Looking back...

If you pay attention to my facebook page at all, you might have noticed that I've been working on cleaning up my computer - I've been going through the past 5+ years of photos, deleting the crappy ones, and transferring the good ones over to flash drives. It's been a long process, and I'm nowhere near done yet. But I'm getting there.

Before I started...

Where I am now...

But of course, in order to do this, I have to go through every single folder of pictures and look at every single one. Luckily they're already pretty much grouped in order by what day I uploaded them from the camera, so I have just been going through them one day at a time.

I've been trying not to dwell on the content of the pictures so much. I'm a very sentimental person, and I can look at old pictures all day long - so I know that I have to really focus on the end goal here or it's going to take me forever to get this done. So far, I've gotten 2008 and 2009 off of my computer (except for a huge rogue folder of 2008 that I just found this morning, but I haven't touched that one yet).

Those were 2 very interesting years in my life. (If you're not familiar with the story, this post will explain a lot of it, and there are links in there that can lead you to other stories. Or you can just ask me. Seriously.)

In 2008 we were living in my old house and I was still married to my second husband. So there are a lot of pictures of him. I wouldn't say that I get sad looking at them - but I have caught myself saying "I wonder what would have happened if....." several times.

In 2009, I kicked him out. And my life fell apart in so many ways, but I didn't admit that for a long time. I don't think that even my closest friends realized how bad it was for me.

But you know what? Looking at those pictures from that time frame - wow, was it ever obvious.

This house - this little ghetto-esque house that we live in now - it gets messy. It gets dirty. It's not always clean and neat and organized. But for the most part, it's decent. We got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved (moving into a house that's less than half the size of your old one will force your hand in that department) and I do my best to keep it organized.

The pictures of the old house? Holy wow, how did we ever live like that? Seriously, it was filthy, and it was so obvious in those pictures. I mean it - I let it get dirty. And that's how it would stay.

Every now and then I'd go on a massive cleaning/organizing binge, and it would look good. For a day or two. And then I would just let everything slide again.

It's funny. I don't always think that I've come that far...but then I start looking back - really looking back - and I see the progress that I've made. I'm still not perfect. The house can still be a disaster at times, but the main difference now is that it might only be 2 or 3 days' worth of disaster, instead of months' worth of disaster. Seeing the actual photographic evidence of the change was truly eye opening for me and has really gotten my brain going back into overdrive again (oh yay).

I think I gave myself a virtual kick in the butt. If I could come this far already...... hmmmm...... might be time to go back to the notebook and write down some more plans.

Flight 93 National Memorial (TMOART:12)

One of our stops on vacation was at the Flight 93 National Memorial outside of Shenksville, PA. We hadn't planned on stopping there initially, but we realized how close we were after we missed an exit on the turnpike and saw signs for it. So on our way back west, we took the side trip to go see it.

It is in a gorgeous setting, and the memorial itself is simple and beautiful. I'm not exactly sure when it was built, but there were signs indicating that they are still working on it, and are looking to expand it a bit more. Trees are being planted around the area as well.

There was a place where visitors could leave notes.

And there were places along the wall where mementos could be left.

40 slabs of marble, each engraved with the name of a victim.

It's hard to see it, but after her name it says "and unborn child".

The boulder marks the location of the crash site.

The boulder as seen through the gate at the end of the wall.

The wall follows the plane's final flight path - the crash site is beyond the wooden gate. The site itself is closed to the public - only family members of the victims are allowed to go out there.

Wildflowers growing behind the wall

I am so glad that we got the chance to stop here. We see so much on the news about the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but just not a whole lot about Flight 93. I learned quite a bit about it that I didn't know before, and although the kids didn't totally understand it, they will always remember being there.

Seeing the signs of renewal and reforestation on the landscape along with the symbols of hope left by visitors just reaffirmed in my mind that no matter how horrible a situation appears, something good can come out of it. It might not happen overnight, but it will eventually happen - if we are patient.

Daniel and The Dude - checking everything out together. Probably one of my favorite pictures from the entire trip.