Photo Recovery Miracles! How to find those pictures after you accidently deleted them.

Ever have one of those days where you can't talk because you're absolutely emotionally bankrupt? Like, let's say your daughter turned 10, which is a super huge deal - double digits, yo! And you always make a HUGE deal about Birthday Days - the day you celebrate a birthday, just Mommy & Daughter, doing fun things together because it's about the love, and not about those sticky pawed, drooling sugar-high kids you're forced to entertain and be responsible for if you were one of those mothers who hosted an actual birthday party? And you always make a HUGE deal about the fact you're building memories together and that's why you have to take 3,487 pictures and print them out in a birthday album because the Gift Of Memory Keeps On Giving!

And then, after you enjoy your day, you tell someone else to look at your pictures but they say there's none on your camera and you're like of course there is. I took them. They've got to be there. Only when you get to the camera they're not there. Like, at all.

And then you panic and cry and feel like a total schmuck ...

But then, 'lo and behold! Someone tells you about this magical stuff called Photo Recovery Software.

And you buy it for $39.00.

And it takes all day to recover your photos. No, really. All day long the computer is whirring in the background sifting through corrupted files on your digital camera trying to save your sorry mothering butt by finding one photo - any photo - from the day's events....

And finally a little box pops up on your computer screen that says Recovery Successful! Yes, with an exclamation point!

And you rejoice!

REJOICE!!

But then you look at the bazillion recovered photos and realize (1) you have taken a ridiculous amount of photos in the past two years and (2) the birthday photos are not on here. I repeat: THE BIRTHDAY PHOTOS ARE NOT ON HERE!

And then you feel like crying. Again. Because you were so close.

So close to saving the day.

So close to making things right.

So close to salvaging something. Anything.

And your shoulders slump.

And a tension headache erupts at the base of your brain stem.

And you wonder how expensive it would be to pay an artist to make renderings of the Birthday Day.

And then you think, "huh. I wonder if there's like another folder or something those pictures could have accidently moved into."

And so you look at your camera closer.

But you don't see anything.

Except the fact that the little battery door thing isn't locked.

It's closed. But not locked.

So you open it.

And you see that cute little memory card sticking out and you think, "gosh, I'm glad I saw this! It'd be a shame if it fell out" and then you snap it into place.

And, 'lo and behold -- looky there. All those pictures you took on Birthday Day are on that little memory card after all. It was just that the stupid piece of plastic wasn't snapped into place and now you just wasted $39.00 for photo recovery software you don't need and that could have gone a long way towards printing those pictures out and putting them in an album for the kid.