As I’m writing this, my youngest son is entering his sophomore of university, studying engineering. He hadn’t turned one when I started blogging, and the youngest of the children was yet to be born. My oldest two are now married and we’re still homeschooling. It’s been 19 years since the first 2007 blog post in this “early years” set of blogs.
How I Lost (and grieved) the Early Years
Due to company changes, I had to change web hosts twice. After the second migration, I was told that the blogs had disappeared. I tried several times to work with tech support to find them, but they continued to tell me that they didn’t exist despit their best efforts.
I mourned the loss of these blogs so deeply that I stopped blogging. Only in the last few years have I started blogging again. But I felt like there was context for who I am and what I represent missing; I felt like I was having to explain things that had already be explained. I reached out to Jeremy at Oh My Hi and asked what he thought. He didn’t seem very hopeful, but made one suggestion of a website to check.
Following that teeny tiny bread crumb, I was able to find some blog titles and the first 10 words or so, but that was it. Maybe 11 blogs. I went to sleep that night, another round of mourning as my blanket.
In the morning…
In the morning, it occurred to me that AI didn’t exist when I first lost the blogs. AI can look where humans may not think to explore. It can read binary. Well, I can too, but MUCH SLOWER! So I started querying AI with some of my details and after a couple hours, I had recovered all 183 blogs between 2007 and 2013!! Where were they?
I can read binary, but much SLOWER!
They actually did survive the migration, but the humans didn’t look in the correct folder (deep deep down where AI wasn’t afraid to go). Jeremy was able to take the file that AI created and restore every single blog! They are all republished on their original dates. The images and video referenced in these blogs are not all yet restored, but I’m working on it. I think they still hold up without the pics.
What Blog Recovery has Meant
It has been so fun to go back through and read and see how I’ve changed, yet stayed the same. It’s been a delight to relive precious moments with my family, the road trips especially and their humor…oh my goodness! It’s been a true encouragement to watch the faithfulness of God through everything!
I hope you enjoy getting to know the Pressleys in The Early Years. I’ve also uncovered some writing that was not electronic, but hope to publish digitally in the next year or two. I’ll continue blogging our lives as I walk through that effort.
Things to know as you read:
Name Changes & Conventions
So, as you read, please know I’ve always been a stickler for privacy, I never really named my children in the early blogs. I’d use their initials. As they’ve reach the age of maturity and I’ve started blogging again, they have given me permission to share about our family and lives. I’ve agreed to run things past them if it may be sensitive. Because they were minors when these were originally published, they’ll remain unchanged and in tact as my history.
I believe at one point I stopped using initials and named them by interest (I think this is accurate):
- J – entrepreneur
- T – musician and missionary
- S – athlete
- G – artist
- D – girl
Enjoy the early years! And every moment of your journey!
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