Does Your Backup Have A Backup?

It's official. My external hard drive has died. One of the pins inside the drive where the cord connects has broken and I no longer have access to over 500 GB of information. Luckily, I keep all of my important things on my computer and I have a Mediafire account where I keep some of my ebooks and music stored. You can bet I'll be expanding that selection pretty quickly.

I wasn't really in favour of the concept of "cloud" storage before, but I'm warming to the idea. Google has the new Google Drive, where it will create a folder on your computer and anything you put in the folder will automatically sync with your Google account. You get 5 GB for free, I guess you have to pay for more than that. But I have 4 Google accounts (don't ask) and my MIL and my husband won't be using their storage on their accounts, so I'm pretty sure I can get most of my essential programs and documents uploaded without having to pay. I also have a website where I can store anything that Google or Mediafire might consider "questionable" should SOPA or a version of it ever pass. But the thing about paid accounts is - if you miss a payment, there goes your information. I'm not planning on my husband losing his job - he's an engineer and there are no lack of jobs for engineers - but you never know.

But still, I was a programmer BC (Before Children) and I know how essential backups are. And I know that you always have backups of your backups. So why didn't I? I don't know. But you can bet I won't be making that mistake again. I will buy another external hard drive. I don't always have internet access, the instability of my satellite internet at home guarantees that if we have a hard downpour, my internet will go out. So it will be nice having a hard backup in case of lack of internet. But getting things stored somewhere reliable where I can  get to them again, even if I have to go to the library to do it, will be a very good thing.

My husband is also a CBCP (Certified Business Continuity Professional), where basically they train you to think like a terrorist and examine all the ways a disaster can strike. I think my husband taught them more than they taught him, but I digress. Between the two of us, you'd think we would have had a better plan in place so that we didn't loose all of our important data. But we didn't.

Although, the one most important thing I learned in my college programming classes? KEEP YOUR PAPER DOCUMENTS. All of this nonsense about a paperless business world is crap. If you have a piece of paper documenting your information, it trumps whatever the computer says every time. Walk into any bank with your deposit receipt and even if that deposit isn't in their computer, you'll get your money.

So consider what you have on your computer and what you absolutely have to have, or what would be very expensive to replace. And then backup your backups. Keep your paper documents. Store whatever you can in reliable online storage - XYZ.com Computer Backup Company does NOT count as reliable.

Learn from my mistakes, people. Because even someone trained to avoid this can lose their files. And it's going to cost me a lot of time, effort, and money to replace what I lost.

Feeling Good About Yourself

I am a writer. Not a for-pay writer, but a writer nonetheless. I write fiction and give it away for free on the internet; I even have my own website. Many may scoff at this as a "hobby" but I can honestly say that I have touched people and changed lives with my writing. Not many for-pay writers can say that. And I have the good fortune to have made some amazing friends through my writing. Not superficial "internet friends", but real, in the flesh friends who have made a difference in my life and helped me through.

The last year or so, I haven't been able to write. Life changes, physical changes, dilemmas and laziness have all contributed to my lack of writing. And I have felt horrible. I am a writer - it isn't what I do, it's who I am. And not writing, to me, means that I am not anything.

But today, I wrote for the first time in over a year. I worked on a story that I had begun more than a year ago, but had not touched since. I edited, I researched and I wrote. And I feel good about myself. For the first time in a really long time.

There's something to be said for that.

Housework? Not So Much...

I'm good at making lists. I'm good at making plans. I'm good at setting things up. But the day-to-day doing of things? I suck at that now. Oh, I'm great in a crisis. If you have to go to court or show your house or need five thousand cupcakes in two hours, you want me on your side.

But the dog hair that needs to be swept up every single day? Nope, that's gonna pile up. I know what should be done. I can make you list upon list of what needs to be done and how to do it. I can give you diagrams and websites and references. But actually getting up and going and doing it when I know it's just going to need to be done again tomorrow? Not so much anymore. I hate doing things that have no visible and lasting results. So being a homemaker was really the last job I should have taken. The ultimate no-respect, no-visible-results job.

You can spend eight hours cleaning your house, polishing the  silver, picking flowers and creating a table arrangement, bathing the muddy dog and then mopping up his muddy pawprints, buying your husband new underwear, ironing the tablecloth, and cooking a balanced, nutritious, tasty meal for your family and what does your husband say when he comes home? "What did you do today?" And before you can answer he will say, "My day was horrible; you're so lucky you get to stay home and do nothing all day."

My husband once actually said to a group of people that women had it easier than men because they could "find someone to take care of them and do nothing for the rest of their lives". (He means well, but he's clueless.)

Wouldn't you know it, but that was the day I stopped doing everything without him. If I had to grocery shop, he had to go with me. I stopped cooking dinner and he had to learn how to cook. When errands needed to be done, I could suddenly only do it when he was home to go with me and see all the "nothing" I did.

That isn't to say I did nothing when he was at work. I homeschooled my three children and that can take up plenty of time. I would be up at six to get some time to myself and prepare for school and then I would teach my kids, do the laundry, pay the bills, answer calls for my husband's work, make his work appointments, answer questions about the company computer system because no one at my husband's work seemed to understand it (he works as an engineer for a big insurance company), and then the main housework and errands would be done by the whole family when my husband got home. My husband used to complain that I would be asleep by ten at night and there never seemed to be any time to be romantic. It was all that nothing I was doing that was wearing me out.

And yes, even then, he still wondered what it was I did all day. Look in your drawers, honey. If there are clothes there, then I've been busy.

Alas, the children have grown and gone and it's just he and I. No one to do for anymore. So when he comes home and asks what I've been doing all day, I can honestly - and happily - say, "Nothing."

Life in Purple

Let's start with the name. I am not French. I was born in Philadelphia and raised in New Jersey. But there's an old French song called La Vie en Rose (literally translated to Life in Pink) about looking at life with a rosy view. Well, sometimes that's hard to do. I get overworked or I'm running late and the pink-ness starts to fade. So my life is more of a life in purple. Not quite rosy, but if I keep peddling, I may get there one day.

This blog is going to be about life. My life ... everybody's life. The good, the bad and the indifferent.