so. yesterday, i mentioned that i took a load of pictures at my neice's birthday on saturday. in fact, i took 348 pictures. yesterday, i brought the disc on which i'd burned the proofed photos - to get them off of my unforgivingly-small harddrive - to work so that i could upload a few for ordering, post a few here for showing off, and most importantly, mail a disc to the child's mother.

i slipped the disc into my machine at work, only to find out that it didn't contain my pictures - it contained data i'd burned the day before... but this disc was labeled as the pictures. i wrote it off in my mind, knowing that i had two backups at home - one of the originals, one of the proofed files (and otherwise feeling very glad that i didn't blindly mail this disc of software backups to my sister-in-law).

so i get home last night, and slip THOSE discs into my machine, only to find that the same exact thing has happened with those. they have software installation files on them - not pictures of my neice's only first birthday.

i begin to panic a little. i check my recycle bin, praying that i didn't empty it. no first-birthday pictures. i search my hard drive. no first-birthday pictures. i begin to cry. matt comes to the rescue (as much as he can in that situation) and asks if they're still on my camera... no, because i erased them sunday before the shoot i did.

and then i had a flash back... standing in the living room of the family i photographed, waiting for the camera to erase the CF card, accidentally hitting the shutter button and noticing the screen go from 'busy' to normal - as if i'd interrupted the deleting process. then i remembered that when i got home, LOTS of the pictures from the party were still on the card. i hooked my camera up, and called my sister-in-law to tell her what happened.

i was hysterical. she thought something truly horrible and life altering had happened i'm sure (especially since our family is already in the midst of another drama). but as i got out, in tears, what had happened, she was unbelievably patient and understanding and calm. i apologized all over, and told her that of the 348 photos, i still had about 150, and that when i was done proofing, that might be about 60 photos, most of which were kassidy-with-cake. she said that was still perfectly acceptable and she'd be glad to have those.

so, i lost my favorites. a fabulous photo of the cake with the lit candle that was so technically correct, with popping-colors and everything, that i should've blown it up and framed it. i lost the sweet photos of kassidy hugging the life out of the little fuzzy teddy-bear we included with her present, and stuffing her shiny new shirt (also from us) up to her face. i lost the clear, tack-sharp-focused photo of kassidy and nikki leaning over the cake to blow out the candles. i lost the photos of the guests singing happy birthday and of kassidy unwrapping her presents. total heartache for me.

ironically - and i shared this with nikki too - something similar happened on my first birthday. my dad - also an avid and very capable photographer - loaded his 35mm camera with film, and proceeded to snap away as i enjoyed my big day, only to find out later that the film hadn't properly caught on the spool, and had never advanced with each turn of the wheel. we have one photo from my 1st birthday - which my grandmother took as i opened a gift from her. he's always regretted that, and it's not like it put me in years of therapy or anything, but i hate that i've deprived nikki and kassidy of the documentation that i subconsciously promise them when my camera is out and firing.

so that's where we are. i'm so bummed. if i talk about it too much, i start to cry again. this is more motivation to upgrade my software and get my external harddrive running (not to mention: be smarter about checking the discs i burn before i delete anything).