000. This was after a few massive purges last year. My Google Photos account supposedly has over 17,000 pictures, although it is claimed that the “dashboard” is unreliable. Those are exclusively phone photos and for the last two years they are dominated by pictures of Luke. It is difficult to delete any, even when I have a sequence of 20 with nearly identical expressions. Mixed in are hundreds of videos of him that I have yet to watch closely. Before Luke, camping photos make up the bulk of the files. They are difficult to delete as well, but I need to keep reminding myself that I always have better photos taken with my “real” cameras, and these are just visual notes, so only keep a few. Speaking of real cameras, I need to use one in order to take some pictures of Luke.
It’s not that I don’t have ample computer and cloud storage for all of the photos, I do, it’s just that I want to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Most of the crappy pictures get deleted upon import, but there are thousands of decent ones just cluttering things up and obscuring the good ones. So in Picasa (an outdated, now unsupported former Google program that I was able to bring over from my old laptop) I am starring and creating galleries from my favorites. Maybe I will print some or at least make some little photobooks. That is more fun that looking a them on a screen. Once I have deleted a lot more pictures I need to do a backup to Amazon drive. Probably should copy to a second hard drive as well.
Fortunately I cleaned up most of my non-picture files a few months ago when I upgraded to a new computer. So there isn’t much to do on that front. Next I will try to organize and purge my physical possessions.
Another ______day.
The days pretty much all run together now. Especially weekdays. This was a good one even if it was rather tedious and I can barely remember what we did this morning. Safe to say, we read books, built Legos, snacked, and changed diapers. We also went outside before lunch, and had a great time enjoying the lovely weather. This afternoon I took trash to the dump and got gas for the lawn mower while Luke napped. After nap we played until Liz was done working, at which time I went outside and cut some grass. Luke watched through the French doors. Dinner and bath were followed by a viewing of the almost full moon before bedtime.
May you live in interesting times.
Amazing how a word that nobody had even heard at the start of the year is now having such an impact on our lives. Our family is quite fortunate compared to many though, and we are extremely grateful for that. Liz is the least affected, as she is still working from home as usual, albeit with a bit heavier workload. Luke has a different caretaker (me), but he is handling that pretty well. I guess I am the one whose life has been upended the most. I am no longer working on the house in Monteagle due to needing to watch after Luke while Liz works. That is frustrating, as it is very close to completion, and this is perfect weather to be working on it. But I am trying to maintain a positive attitude and enjoy spending so much time with Liz and Luke. I am wanting to do a lot of work here around our house, but again, it is tough to do anything while watching Luke full time.
We are trying to make the most of the nice weather and go to various parks as much as possible. Unfortunately all of the state parks have been closed. Luke also enjoys picking up sticks in the backyard. I am doing a bit of reading in the evenings as Liz works. It has been quite enjoyable. A few of the books I’ve read are pictured below. I have several more in the queue.
Other than that we are just making do. We try to buy groceries for two weeks at a time and have no other interactions. Yes it is very tedious, but that’s what he times require. It will hopefully be over before terribly long and our lives can return to normal.
Sunny and active Sunday.
The day started, as most good days do, with breakfast cookies prepared by Luke and Liz. After that we went for a walk at a park in Spring Hill. Lots of folks were out but we kept our distance. Luke really enjoyed throwing rocks into the stream. We cam home for lunch and a nap, then went out again. The plan was for a hike at a place that Liz and Luke had never visited, Cheeks Bend Bluff, but it was too crowded when we got there, so we did some scenic driving instead. Afterwards Luke helped me put water in the refrigerator and then we had dinner with special guests Sock Monkey and Bear.
14 in dog years.
What a great day! It was a long one, jammed with activity and familiar faces. We started off by making breakfast cookies. Then we went out to a construction site and saw some big equipment in action. I think Luke would have been happy to watch the excavator all day. Next we had snack, then played a bit and prepared Luke’s cake. Lunch was tasty, followed by a three hour (!) nap. After that things got really exciting. We did a Zoom session with family and they were able to see Luke eat his birthday cake and open a present. Since the weather was so lovely we went on a hike at the nature park after that. Dinner was excellent, then he went to bed.
