Never Too Old

Posting on this blog has ranged from sporadic to almost never in the past year or two and it's been about six months since I've even bothered to check in. Imagine my surprise when I finally do, I discover a lot of my photos have gone missing. After checking back through old post I have come to the realization that my big mistake was uploading photos directly from my Dropbox photo file. When I later deleted photos from my Dropbox folder, I inadvertently deleted all traces of them from anywhere I had posted them on the web, my blogs, Pinterest  and perhaps even Facebook. For someone who loves photos, this was an important lesson for me as in this day and age everyone including me relies too heavily on saving everything in the "cloud." But photo sites are not forever, and just because you may have uploaded photos to other places online does not guarantee you will always have them.

I do save all my special photos, especially of family, to my hard drive as well as to those little UBS thingies as a backup, and I still get a lot of my photos printed because nothing will ever replace the feeling of having a physical picture in your hand, but I will from now on, make sure I save any photo I post to FB, Pinterest or my blogs to folders on my hard drive before uploading them so they don't disappear at a later date.

I have learned a valuable lesson, proving old dogs do learn new tricks, and would like to pass on some advice, especially for young parents today. The digital  age is wonderful! It never ceases to amaze me what we can do with a camera, the thousands of images we can take and edit online so we do not have to waste money on imperfect images, and the wonderful overlays and backgrounds we can add to make them even more special, especially as memorials to those who are no longer with us. But, unless you are saving them to your hard drive, backing them up or having them printed off, you risk loosing them as soon as the the editing site you are using goes belly up. I have shelves lined with photo albums filled with pictures of my kids that I consider some of my most valued processions and cannot imagine not having them. Take the time, save your special photos, and print them off so you will have them to enjoy later.

NOT YOUR PUSHER

There are many things I've come to like about the blogging world since I started my own four months ago, and I've connected with a network of friends who seem to share the same general interest that I do. I am constantly amazed that they take the time to not only read what I have to say, but often make the extra effort to leave wonderful comments to my post. I, in turn get a lot of enjoyment reading their blogs. Some make me laugh, some make my eyes misty, some make me feel a little angry, some make me a tad envious, wishing that I could write with the same clarity and prose, and some make me feel calm and relaxed.

There is even an aspect to the blogging world that is somewhat addictive, and I admit, I get excited whenever I check my email (and do it more often than I should) and find that someone has left a new comment, and I get a little rush whenever I gain a new follower, which is exactly what happened this morning...yip... pee...hooray...27 followers!

As I customarily do whenever I get a new follower, as I am sure we all do, I checked this person's profile, and popped on over to their blog to check it out. In most cases, I usually find a shared interest and will follow that person's blog, but not so this morning.

This morning I got upset...really mad in fact...which is something that doesn't happen very often to me. I'm usually pretty mellow most of the time...except when hubby gets my goat, which fortunately isn't very often...or when people do really stupid things. I just don't tolerate stupidity very well...I mean, really, what were they thinking?

Back to what got me smoking this morning, I check this guy's blog..."guy's"...there's a red flag waving...are you connecting the dots here...and I find a blog filled with photos of sexy, half naked girls in provocative poses and post titles like "Hot Sexy Girls" etc. etc. etc.
If he's happy posting semi nude pictures, that's fine, it's his right,and I'm sure he's has a very wide audience, but what bugs me is that he added himself as one of my followers. It's not like I'm writing anything that would remotely interest him. He is only using my blog as a vessel to connect with other blog members.

I don't like to be pushed and I don't like having stuff shoved at me. If I want to buy a vacuum cleaner I will check the yellow pages go looking for one. If I want religion I will find it on my own, in my own time, don't come knocking at my door with a little kid in tow, and if I want to look at smut, I will google it.

After checking my other followers, I found another that I was not comfortable having on my blog... again ... a guy...although I didn't see his blog...it came with an adult content warning, I have blocked both from my follower's list. I will not be a pusher for anyone.

So, I am back down to 25 followers but I am feeling great after getting all that anger out of my system and I'm ready to enjoy the rest of my day.