live & learn

I've missed meeting you here the past few days. I should have just posted without pictures. I was so afraid that I had done something to cause the photo loading issue, though I couldn't think of anything different I'd done before or after the problem.

When I was twelve, I was in Canada at my grandma's cabin. It was the start of the summer and my first chance to water ski. Back then, water skiing was my all time favorite thing to do and summers were my only chance. So, on this first outing, I was hot dogging it. My cousin, who was driving the boat, took a sweep past the dock where our siblings and moms were sunbathing. I leaned into the curve spraying a high arc of water over everyone. I was just goofing off, thrilled to be back behind the boat. My cousin Ronnie thought it was hilarious, but not everyone did.

When I finished the run, Mom was furious. She thought my stunt unacceptable, even though they were all in swimsuits on the dock. Anyhow, I lost the privilege of skiing the rest of the summer, which was completely devastating to me. It changed me in some way, pushing me into the category of people for which life is not fair. Mom would not be talked out of it.


I've thought of that incident more times than I care to admit, realizing it is partly behind my fear of unintentionally making a mistake and loosing something really important because of it. I'm trying to banish that fear. So with the photo loading, I tried to stay calm and carefully work the problem. In other words, I only half-panicked, which is progress.

I spent hours deleting a few thousand pictures, thinking my computer was too full, and more time running scans and downloading different browsers and clearing cookies - all to no avail. I finally got on a user board and discovered a work around. I can't believe I am even saying that, as knowing that such a thing exists is major progress for computer clueless moi.

Also, I am onto a bigger solution, as I think it has to do with having used up 99% of my free storage on Picassa, more later on this, as I am still investigating. Why does blogger not have a troubleshooter person you can just call? I am old school, and like to talk to a person. Anyhow, this whole thing had me back into stress mode, so I need to double up on my prayer/meditation time tomorrow. I am up to 20 minutes a day. It is ludicrous how hard being still and breathing with a blankish mind is. But, what's interesting is that I am getting better, and can notice a difference after two weeks.

I will say that the skiing incident, while horrible for me, did have one good result. It influenced my parenting a lot. I never wanted the girls to be made to feel the way that I did that day. I tried to my utmost to be fair and gentle when correcting them. Live and learn, right? That's all we can do.