Crash & Splash

So I just read a blog from one of my friends and realized I had something relatively important to say.

My computer is toast.It keeps "looping" (official computer guy lingo) at startup and won't stay on.

I'm rather bummed and will blame lack of blogging on that.

I'm extremely thankful it got me through my year as Co-Coordinator, but still bummed.

There was some planning on my part though. I bought an external hard drive and have been backing everything up since last year about this time. Whoo hoo! So, not all is lost. Just the cost of replacing the hunk of metal.

It was a good computer, no, a great computer. It was assembled tailored to my requirements, showed up pre-kids and lasted over 6 years. There were times I was aware that my love for my children might be questioned when compared to my computer. I'M JUST KIDDING! Although, they were told MANY times to stop pushing the computer's buttons or to stop pulling the cords. Normal, "stop trying to destroy the half-way nice things we have in this house" conversations most families have.

So Connie, which by the way sounds like a good name for a computer, has bitten the dust. I was preparing for it, anxiously readying for her demise.

Connie gave me a great 6 years. She was reliable and let me change the Desktop pictures of our children more times than I can count. She trudged through me installing AutoCAD 3, 4, 5 or maybe 10 times. (That is one hard program to install correctly). She took on the tremendous load of installing the Adobe Suite, so I could attempt learning PhotoShop. Ha! There's a reason classes are offered for that! She also was patient enough for me to learn how to edit my blog page's design.

So now, in our time of being so flush with money (I say in jest, you understand?), we're faced with the age-old dilemma of which will cost less? Putting another $100 in to try to get Connie back up and running or cut our repairman costs/losses and buy another one.

Who knows. Thankfully, our neighbors have let me borrow their laptop (which is now my most favorite toy in the whole wide world and has allowed me to continue blogging from my BED, HA!), so my normal daily activities may resume. I'm down to receiving about 3-5 emails per day, so checking emails isn't priority, but being without the internet about half of this week made me realize how much we as a society have put our well-being in the world wide web. The antiquated phone book (yes I still have the smaller version that shows up on our doorstep) didn't have the latest phone number in it for the computer repair shop I was hoping to call, so my second choice was called. Preparing for vacation was/is difficult because I couldn't search for cheaper tickets nor did I have the phone number of the resort. Who writes that stuff down?

Which brings me to my final comment and the connection to my friend's blog I mentioned earlier. She discussed her Life Planner, the paper version, getting some wear and tear on it, so she tried for over a month to switch all planning over to her phone and "go paperless." Her next comment is one I whole-heartedly agree with and forever will be marked as an old person because of it. She said, "If you aren't a paper calendar person, you just won't get it."

Go ahead and throw me in the "getting old group" because I refuse to go paperless. I tried switching to solely digital also, and it just didn't work. I started carrying around a smaller version of a planner in high school and haven't let go since. I would carry around my large leather planner so much when Jim and I were dating, he finally asked why I had to bring it into restaurants or movie theaters. Well duh! Just in case I have to plan something, of course. When we played the ice-breaker game of "What's in your purse?", I failed miserably because I didn't have my purse but I sure did have my planner. It even sits next to my purse in church. See, my planner is spiritual also.

Sadly, I'm afraid the love affair with my planner has been in jeopardy. The enemy of all paper planners, Water, tried to overtake my beloved jewel 4 times in the last 2 months. Each time, accidentally (or so they say), at the hands of my moreso-loved family members. But thankfully, responding quickly, CPR and an air-dry brought the paper back to life, unharmed and legible.

I will say this. It took having a family to appreciate the wear and tear that comes from water marks on my planner. Back in college, my planner pages were flawless. The writing was all in the same ink and uniform, no page corners were creased, the punched holes were not stressed from pulling and Water never knew my planner existed. But my planner now shows "character." Each little mark has a story, and when I glance at it, not only do I know that important stuff is written down in there (like the resort's phone number), but I also know important events happened around it. Events that are way more important than the paper itself or the events it chronicles. Like the time Nathan insisted on reaching beyond his toddler arms could span for my cup of water on the counter, even though his was well within reach, and water spilled on The Planner. I wish I could say my reaction was appropriate, but I do have the where-with-all now to know that the paper dries fine and all it did was push supper back about 10 minutes. Or the time it got wet in the rain because I was holding a little one and they were more important than The Planner.

I'm a nerd at heart and I'll probably enjoy finding ways to embarass our children with my planner. The paper version is way more my style. So bring on the new laptop computer (if that's what you want me to have, Lord?!?!?!?!?), new software and new tasks like setting up my POP3 email server (SNAP! I just learned that tonight), but leave my planner alone. Some things are better just left alone. I'm just sayin'.