Crisis Averted

Whew! That was close ...

One of the two items that remain untended on my Odds & Ends list is to call my Computer Doctor. The computer has been acting rather sickly lately. I can wait and prompt it through what I need to get done and often restarting it speeds it up a notch. But I think it is ill.

Last night I closed all of the programs and prompted the computer to do its updates. The little 'update me' icon sat minimized on the bottom of the screen all day and taunted me as I ignored it. So before I went to bed I remembered to let the computer take care of that little task while I slept.

I woke up this morning to a frozen computer screen. It was stuck in the middle of a 'Windows is now restarting your computer' message. This has happened before. Unplug. Wait. Plug back in. Turn on the computer. And we are set to go for another round. Not this morning.

First, I thought that I just didn't unplug the computer long enough. So I grabbed my netbook computer and distracted myself and read all of the blogs that I follow. Certainly enough time had passed to try again. So I did. Nothing. Absolutely nothing ...

So I unplugged the computer once again and tried to ignore it and pretend it would be okay when I tried again in half an hour or so.

As I sat there pretending, I thought of all that would be lost if the hard drive was fried or the computer had come down with a terminal virus. I thought of the work that I had started and would have to restart from scratch for my bookkeeping job. I thought of the chapters for my Daycare Book, daycare videos and all of the various forms, pamphlets, business cards, etc that I have amassed for my daycare. I thought of the pictures that would be lost.

Oh no. Why haven't I taken the time to learn what I need to do to back up the computer?!?!! Why didn't I call my Computer Doctor when I knew the computer was sick? Why haven't I put what is important to me on a memory stick (at least I have done that with the family history book that I have been working on)?? Why??

Then I plugged in the computer one more time as I sent up a quiet, desperate plea to please, please, please work. And it didn't. Then I hit the power button one more time. Just to be sure. And it started.

Whew.

I will be calling my Computer Doctor today. I will ask for specific instructions (and perhaps pay him to do it for the first time) how to back up the computer. I will bite the bullet and do this before I regret it.

Even though the world would go on spinning if I lost everything on this computer, I would regret losing that which can't be replaced. This computer has become an extension of my brain. It holds hundreds of thousands of my words and memories. I have made a mess of the computer's ability to neatly and efficiently file those words, pictures, videos and documents ... but I know I can find what I need. Eventually.

What if it was all lost? I would simply have to reboot and start over. I would have a fresh slate to organize that-which-is-important-to-me and back up the system as I went along.

Sometimes starting from scratch is the best place to begin. As I correlate this minor computer crisis into Real Life, I can see how the excess clutter is weighing me down. I need to cull through my 'files', organize them, delete that which is obsolete or unnecessary and keep what is important in a safe place.

I've got some work to do. I think I'll start with the computer ...