*sigh*
Where do I begin?
Do I start by saying my mother-in-law's computer spontaneously died a month or two ago?
Or with the simple fact that I purchased an external hard drive to support my addiction?
Maybe I should start by talking about irony.
Defined by
Wikipedia:
Irony is a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity or discordance between what a speaker or writer says and what he or she means, or what is generally understood.
In modern usage it can also refer to particularly striking examples of incongruities observed in everyday life between what was intended or said and what actually happened.
There is some argument about what is or is not ironic, but all the different senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity between what is said and what is meant; or between an understanding of reality, or an expectation of a reality, and what actually happens.
Irony can be humorous, but it does not have to be.You know what?
It's
not funny.
____
The Story
____
The past three weeks, one of my little projects has been to organize all of my
digi-scrapping files from two computers into one massive folder. The problem has been the two different computers. The laptop has some things and the desktop has others. And I can't keep straight who has what. When done, I will have one folder with sub-folders for all my kits, templates, fonts, brushes, and completed pages. Organization is always a good motivator, but I was also encouraged by my mother-in-law's recent, unexpected hard drive failure. She lost all of her pictures (some of which were the only copies), files-- everything. So, I took this as an example of why to have an external hard drive and back up the things you want to keep. Thus, my project of the past three weeks began.
I started by copying all of the files from the desktop to the external drive (that I'd like to refer to as the
POS, but because I'm a
lady, I won't. *deep breath*). Then I hooked the external drive to the laptop and started
cutting and
pasting all the goodies off the C: to the external. Any that I accidentally made a copy of, I deleted. Why? Because I would soon have a nice, concise folder to copy to the C: and I wouldn't need all that excess junk. When the recycle bin was full, guess what? Oh yeah. I hit the "delete these files forever" button like it was nothing. I don't think I even hesitated.
Meanwhile, every new page I created and every new
picture off the camera
got saved directly to the external. To keep things tidy, you see.
Do you have a good picture of what's going on here?
My C: on my laptop is nearly EMPTY of
digi-goodies. The external drive has the ONLY copy of LOTS of goodies.
So, using the available
foreshadowing clues..... tell me, what do you think happened?
After an hour of my own trouble shooting with the company's website, I broke down and called the tech support.
After another hour on the phone with some guy who could barely speak English, and was annoyed at ME for not understanding him, he calmly said,
"Well, ma'am, it seems as though the drive is no longer working. You can contact our data recovery company. After that, contact our waranty department to find out about a replacement."
And that's it.
I called the data recovery people. STARTING at $700. Going up to $3500. May or may not actually retirieve
any of your data.
*deep breath*
*shake it off. it's ok*
So, my almost youngest brother has a friend who works for Geek Squad. He offered to use their technology (at no cost) and see if he can save any of my files.
We find out tomorrow night (hopefully).
And I am beside myself with anxiety when I think about it.
If I don't think about it, I'm ok. But when I do, I almost need a paper sack to breath into.
Not only the fact of how many HOURS of work will be GONE FOREVER..... but also the fact that some of my favorite pictures, that I can not re-create, will be gone forever.
And it's ALL because I thought I'd be smart and back up my files. All because I didn't want to suffer through losing them if a hard drive failed.
See, I told you irony isn't funny.
"Riptide" by SuzieBelle Designs
Helpful Hands
Check it out.
I did the first one (Splash) for the speed scrap last night. I wasn't totally happy with it, so I made some changes and this is how I like it. :) And I also used it for a challenge at Snap and Scrap. They are giving away a really cute circus kit for participating this month, so I want to get it! Anyway, I did the right side while the boys were at swim lessons tonight (irony?) and The Baby was napping. I should have been reading Twilight, but I wasn't.
This page is all "Inspire Me" by Happy Scrap Girl. I'm pretty happy with it. Especially the journaling......
In 30 minutes. Now, we're talking. I can get something done, ya know? Before I spent SO much time just waiting on the computer. Doing this page I was shocked to realize how much time I had been wasting just waiting...... waiting...... for the computer to do it's thing. Now it's as fast as I think. (which is slower on some days, but today it's pretty fast). I may never scrap on the desktop again. It's a good thing I got that external hard drive the other day... its going to be worth it's weight in gold. :)
It's a little more pink than I've ever used.... but this morning I thought of the perfect gift for my mother-in-law and this kit will come in very handy. Her birthday is Saturday. I better get busy. 
Blowing Bubbles
