A Word to the Wise

A China doll and American Girl Kit Kittredge (compliments of my cell phone)

Well, not really. Because if you are wise, you don't need to hear this. BACK UP EVERYTHING ON YOUR COMPUTER! Trust me...I learned the hard way. A few weeks ago I was checking my email and my computer locked up. I left it, came back later, and tried to figure out what was wrong. Pretty soon, I realized this was beyond my ability (pretty much anything to do with computers is beyond my ability). I called Justin, who helps us when we have computer problems and deserves a medal for dealing with such a computer idiot as myself, to come take a look. He took it with him and called me in a few hours with some not-so-good news. This is pretty much how the conversation went...

J (very nicely): Hey Kristen, um, have you been backing up on your computer like I mentioned to you when I set it up for you (in January)?

Me: um, no. Is it bad?

J (very slowly): yeah, kind of. Looks like your hard drive crashed. I'm pretty sure everything's gone.

Me: Everything??? Really??? Well, I do have my pictures on CD's.

J (very relieved): Whew, that was my biggest concern. (He knows how many pictures I have because he transferred them from my desktop to my laptop when he set it up).

Soooooo....I am pretty sure I have all (if not all, then most) of my pictures on CDs in our little fire-proof safe (Praise the Lord!). I always get a CD when I clear my camera card. What I no longer have is my Word documents,(nothing Word period...I had just bought and downloaded it online a while back. The good news there is that I didn't have many documents), my email addresses (so shoot me an email so you will be back in my contacts), my pictures ON my computer (can't just grab one here or there for a post or to email), my digital software, my iTunes library (I am clueless here. The songs are, obviously, still on my ipod, but I have no idea how this affects my library. Anyone?), and so on.

Thankfully, my computer was still under warranty so they replaced the hard drive for free. Yay! I shipped it off, and just got it back this weekend. So I have been missing all your blogs (and also missing email and online bill pay...thanks to my friends Ellen and Emily who loaned me their laptops so I could pay bills and sort through emails periodically). I have been very tempted to sit down and play "catch up" on all the posts I missed, but I am afraid neither my husband nor my children would appreciate that too much:)

Yes, it was extremely inconvenient to be without a computer for a few weeks.I definitely think God was teaching me a little lesson about what a spoiled brat I can be. It is, after all, just a computer. My friend, Angela, referenced a quote in Bible study last week that I loved. I do not remember the source and I am paraphrasing, but it was something like, "The only two things that are eternal are the word of God and the souls of man. If your focus is not on the eternal, then it is of this world." Don't you just love when someone says a word that puts things right into perspective? And doesn't that make you want to go out and tell everyone about Jesus so they will know they have an eternal spot in Heaven?

OK...I am off to find out what a jump drive is and what in the world I do with it. (At one time, I thought it was called a "junk" drive. No joke. See what I mean about computers being beyond me?)