Some of you may know that 
My own laptop finally died after years of abuse, spills, tomato sauce, and travels on the bus to work and back every day for almost 6 years. I think I must have had it for at least 7 years when it finally gave up over a glass of spilled juice. Look, this is not my 1st rodeo, so it was instant power off, wipe down and I left it to dry upside down on a towel for 24-48 hours.
I was working for my sister at the time and desperately needed access to my data. Luckily for me, I had just started fully utilizing Google Drive which meant all our work was backed up there, but what about the last 7 years of memories that weren't backed up?
I tried taking it to our IT neighbor who claimed to be an "IT specialist" - but just had a garage of broken laptops - and he stripped it, confirming that the motherboard had finally died. However, the good news was that the hard drive was still fine, and that meant that all my precious data and phone photo backups, Blackberry and beyond, were still accessible. I just hope he didn't spend Too much time scratching through my stuff as there were some... er... questionable and regrettable photos sent to exes - some of which I actually looked pretty damn hot in at 94 kgs.
Back to the actual laptop, so he was supposed to be ordering me a motherboard and storing my pc safely. I was trying not to be a "nagpie" but after 4 months of waiting and monthly follow-ups, I decided it was time to go and retrieve it before I never saw it again, as I knew he was moving out. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't sell the parts for Meth.
I was totally brokenhearted when he finally found my laptop after four hours of searching, while I sat on the lawn, making him realize I wasn't leaving without it. My laptop was beyond repair. Stripped and with a now broken screen, I realized it would never work again. Thank goodness, in the meanwhile, my mom purchased me a laptop on contract - about a month in - so I was able to carry on working.
There are some incredible memories hidden in those backup files, pre-divorce photos, old work photos, photos of my dad pottering around in my kitchen and bouncing Matthew on his knee, and even some photos of Squeek and her brother when we met them at the SPCA!
Let's start at the very beginning (and this is only half of one folder):
I think I'll just start with a few and then separate them into different posts.
The photo I used for the main image of this post was taken at Haute Cabrierre - my favorite wine farm situated in the Franschhoek region in Cape Town. I was managing a restaurant at the time, and as soon as I received the promotion, I made it my mission to "educate" my staff (and get a free bunch of wine) so that they could better upsell our incredible wine list by actually visiting the farms themselves. Most of the farms were delighted to host us and offered us free lunch and take-home gift boxes of wine for each of us! It was such an exciting time for us (and I look a lot more sober in that photo than I should have 😜). I really loved managing my staff and as a whole, I made incredibly close connections with both back-of-house and front-of-house staff as I never had the "it's not my job" attitude and was never afraid to get my hands dirty. Literally, this served me extremely well throughout my career in hospitality and beyond.
Reminders of how awesome my mom is:
My mom spent 15 years working in the UK, I visited her twice - which was awesome, and she came down to Cape Town at least once a year - sometimes twice! She drove me nuts, as any late teen would feel with a mom trying to cram years of parenting into 3 week holidays.
It was only when she moved home to be close to us, about a year or two before I got divorced, that I really appreciated her.
I think the main reason she came home actually is because she knew my marriage was tanking and I was going to need some serious love and support. And so was Matthew.
Just like in my childhood, my mom made extra-special effort over festivities, from Christmas to Easter and everything in between. She managed to make all of them feel magical, even if we didn't have a lot. That part of motherhood definitely rubbed off on me.
I eventually, after my unavoidable and inevitable divorce, moved in with my mother. I tried to hold on to my little cottage as much as possible but realized that I needed help raising Matthew, and my mom had a pretty damn awesome house. I still miss it.
These photos are a reminder of how much love and care she put into helping me raise my son, and really, just what an incredible mom and granny she is.
That's it for today I think <3 Watch out for more photos in upcoming installments of this series.
Thanks for stopping by!