FaceBook to the Rescue
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FaceBook to the Rescue

My Life, Uncategorized

FaceBook to the Rescue

My whole world turned upside down when we decided to sell our house and leave the place we’ve called home for the first 11 years of our marriage. Then my computer turned upside down when it fell off the bed! The good news is it was under warranty, the bad news is I lost my entire hard drive. I have come a long way when it comes to making back ups, so all of my work related data and personal files were covered except for November and December because I slacked off in the middle of getting ready to move.

As I was getting ready for SJ’s 2nd birthday I wanted to catch up on our family albums and her baby book, but I have no evidence of any family pictures that were downloaded November or December of 2012! That means I lost pictures of my sons graduation from the church nursery,

my kids in their adorable halloween costumes,

and our last Christmas before we left Texas.

That’s when I went to Facebook. I knew I had uploaded all of these events to share with friends and family, but would they be printable?

What a lot of people don’t realize is that web resolution and print resolution are two totally different things. When I worked for Now Magazine I would ALWAYS have people tell me we have lots of pictures on our web site, just pull them off there. And most of the time they were TOO small. Things can look great on the online at 72 dpi, but to look good in print they need to be around 300 dpi. I know it’s confusing, but just because it looks good online does not mean you can print it.

However, Facebook has an option when you upload photos to post them at high quality and I strongly recommended checking that box, because thanks to the photos I posted on Facebook I have been able to print out all the special memories that would have been lost otherwise.

Here’s how to upload your photos.

1. Go to your photo albums and click the button that says add photos.

2. In the bottom left corner there is a box that says “high quality”. Check that.

3.On the right there is a drop down menu that says “public” and when you click on it you can customize who you want to be able to see the photos. If you don’t necessarily won’t to post the photos to your home page then you can select “Only me” and no one else will be able to view your photos, but they are there if you ever had a computer crash like mine did.

After that you just select the photos you want to upload and publish your album.

I am not suggesting that you use Facebook as your primary storage device. First of all I can’t guarantee they won’t delete your whole account tomorrow, and I am not even sure what the maximum number of uploads is. You should always back up your images through discs or time machine, external hard drives, carbonate, etc., but it’s nice to have multiple locations for your most treasured moments and in my case Facebook really saved the day.

Thank you social networking!

By Natalie|2015-06-08T14:29:07+00:00March 8, 2012|My Life, Uncategorized|2 Comments

My Brother’s Wife & My Former Life
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My Brother’s Wife & My Former Life

My Life, Uncategorized

My Brother’s Wife & My Former Life

I was born in northern Kentucky, and after my dad’s job relocated us to Atlanta and then Dallas somehow the rest of my family all ended up back in Kentucky going to the same church we had attended for 13 years. I mentioned last week that I was going to be returning to that area for my brother’s wedding, and believe it or not he married a girl that also grew up going to that church and we all went to the same private school there too. I didn’t know her very well back then, but some memories of her stick out in my mind because her name is also Natalie! Now that she is married to my brother she has my maiden name too. I went up to her when the reception was pretty much over, I gave her a hug and said “I was Natalie Smith* once, it’s a lot to live up to, but I think you can handle it.”

What some of you may not know is that my brother (the one that got married) and my husband also have the same name! Yeah, that means there are two Jeremy & Natalies. I am sure it will be a bit confusing, in fact I’ve already gotten a text from a friend that was actually meant to be sent to the other Natalie. We have had two Jeremys for 10 years now though, so I think we can handle this.

The other Jeremy and Natalie are also about the same age apart as my husband and I are. Funny how at one time my brother said he would never date anyone younger than me and didn’t exactly approve of the 6 year age difference between my husband and I. Oh the irony. So now our family is complete. Out of the 6 of us (me, my 2 brothers, and our spouses) I am the youngest and married someone older than my brothers and my oldest brother married someone younger than me.

I know it’s all a little confusing, but that’s my family for ya. I am so happy for my big bro and I wish him and his bride all the best because I think Jeremy and Natalie deserve it (wink wink).

*For those who know my maiden name you are probably really confused. I had to use an alias last name and Smith was the most generic I could think of.

By Natalie|2015-05-17T20:00:56+00:00October 8, 2009|My Life, Uncategorized|2 Comments

Top 5 Complaints

I don’t like to be a whiner, but sometimes you just have to let it all out. Like nurmisur commented when I announced the pregnancy

“Good thing about having blog is that you can complain about morning sickness, cramps, and the whole thing as much as you want”

So I am going to take her up on that and list my top 5 pregnancy complaints for the first trimester.

1. Obviously nausea is a biggie. So far no actual vomiting unlike my last pregnancy. I still feel really sick though if I haven’t eaten in a few hours, and then it’s hard to find something I actually feel like eating. Oh, and then there is brushing the teeth and flossing, talk about a gag fest.

2. I am really in between clothes right now. I am definitely out of my regular clothes, but the maternity clothes are still too big. I have a few items that I wear over and over at this time.

3. No one likes having to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes. Maybe it’s not that bad, but it feels like it, especially at night.

4. Speaking of night, I am still having those weird dreams. They range from bizarre dreams to night mares. Sometimes they startle me and I will wake up gasping. Needless to say between that and the ongoing emptying of the bladder I get very little sleep.

5. I have saved the strangest for last. I have struggled with having headaches during this pregnancy, but mostly when I am on Facebook. I know it sounds crazy, but I guess it’s the small photos, combined with scrolling and reading. I can’t do it anymore. I have to read slowly then stop and scroll down. ‘Scrolling” linked with nausea. I guess that is not a pregnancy symptom of our ancestors.

By Natalie|2015-05-17T19:49:35+00:00August 27, 2009|My Life, Pregnancy & Birth, Uncategorized|3 Comments

Z’s Birth Story

The Birth Story of Mr. Z

It all started on September 3, 2007. It was Labor day (what a coincidence). We were going to my sister in law’s house for a family get to together. I knew I was having some kind of contractions, so I brought my suitcase just in case. The feelings continued when we got there, but I really thought it was false labor. I took a walk, a hot bath, and laid down, but they didn’t stop. I sat in a room with 6 moms and one nurse sharing their stories and trying to help me figure out if this was really it.

That night on the way home the contractions were coming around 4 minutes apart. By that time everyone had finally talked me into stopping by the birth center. Once we got there the midwife examined me and I was 5 cm dilated, 95% effaced. I guess I really was in labor! After that, things progressed pretty quickly. Everything was coming strong and fast and I started to throw up. We went upstairs to where I would deliver and I threw up several more times, but finally it stopped.

My favorite part of labor was when we played the song from our wedding “Still The One” and it was just me and my husband taking in the magnitude of the moment, our lives were about to be changed forever!

I proceeded to lie down in the bed as the moment drew closer. I thought my water had broken and it turned out to be blood loss and because of this they decided to break my water because it was time for the baby to come out!

I pushed for about 20 minutes. I was in so much pain and ready for it to be over. They had to put me on oxygen for a little while. Once I saw my baby though it really did all go away. My husband was the one that “caught” the baby with the help of our midwife, and he was the one that placed our newborn in my arms, it was AMAZING!

We loved him before he was even here, but to be able to hold him at last was indescribable. Everything was going as I hoped it would, I had done it all naturally. My husband was by my side, my baby was in my arms…

but then things took a turn for the worse. I was told that the placenta was not coming out on it’s own. At this time I don’t even know what happened. Everyone said I looked gray, like I was going to pass out. They hooked me up to an IV, gave me more oxygen, gave me oral liquid supplements. I had to get out of the bed and start pushing again. All that is fine when you have the baby as motivation, but having to go through all the breathing and pushing for the PLACENTA!? It was not fun, and it was not coming either. It was almost to the point of having to be transferred to the ER, when my midwife started praying out loud. She was calm and yet very authoritative, everyone in the room started praying- and that was the moment that the placenta was delivered!!!
From there, our parents joined us and the baby was examined. He weighed 8lbs 11 oz and was 21.25 inches. None of us expected him to be that big.

I was exhausted. The 3 of us slept together at the birth center that night and the next day at noon we went home with our perfect baby boy.

So that is pretty much the whole story of the day we became parents.