Goodbye... Stages of Grieving the Loss of a Camera

Well, no blogs recently for a number of reasons, but one of the main ones is that my camera has been dying.  This is a typical first picture when I turn it on: weird purple fine lines and whitish washout on part of the screen.  Then, it would "wake up" and take good pictures.  It's been doing this for a while.  I suppose it didn't help that it got so wet in Seattle in my pocket that I had to dry it out on the heating vent before it would work...

So, because I get attached to my old things, and I'm often overly frugal, I just kept using it, until a couple of weeks ago.  That day, the second picture came out like this:

Oh, oh!  That's not good!  So I turned it off and decided maybe it was too cold.  (Grieving stage 1: denial.)
I tried again the next day.  Same results.  Third day: the same. (I'm good/persistent with denial and stage 3: bargaining.)
The third picture was now coming out like this:

$h!t!  (Stage 2: Anger.)Yikes!  I should look for a new camera!  Went shopping, bought one, tried it, and took it back. (I also struggle with decision making!)  But it felt wrong in my hands and had stuff on it I didn't need or want.  So I was back to no camera.

Then I looked at many others in stores and on line without satisfaction. Finally, I went to look up what was wrong with my old camera...not that I really wanted to invest in fixing it, but I LIKED IT and didn't want something new! (Back to denial, anger, bargaining...)

Now I could have been taking pictures with my smartphone to use on the blog, but I was too bummed out (Stage 4: depression) and grumpy (anger), whining to myself, "Dumb old camera.  Stupidphone camera. There's nothing to write for a blog anyway. Stupid new cameras that aren't right. I WANT MY OLD CAMERA TO WORK!!"

Well, my old camera actually did have a recall on it because of this problem, but they quit fixing them 3 years ago.  (My camera was made in 2004.)  BUT, when I talked with the people at Canon, they offered me 20% off any refurbished Canon as part of a Loyalty Program.  All I had to do was send the old one back to be recycled.

Goodbye, old friend. (Stage 5: Acceptance.)  I finally decided on this one after much research and lots of angst of making a final decision.  It's a better camera for significantly less than my old one cost originally...and I like how it feels in my hands! And I LOVE that it's RED!!!!!  It arrived today!

No pictures with it yet, though.  It still needs a memory card...a different kind than my old camera, of course. (I'm still a little pissy, I guess.)  And a bit grumpy and sad...I put my old one in the mail today.  :-(

Still, I think this could be the beginning of a new friendship and some wonderful pictures.  It's supposed to take close ups at less than 1/2 an inch and adjust for my shaky hands. I'll try it out for the next blog, once I get the memory card. :-)