I planned on posting this image for Easter. It's not a new image of mine, but it's one of my favorites from a trip to an Arizona mission a couple years ago (or so.) Looking at it makes me grateful. For what He endured for me. Happy belated Easter, everyone!
This last week, I had a hard drive failure, but it gave me more to be grateful for. I have some people I'd like to publicly thank. My computer is NOT up and running yet, but it's getting there. I've been really good about backups, so no worries. If you're waiting for prints from me, you will still get them....the images are not lost. But the thought of any miscellaneous files I might have missed in my backups, and the thought of reinstalling my operating system, all of my applications, and configuring everything the way I had it was daunting. So I was almost ready to pay for data recovery. Almost. The fact that it costs an arm and a leg made me cringe. I actually got a quote from one company for $10,000 to $25,000. Yeah right.
Well, thanks to Pam Biasotti, a fellow photographer in San Francisco, I didn't have to go that route. She suggested I have someone take a look to see if the drives would boot with a good motherboard, and if so, to get the data copied onto an external drive. So there's thank you number one...THANK YOU PAM! My second thank you goes out to Kris at the Circuit City on Brentwood. He went out of his way to get the work done quickly and at a great price. Nothing near what data recovery would cost. His employer needs to pay him well because I wouldn't doubt if he regularly gets job offers from customers! So THANK YOU KRIS!
I'm working on getting the computer up and running, hopefully by tomorrow. And the best part is, I don't have to reinstall everything. I just have to copy it onto my new drives. Anyway, lots to be grateful for.
Earlier this year, I was interviewed by West County Kids magazine. The article they wrote about my photography is in the summer issue, which is on newstands starting today! It's a great magazine, and the summer issue is loaded with information about raising children in St. Louis, summer camps, plus all the other fun activities available to them this summer. They're also giving away a free playroom makeover from The Container Store...so go get your copy today, and enter that contest!! You can pick one up at schools, restaurants, book stores, community centers, libraries, child care centers, fitness centers, doctors' offices, coffee shops and many other family-friendly locations across West County and surrounding areas (and at selected family attractions in the city of St. Louis). 
