Memory Shortage

No, I don't mean my own memory either!  A few months ago, my husband looked at how much memory was left on my computer and made a comment that he couldn't believe how much I had already used up.  We kinds knew that I needed to do something but then . . .we did nothing.  Sunday night, January 15th, I was busy scrapbooking digitally when all of a sudden, I can a message that said something to effect that it couldn't save my work due to lack of memory.  Oops!!!!  Guess what?  I ran out of memory!!! AHHHHHHHHH  So this is what I've been busy doing:

1) Looking at "my computer" to figure out if there were programs that I didn't need anymore  that were taking up space (There are tons of Microsoft updates . .. . I wonder how many of those you have to keep - or can you delete the old ones?  Don't worry I did not delete any of them HA)

2) Burning Discs - Now, I realize that a computer Hard drive is NOT a safe place to store all of your family memories and I've been "meaning" to do something.  Nothing like having no memory to make you "do" something.  I am currently working on putting all photos, photo pages, and documents I want to keep onto discs. 

3)Uploading - I'm also uploading photos and photo pages into sites I order from.  Yes, again, I realize that this are not totally "safe" but they are a back-up source for now.  I am busy making albums in Snapfish for all of my photos.  The nice part is anytime I want to order - they they are!!!  My 12x12 photo pages that I need to still order I am uploading into Scrapping Simply - a great printing site - I can store them there forever after I print them so it is a great place to use as a back up.  This takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r.  I did April, May, June and July in one day.  And that was back to back - it took about 8 hours.  Crazy. 

4) Deleting - Did you know you should empty your Recycle bin? HA!  Holy cow I had a lot of stuff in there that was taking up HUGE amounts of space.  I also cleaned out my documents and got rid of tons of things that were outdated or just not useful anymore.  Each document doesn't take up a lot of space but when you have a few hundred . .. well, that is valuable space.  I have also deleted photo pages that I have uploaded to Scrapping Simple and burned onto a disc.  Lets just say that freed up about 25 GB just deleting a few months worth (I think my digital scrapbooking is taking up LOADS of space!!)  I now need to also clean out my accessories in my scrapbooking folder as well.  All those digital papers and stickers I don't like or have used so much that I don't like them anymore !! 

5) Things I need to do - there are 2 things I still need to do.  1)Back up photos on my External Hard Drive.  I will also back up the most recent photo pages.  2) I plan on using some Christmas money to sign up for a year of a back up service called Sugar Sync.  It has come recommended to my by another blogger and after doing research on my own, I feel like this is the best service for me.  It will do a real time back up of everything on my computer so if there is a crash, I can retrieve everything easily.  I've had one instance of a virus in the last two years where I thought I lost everything and then recently got the blue screen one day - kinda scary.  I did not lose anything but don't want to risk that either.  Sugar Sync has a limit on storage space so cleaning out my hard drive actually helps with that as well. 

Needless to say, this little project is consuming a lot of time this week but it feels good to be getting it done.  I should have done this months . .a year ago.  Too man precious memories to lose!!


What do you do to backup your important information??  Do you feel less secure now that so much is stored on a computer verses the "old way" of paper/negatives?  Sometimes I feel like my data is so much more unsafe stored the way it is and miss all of the paper storage!!

Surgery!

This little guy is having surgery this morning at 8:30.  He is "tongue tied" - did you know that is a real thing???  We knew his tongue was tied a little short (meaning that piece of skin under his tongue was attached closer to the end tip then it should be) back when he was 13 months old but the ENT doctor suggested we wait and see if his speech was impacted.  Well, it is.  We took him back to the ENT doctor right before Christmas and his tongue is short enough that even with his mouth closed, it doesn't reach the roof of his mouth meaning that he can't form some letters/sounds.  (Which we could knew which is why we took him back!)  Hindsight is 20/20 - we wish we would have pushed to have it clipped at 13 months.  Even his regular doctor was surprised it wasn't clipped yet and pushed it through this time.  With all of that said - we'll be heading out to the hospital at 6:00 AM for the 8;30 surgery.  It is only about a 10 minute procedure with 2-4 stitches but he has to be knocked out to have it done.  Should make for an interesting morning :-)

If you are so inclined, feel free to say a prayer for him and for quick healing.  We have been told that it will just be uncomfortable for a few day but it heals quickly.   I am hoping to get some pictures of "our" first surgery with the kids but we'll see how it goes!