If you follow me on Instagram you’ll already know why I’m writing this post. (this is the part where you click here and follow me!)

This isn’t some click bait on the do’s and don’ts of sharing photos on Social Media. This is a true honest-to-goodness post on why I truly am grateful for the hundreds of pictures I have bombarded my family and friends with.

Lately, I have been pondering whether or not I should continue blogging or if I need to go back to my original days of blogging. You see, I started my blog 10 years ago. I have been around much longer than a lot of the popular “Life in Italy” blogs/vlogs. The difference? I began as my online journal. To connect my family and friends back in Texas with my new life in Italy. From the very beginning, I shared everything.

I shared what it was like shopping at the market, a stroll at the park or just going out for some gelato. It’s all there, archived in those earlier posts. Then Valentina was born. Like any first time mother, I blogged about her firsts and posted photos on Facebook. As she got older and our family grew, I began to post more about Turin and less about my kids. Thinking this was the direction I should go in. My photos became something I shared on FB and Flickr. After Carlotta was born, blogging I became selective and only posted on Instagram. After a while I started to get burned out and contemplated my next move.

Fast foward to last month and my “photo world” came crashing down. LITERALLY. I have been in the process of creating a back up of all of my photos and videos so I could streamline my photo library and only have current photos available, while keeping my archives safe. I have 2 external hard drives that I work with. Well, one of them (THE MAIN ONE) stopped working. I plugged it in and it won’t read anymore. The entire lives of my girls are on the main external hard drive. I flippin’ cried my eyes out!!

Their birth photos, first steps, videos of the first time they rolled over or walked. ALL GONE. Random trips to the gelato farm, potty training  pictures of their cute bottoms, and past Christmases… COMPLETELY LOST.  Our trip to America… their FIRST TRIP… is just a memory. What hurts me the most are the videos. My girls absolutely love looking at old videos of themselves. In fact, that was one of the last things we did together a few days before the crash. This is also the reason why I have yet to post any content regarding that US trip. I had 4 videos being edited on that device!!!

We’re currently in the process of looking for a repair shop that can try to help us but so far the amount we’ve been quoted could buy a MacBook Pro or 2 iPhone Xs. So, as we continue to look around, I will be going through all of my blog posts, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, iPhoto Shared albums and Google photos. Thanks to all of those years of sharing my precious moments, all is not lost. I will be downloading everything I can find to create a new (hopefully temporary) library until I get the final word on my external hard drive.

They won’t be the best quality pictures, but at least I’ll have something.

As for the lesson learned, well I do believe it’s time to start go back to the beginning and share more pictures of my girls… just in case.