Forever Memories by Jamie S: 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