Then on Tuesday night, after being gone for twelve hours for work and errands, I came home to find a crazy situation. A heavy picture had fallen to the space between my headboard and the wall. On the way, it disconnected a plugged-in power strip and in the process removed the outlet's plate and half the "box." This looked very dangerous to me, and it was late and at the end of a long day. I reached out on Facebook, to my brother by text, and even called an electrician. The advice I received was to not plug anything into the one remaining socket and to not let anything touch this. I moved the mattress and all pillows and linens away from it and slept on the sofa. The next morning at 8 a.m., the electrician arrived. In the end, it was all okay, but a fiasco that took time.
On Thursday, I decided to treat myself to lunch out. One of the things I'm learning is that I need to do this sometimes during the week (not just the weekend), for good food and flavor, and so I did. I took my laptop with me, planning a writing lunch. This was something I looked forward to, as I'd returned to a writing project that week and even written on that novel the night before after a writing group meeting. So at the restaurant I ordered my usual and then turned on my laptop. After a bit, it occurred to me that it was not booting. I did a hard boot, and I got the dreaded screen that something was wrong. I did work through this, not just there (wasting the entire hour) but once back at my office as well, and it resolved itself--I think, I hope. That night I spent most of the evening backing up files and planning a way to be safe, in case this is a bigger problem or in case something else happens. A friend said she'd become lax at this in recent weeks. I think most of us do. The good news would have been that I wouldn't have lost a lot as I'd backed up all files on May 31 to a passport and had most other projects in some retrievable place--files on flash drives and in emails, music on my Amazon account and phone. My journal, a Word file, was the biggest concern as I didn't have a newer backup of it.
So, there were stressful situations this past week, and I did not blog every day. I did, however, deal with each problem as it came along, and I saw the good. My house was okay. I found a reliable electrician. I had him look at four other outlets while there, as the labor costs were already pretty much sunk. My computer is working. My files are backed up. I've ordered a 128gb flash drive to supplement my passport and a number of other flash drives (16 and 32 gb). I even put some podcasts on a couple of flash drives with tiny memories, and I plan to listen to those in the car and then reload.
Last Saturday, I bought the desk I wanted for my bedroom. On Sunday, I spent time cleaning and setting up in there. Though a couple of weeks earlier than usual, I changed my coverlet and other linens to fall/winter ones. I even flipped rugs. I'm set up for fall and to write the novel in this cocoon. I also this past week gathered materials for my lecture project, which approaches fast.
I may not be blogging daily over these next few weeks, or I may. Time will tell. But I'm going to catch up a bit now by posting about a file I found on my computer this week.
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