It's About Time

The past few weeks have been filled with technical mishaps. I've learned some lessons the hard way.
Chatting with a friend on Facebook, my screen suddenly froze. Unable to get things moving again, I shut down the computer and restarted. Instead of the usual pictures and welcome greeting, I got "disk read error". Eek. Off to the computer specialist, who pronounced my hard drive dead. So dead he couldn't retrieve any data.
No problem, or so I thought.
I'd faithfully backed up all my work files. All of THAT stuff was completely fine. What didn't even occur to me to back up were all my pictures. Lost are all of Pinch and Moto's puppy pictures. I am sick at heart about this. Those you can never retrieve. I do have SOME pictures, thankfully posted here on the blog and on Facebook. But everything else is gone. So, hopefully you'll read this and have the forethought to back up the little things in your computer.
Speaking of lessons learned, I also learned something important with all the tornadoes we've had this Spring. In addition to putting a bucket and toilet paper in the bomb shelter, important documents and pictures are now safeguarded. All irreplaceable should disaster strike.
But I digress. Back to the dead computer. Hubby let me have free access to his, but he has this weird ergonomic keyboard that has humps to rest your palms on and angled so as to help relieve carpal tunnel. I cannot type on that thing. The computer guy gave me a hard drive so I'd have basic computer capabilities back at home. I can do stuff like blog online just fine, but anything fancy like picture editing or even looking at pictures is a test of patience. But hey it's free so I won't complain.
Then I realized I hadn't been getting many phone calls. Turns out the battery in my cell phone died. Once THAT was fixed, I was embarassed to find out I'd missed quite a few phone calls, some of them of relative importance. Again, Eek.
We cannot afford a new computer. I'd love a fancy new phone, too, but that is out of our reach financially also. So I'm saving up like crazy. First, a new computer, probably a laptop. Then a phone.
Some good news too: my daughter doesn't need heart surgery! Should be dancing and jumping about with joy but relief and finally giving in to exhaustion is what happened. I'm still needing sleep but it's getting better.
With the advent of "getting back to Normal", I didn't realize how much of my life had been put on hold. It's been that way for almost 2 years. First the car accident kept me from making plans. Then Barry's illness. Then Kim's dangerous pregnancy and Ella's precarious health. Then, my daughter's health. Our family didn't dare plan anything as we may need to race to be at my sister's, or my daughter's side at any given moment.
But now we are blessed with normal. Didn't realize how precious a gift Normal is. So the first plans in many years are being drawn up: my daughter and sister will come here to visit. Laurie my friend can come to visit. I can plan to go see my family for a happy reason. What a luxury!
Everything seems heightened, too. I feel so alive and experience giddy joy in every weather moment - awe at the wind, feeling the humidity, listening to the spring sounds of chirping frogs and the beauty of fireflies. I seem to notice the veins in the leaves and color contrasts in clouds.
Although it's been a really rough couple of years we've received yet another gift: realizing an ordinary day is the most wonderful day of your life.