the new computer and other trivialities

{I just found this post lingering in my drafts and decided to publish it, for the sake of the family record-keeping.  Not that a computer is a family member exactly, but I think it counts in the overall timeline of significant family events.}

Nearly eight years ago, a few months into graduate school, living in our first house, before any of our children had yet arrived on the scene, I got my first MacBook Pro.  She was called Shiny, and she served me through many a class, many a late-night paper-writing session, many a blog post, many a photo upload.

She was nearing the end of her life, sadly - her battery unable to hold a charge, crashing each time she lost the feeble, tenuous connection with her frayed charging cord; spinning her colorful wheel for long minutes any time I tried to use her to do a task.  She also wasn't meeting our photo storage and accessibility needs.

With our first year of "real" homeschooling right around the corner {is it possible that the child younger than that first MacBook Pro is already going into first grade?}, it was becoming apparent I would need a workable computer solution at the ready.  As usually happens in these sorts of situations in our home, Nathan brought up the subject of buying me a new computer, and I declared it an unnecessary financial expense at this time.

Fortunately for me, he didn't listen to my protests.  Off to the Apple store he went, taking all three of our children with him, as I had a concert to play at the time.  This was evidently a fortuitous turn of events, as he attributes what followed to the fact that the store employee helping him thought the kids were cute.  Somehow he was offered a student discount from a current promotional, so I arrived home from my concert to find not only the most beautiful, sleek, fast-functioning space gray MacBook Pro, but also a rose gold pair of Beats wireless headphones, which had been included free.

The main question now is, does this lovely computer on which I now find myself typing inherit the name of Shiny?  Or is a beloved computer irreplaceable, and does the next generation receive its own new name?  Since space gray is literally less shiny than Shiny was, perhaps this computer is... Foggy?

In any case, I'm looking forward to a renewed ability to document and keep our little lives through increased ease of use with this new computer.  I'm looking forward to being able to do homeschool planning, send emails for work, and keep up with other tasks much more easily.  I'm staying cautiously {foolishly?} optimistic that it will help me stay on top of the many responsibilities I always feel like I'm not quite keeping up with.

Although, realistically, I suppose time will tell if the faster-functioning abilities of the new computer as compared with the old dying one will really offset the fact that three children have arrived in our family in the intervening years.  And I have a feeling those small fingers reaching and grabbing for my keyboard at this very moment have a lot to do with finding it challenging to keep up with all things computer-related at times.