Pictures, Memories, Hurricanes, OH MY!

In the event of an emergency what is the first thing you would think of to keep safe? For most it would be the Three P's: People, Pets, Pictures.

Just some of my printed scrapbooks I would have to save in an emergency.

My family is currently living life in the Florida Panhandle. My radar was raised moving here due to the threat of hurricanes. The first two seasons weren't so bad for us as Hurricane Matthew stayed far east. But this season has definitely hit close to home. Hurricane Harvey came in and stuck around for those in Texas flooding Houston and surrounding areas. Then with other Floridians we watched in anticipation as Hurricane Irma was knocking away in the Atlantic. My sister and her family actually evacuated due to the storm. She left on September 8th and her city is without power. My nephew has yet to go back to school 10 days later.

Thankfully my family up here barely felt the sting of Irma. But it is only halfway through hurricane season and a new storm named Maria is making her way through the Caribbean. I went into over drive leading up to Irma making landfall in the States, scanning and organizing my printed photos like crazy. With having my kids, husband, and kitties to put in our car, there wouldn't have been much room leftover to bring all of my scrapbooks and photos with us. Especially in a hurry.

This fear is having me value my Forever Permanent account even more. Like our website says "It's like insurance for your photos." I have invested into owning my account to have a place to keep my photos safe away from this crazy hurricane magnet of a state. But its not just hurricanes and floods that can endanger your photos. There are fires, tornadoes, other natural disasters, as well as tech disasters. When I started going digital with my scrapbooks I stopped printing photos. Four years later my hard drive crashed and I had to pay up to save what photos I could. You can read more about that here.

My friend sent me this photo. Her parents have lived in her childhood home for decades. It was not located in a flood zone. So when the waters began to rise as Hurricane Harvey hovered over them, they didn't worry too much. That is until they had to leave. Returning home they are told their house is a total loss. Thankfully they did have flood insurance, but they are still without their home and belongings that can be replaced. They are also without... their photos. Years of pictures and memories are right now being salvaged as best as they can. They are up for a long, tedious journey. One that will be heartbreaking I am sure. My heart aches so much for her family as they sort through what is left of a lifetime of photo memories. This right here is why I am a Forever Ambassador. This is why I am passionate about not just digital scapbooking, but memory preservation. Our photos tell our history and keep close to us images and memories of our lives. I want to be able to pass them on to the next generation and beyond.

Photo damage from Hurricane Harvey in Vidor, TX. Photo courtesy of Cyndi Miles

Day2Day Update

I did it! I am one day away from having completed SIX months of a photo a day project. This has been a feat I have been working on for years.

Yes, some of they days may be missing and I may have "cheated" by taking the picture on a different day, but I didn't let those days get me down. I looked forward to capturing my days and figuring out how to adapt the theme to my day.

I found myself using my phone more and more which surprised me. I love my Nikon, but definitely for my day to day adventures at say the coffee shop, Target, school pick up line... having my phone was just an easier option. If I couldn't get the lighting to cooperate or I wanted a sharper image, I did use my DSLR.

It's crazy looking back how fast the year did go so far. And if I wasn't planning on putting this all into one album I could totally print it tonight and save 25% since our SUMMERSANTA sale ends tonight at Forever. Print and permanent storage one time payments are both 25% for just a little longer. Can't wait to see what Forever has to bring for July and the rest of 2017!

Day2Day Photo/Photo a Day/Project 365

Whatever you call it, I'm finishing it this year.

Since 2010, I have tried to complete a photo project by taking one photo a day. It began as a way to explore my last year in my 20's. I began on my 29th birthday. So there was a photo from my gathering with friends, then the mom life that had me washing diapers, the adventures of a driving skills coach in the winter...

I tried to keep up for a while, but began to slack off. Would miss a day. Then a day became a few more, then a week. I would grow upset and quit all together.

Fast forward two years and I tried to pick up again when I purchased a new camera, my first Digital Single Lens Relfex ( DSLR ), a Nikon D5100. So many more buttons and dials to use, settings to learn, and techniques to try.

I searched for photo challenges to give me a guide on what to take or focus on with my photography. That's when I came upon Fat Mum Slim. Chantelle has an awesome site where she has a section dedicated to her Photo a Day prompts. Each month she showcases a new set of ideas on what to take a photo of for that day. May 2012 was my month. Almost... I managed to get 28 of 31 days done.

Moved from Colorado to California. Tried a month here and there, but still never successful. 2016 rolled around and I managed to get a full month and a half completed! High five! And then I fell off the photo wagon. Kept trying to pick myself back up and start again with no luck. I began to feel like the daily guides were stumping me.

The end of the year rolls around and I have taken a leap into a new business with Forever. And 2017 began with a bang to help me keep up. Day 2 Day Pre-Designed Pages and weekly themes. This will be a game changer!

Day2Day 2017 Week 1: Time
Forever 2017 D2D 1st Half Predesigned Pages
Forever 2017 D2D January Theme
Forever 2017 D2D Add On Kit
Font AR Cena

A Photograph is a Moment

Go grab your camera and take a picture. You now have that moment captured for forever. Or for at least as long as that image lasts. How long will that moment be able to define you and remind you of how life used to be?

We are at a glorious time in history. We can take pictures in an instant and as many as we'd like. I remember when I got my first digital camera. My daughter was about two. It was so funny to watch picture taking change in that short time span. I chuckled every time I took a picture and she would quickly come up to me "Me see, me see!" So she gets to see, all of it. I take a lot of photos, from the special days to the every days. My childhood is documented in family trips, group shots, and special occasions. While my kids have photos of them making faces at the Souper Salad with Auntie. Only a couple generations ago, you may have only taken one photo in your lifetime. I mean, the first permanent photograph was created in 1826 by Nicephore Niepce and took eight hours to expose! Now it is estimated that 3.5 TRILLION photos have been taken. F-Stoppers has some interesting infographics.

Bailee and Auntie Chelle goofing off.

We capture so much, but what do we DO with it? I'm hoping to use my photos to hopefully keep my biggest fear at bay. Alzheimer's. Two of my great aunts have suffered and now my grandfather is battling this disease. When my great Aunt June started slipping we had my daughter play a "game" with her, the repeat game. That way Bailee didn't get concerned or worried about why Aunt June kept asking the same questions. I missed the signs with my grandfather. He was in the navy in the 1950's and stationed in San Diego for a short while. San Diego is where the navy sent my husband and our family for his first tour. Every phone call to grandpa led us to talking about his time in California and how nice it was. It was like a lightbulb turned on when he was diagnosed. That was why we always talked about it, because he didn't remember the last time we talked about it. The crushing moment for me came this summer when my family and I drove home to Colorado all the way from Florida for a couple weeks. We made sure to see my grandparents along the way. We talked, we laughed, we caught up. Then next day we left and he headed out of town for Father's Day, where my Mama was meeting him for the weekend. She greeted him with opens arms and he was surprised to see her, because he forgot she was coming. "Surprise!" was all she said and rolled with it. She then asked how his visit was with me. He couldn't recall me visiting in a while...even though it had just been the previous day. It crushed me. He was already so lost in his own mind. I fear losing myself that same way, stuck inside my head with no way out.

Visit with grandparents 2016

Great Papa and Great Grandma with Bailee on her 3rd birthday.

So I scrapbook. I print photos. I cherish my memories with the hopes that I can keep those memories alive, at least for my lifetime. My husband reassures me he'll sit around with me and tell the story of us through my photos. Nicholas Sparks should write a new story... The Scrapbook.

Until then, I will make my books and save my memories in my Forever account. Telling my story, the stories I know of my grandfather and my other ancestors who are already gone, so that we may not forget them and their moments.

New Opportunity

Photos have been a happy part of my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I loved sitting around and thumbing through the photo albums my Mama had stored all of our memories in. Pictures of my Mama growing up, ones of my grandparents, the photos from my own childhood. Even albums from friends and family had a way of catching my attention.

I remember being pretty young when I got my first camera. It was a purple Kodak 110 mm. It was so hard to press that shutter button, I had to use my thumb. No idea if any of those photos even still exist to this day as six year old me didn't know much of anything about taking a picture. Nearly 30 years later and literally thousands of photos later, I own a NIKON D5100 and capture the memories of my children's lives.

Technology and quality sure has changed over the years. Film gave way to digital. 64 MB sized Compact Flash cards are now 128 GB SD cards. Cameras that shot in 3 mega pixels are now easily 10 times bigger, but I find I'm happy keeping my camera in the 10 mp range.

I stored those first photos in small pocket albums I picked up from various stores. I remember a pink one with Barbie on it I used for the longest time. I carried in it photos of those that meant a lot to me. My grandpa who we lost when I was too young to remember him.One of me on my favorite TV show. Childhood friends and trips I took. Those were memories I wanted to save.

Fast forward a handful of years, I had become a mom. I loved capturing my daughter's life the same way my Mama did for me. Pictures sat in their develop envelopes until I discovered scrapbooking with Creative Memories. Papers, adhesive, photos, albums, page protectors, all became a staple in my house. I loved to journal and embellish those papers. Thank you to Tori Martinez, wherever she may be. She was my first consultant. By 2008 I had discovered digital scrapbooking, or as CM called it, Storybooks. I tried to keep up with my projects, but they soon became too much.

By 2013 I had thousands of photos I had not printed, some uncompleted traditional scrapbooks floating around, a couple hundred photos that were printed, but no memories attached to them in a book. Then my heart sank. My computer I had begun digital scrapbooking on crashed. Those incomplete pages gone. But the most devastating to me was losing all of my son's baby photos. I had gone into momtographer overdrive when I had him, trying to document and capture his little life in a way I couldn't with his sister due to the cost of film and developing. I had let all of those years stack up on my hard drive with plans to do "something" to them. I first thought I was okay as I had kept all of those SD cards...but the case I kept them in had gone missing. On a final whim, I reached out to San Diego PC Help who was able to recover most of my hard drive. Yay! But it was definitely at a cost, more than I care to admit. But my photos and memories meant that much to me. Most were fine, some did not "survive". I lost a small handful to corrupted and broken files.

I became worried of losing my photos again, until I found Forever. Forever has solved my worry of losing my pictures again due to a hard drive crash, a devastating house fire, losing them during a military move, or flood/hurricane ( a new worry thanks to coastal living ). With my Forever account, I can keep those most treasured memories safe for a lifetime and beyond. They are the first and only permanent online storage for memories. So I decided to take a leap and I joined Forever as an Ambassador. I can now take my love of photos and how much they mean to me and share that passion with others. I don't want another mom to experience the heartbreak of looking at photos destroyed by technology dangers.

I plan on using this blog to talk about my photo journey. The adventures I take and capture. The projects I work on for my family. The gifts I create. And the awesome opportunities that Forever has for me and my customers. I'm currently waiting for my first order to arrive and can't wait to share it with you! Thanks for joining me on this adventure.

https://www.forever.com/ambassador/jamie-schumacher

My Grandpa Denney and Gram Carla. 1982

Me on the Wallace and Ladmo Show with Ladmo and Jody. 1989

Girl Scout Brownie years in Arizona. 1988.

My kids...at a park...Thank you hard drive crash.2010