Amy tagged me for the 6th photo/6th folder meme. I wish this had happened just a few weeks ago. You may remember that my computer picked up a nasty virus and I asked Pk to rebuild the OS for me. When he did this, he forgot to save the photos that only existed on the computer. I NEVER let him rebuild the machine because I hate having to get used to different programs and newer versions of things. I am a creature of habit! I've had this laptop for over 3 years and it never needed a 'rebuild' until this virus came along. Pk apologized and I know it was not purposeful but still dismaying.

So, I have no, and I mean NO photos of my family on the computer. I realize every so often how great the loss actually is. I have no photos of Pk's ride in the airplane when he flew upside down (fortunately, my favorite one of those is the wallpaper on my work computer so I have that) and no photos of the woods and no photos of the holidays. It's not the end of the world and I have often made fun of people who live their lives through their camera lens instead of living it in person. But, I'll miss them.

What I did is close my eyes and point to one of the few photos that I have begun to re-collect (and will save on my flash drive!). This is the one I came up with. It's the tree out front of our house. It's a maple and has a double, twisted trunk. Parts of it are dying but I love it and don't want to lose it. Lots of my neighbors are cutting down trees and then not replacing them. Then they wonder why it's so much hotter in the summer! This was Wednesday morning as we were leaving for work. It wasn't really that dark, but the flash made it look like a ghost tree.

I spent today in a training. It was fairly interesting. I like the presenter. The psych rehab training community is a small one and we all get really familiar with who the instructors are. This was one of my favorites. I knit a few inches on my Leaves of Whimsy socks. I'm mostly finished the second one. Just half the foot and then the toe. No one said anything about the knitting and I participated so it was all good. I started a sock for Julie and Amy Lane's Feb sock roundup. I found yarn and pattern that seem to be perfect. I have to knit a few more inches on the baby sweater and then pick up the sleeves. Any sweater that doesn't need seams is a good one to me. And I still have to make the other thrummed mitten.......

Coming out of the training, I slipped on some ice. I didn't go down but I did wrench my lower back. I got into the car with difficulty and was driving along until I almost slammed into a young driver who made a left turn in front of me as I was going 50 miles an hour. My body tensed as I slammed on the brakes. We emerged unscathed but my back hurts. I've taken ibuprofen and used BenGay (love the stuff!). The major problem is that I have Handle With Care, the restraint training tomorrow. I'm not teaching, I'm getting re-certified to teach. I think I'm going to spend a lot of time on the sidelines. I was planning to pull back and try to pass the torch onto some younger folks within our program this year and this might be the encouragement I need. I'll help plan it and I'll teach some but I don't want the full weight of training the entire staff.

I'm sitting here listening to the cats snore. They're twitching in their sleep. Must be a good dream. It's time for a little knitting, some more pain meds and then bed. Maybe I'll have some of those good dreams, too. Although, I'm not sure I want one of the left-over cat dreams!