Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!
Biggest After Christmas Frustrations (with a Lesson I Hope I Learned)
Instead of doing a “most popular” post, I decided to tell you about the biggest end of year frustration because that’s been on my mind the most. My main computer died completely the day after Christmas, and I wasted a whole day trying to get it back up, which was fruitless. We finally trotted down to Best Buy to have the Geek Squad take a look. Silly me, I thought the $200+ I paid up front was for fixing it. But it didn’t cover parts. More money to have a new hard drive installed…it turned out to be the most expensive “gift” I got for Christmas.
A new hard drive means all data lost. Guess who doesn’t do back-ups? I know, hanging head in shame. All data lost, including passwords, photos, downloads…everything not in email archives or website…gone. Not possible to retrieve, although if it had been possible…it would have been another $149. Might as well have bought a new computer.
So I was without my computer for 4 days. I didn’t think I was going to survive.
“What else can I do around here to make best use of my time,” I asked myself.
Turns out losing the computer was a cloud with a silver lining because I got caught up on things I’ve procrastinated on for years, such as:
Purging the Attic Room
- Out went 12 gym bags and other assorted bags (why only 2 people have 12 gym bags is a story for another day.)
- I spent another 30 minutes going through every pocket and zipper compartment on all 12 bags looking for the $20 I just knew was there, and found 1¢.
- I found 5 packages of ear protectors, 2 packages of hand warmers, dental floss, Tums, a plastic spoon, and my workout gloves I thought I lost.
- 1 large hanging clothes bag for travel that I’ve never used
- a box of Christmas bows I haven’t touched in years
- my Mom’s old bedside commode…missing the bucket
- carpet remnants
- 2 old pairs of zippered water shoes, which my first husband and I used 30 years ago when we went canoeing or hiking. I’m too old to go wading in creeks.
- old pillows
- my husband’s Desert Storm camo gear, which I’ll try to sell soon
- an old fan frame with no fan…why have I saved this for 40 years??? I’ll tell you why. Because our family had the “save everything” mentality. I’m for ditching it. Watching Mom kill herself in various moves saving things like an old train table when we didn’t have a train, was painful. I want to be rid of the stuff.
Purging Christmas Decorations (and I Still Have Too Much)
- Ornaments I’ve never liked
- My mom’s 60’s era tabletop school-room Christmas tree that wobbled
- The “J” from a Christmas Joy sign for the yard. The “O” and the “Y” died in a storm.
- Several Christmas things I’ll try to sell next year
Purging the Box Room
- The box room where I store boxes for selling on Etsy. It was so bad I thought we had rodents rearranging my boxes, but it seems that every workman who comes always heads for that room. If the boxes are in his way, he evidently gives a mighty shove or kick, and my precious boxes, organized by size, go flying.
- I store Christmas decorations here, and the boxes were shoved so close to them, I could barely get to anything this year. I moved them all to another attic room, which I’ve been wanting to do a couple of years now.
- I purged unsuitable boxes, and rearranged the whole room. You wouldn’t believe the change.
The Last Frustration (and the biggest)
The other huge frustration…I couldn’t login to my website! None of my other devices (old desktop, old laptop, tablet, hubby’s Mac) would work!
- Couldn’t remember the password. It was stored on the old hard drive.
- No problem, right? Just change it. Ha!
- 2-3 more attempts with different passwords…still couldn’t login.
- Must have the user name wrong. Verified that with my designer. It’ll be a snap now!
- Still couldn’t login.
- WordPress blocks too many login attempts. Lost 2 days with that.
- Changed the password again. Said a little prayer and used a different user name, and it worked! Go figure.
I got it back on my birthday and just in time to write this post. Alas, it didn’t stay down long enough because I have more I want to do! Maybe in 2018 I’ll have another crash, and I can get more done! Please, I know I didn’t just say that.
Florence
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Lol! Sorry….but lol! Computers are great but s**t happens to them and stuff is lost out there in the great black void. Been there, done that. Photos that my husband SWORE were safe in the company’s computer system with all of it’s fancy backup systems…..that apparently aren’t worth a tinker’s damn if the mainframe crashes. My photos. Gone. Forever. Passwords,etc. Gone.
Write them down in a small notebook. Put them in your safe. Switching over to hand me down iPhones was a nightmare. Two days wasted
because going from one company to another required a pin number that had been created ten years ago that had never been required or asked for in all of those years for ANYTHING. Get a small notebook, write them down. Put it in your safe.
Computers are great. But s**t happens. Sigh. Ask me how I know.
Oh you’re so right! When they’re working right, they’re wonderful, but when they’re not….ARGH…such frustrating pieces of you know what. Oh I’m so sorry for your loss! I know what it feels like now. I have most of my passwords saved elsewhere, but I didn’t save it for the website. Corrected now.
Oh, nooooooo!!!!! I’m so sorry you lost everything! That makes me want to cry. You struck panic in my heart thinking about what I’d lose if it happened to me — and this computer is 8 years old. Occasionally it coughs and sputters like it’s dying. (Not literally, but you know what I mean.) It could happen at any moment. I don’t back up either, but I’m thinking I might spend at least part of today putting important things – like the copies of my grandma’s old family pictures – on a stick.
If the first part of your post made me sad, the second part made me laugh out loud. Yes, literally. Twelve gym bags? Don’t know about you, but picturing our “collections”, 8 out of 10 of those bags would have a company name on them. Free gifts.
And only finding a penny? Too bad! A twenty or two would have been nice after all you’d been through. Even a dollar! But a penny? Boo hiss.
Isn’t it funny the things we save? We had a carpet cleaning disaster last week and because of the fumes, Ricky had to take it up before we died from breathing them. The piece under the couch was fine. Untouched. And he said, “I’m gonna keep this piece!” Groan.
Happy New Year’s Eve and happy birthday and here’s to a wonderfully, healthy and prosperous 2018!
Your computer is 8 yrs old? Mine is only about 3, but it was the store model. Don’t think I’m getting another one of those again. Oh yes, the things we save! You wouldn’t believe how many empty boxes I got rid of…just old dusty empty boxes. Oh I’m sorry about your carpet disaster. I can just picture it. Happy New Year to you too Wanda!
I recently had a crash, too. Thank goodness I had an old backup. We’ve learned…maybe.
I’ve also started a new blog. It goes live on January 1st. I need to figure out how to come up with content for it. I can only share my thrift store finds so many times! There should be a place on the internet that gives blog prompts!
Thank goodness for any backup you had Fonda! You’ve started a blog? It goes live tomorrow? You must be excited! Do a google search for ideas for blog posts. You’ll find a ton. I’m happy for you. Be sure & let me know what your site is going to be.
Florence I’m so sorry to hear that you had such a battle with your computer. I’ve been there also. I learned the hard way to keep everything on an external hard drive, and even that is no guarantee. Well at least you were able to take care of so many other things with your down time. I want to wish you a healthy and happy new year and I know that the blog is going to do great!!
Thanks Mary. Nice to know I’m not the only one in this predicament. Wishing you a safe, happy, and healthy New Year!
I am sorry for your troubles but sounds like you put a positive spin on it. As always you had me laughing until I cried. Happy New Year!
Thanks Sharon! You just made my day!
I put myself on a online diet for the holidays. I did not do very well staying off the phone and the computer but I tried and yes, you can get a lot done! Happy belated birthday. So sorry about the computer crash. I plan to back mine up tomorrow morning.
Oh my goodness…an online diet? For me….impossible! Sounds soo attractive though!
Oh, gosh, that’s a sad story, Florence! Plus a few other words that would probably fit! Reading about your crash I am getting a little nervous as my iMac is getting pretty ancient. Let’s see, my daughter bought it for me in…..somewhere near seven and ten year ago! At any rate, I am not able to up-grade to a new operating system for it anymore, so it’s old. I am thinking I could have big trouble sooner than later with it. But, gosh, the new ones are so expensive.
The story behind me even getting this one in the first place is kind of funny. My daughter’s friends wanter her to go out of town to a casino and play Bingo with them. She said she couldn’t because she didn’t have the $20. it cost to buy a bingo ticket. So they all chipped in and bought her ticket for her. She bingoed and won $4,000.! She said when she went to collect the woman at the payout window asked her if she’d like to buy another round and she said, “I said NO!, stuffed my money in my purse and told the others I’m ready to go!” So she paid her friends off the $20. and came home with $3,090. Then, secretly, she bought the computer and surprised me for my birthday. She’d told me she won the money, but I didn’t know she was going to spend it on a computer for me. The biggest surprise I’ve probably ever had!
But, as I said, that was a while ago. Maybe I should be thinking about sending her to the casino again! Ha, ha!
Well, I hope everything gets resolved regarding your crash. I’m sure it’s been a horrendous frustration. But look at all the cleaning and purging you got done! Lemons into lemonade, right! Hope your New Year from here on in is Happy with NO crashes of ANY kind!
Now that’s a different way to obtain a laptop! Maybe Macs last longer than the other kind if yours is still going strong. Oh yes, new ones are so expensive. I looked into that too, but the only reason I had it fixed was to save my data. But it wasn’t possible anyway. This one of mine isn’t that old either…so another incentive to keep it. Thanks for your comment Naomi! Happy New Year to you!
Just had to have hard drive replaced on 2.5 yr old laptop. I use Google Chrome & all my bookmarks are in that. I can log into that from any computer & have my saved “stuff”. All photos are saved in email. If you’re going to back up regularly on an external hard drive, you should use 2 of them in case 1 fails! Computers are a pain in the a**, no doubt. I really enjoyed this post, so happy you made lemonade from lemons. & my laptop was out for 8 days after I took it in. So you were “unfortunate” to get yours back so soon. LOL Happy new year!!!!
Good ideas Naomi! Wish I’d saved stuff in Bookmarks. I tend to use “Pocket,” which is a free app & everything in it saved. Need to look for more ways to save. Haven’t thought of saving photos in email, but that’s a good idea too. Everything in email saved thank goodness. There’s a lot there I didn’t want to lose. Well, I guess I was lucky that I got mine back after 4 days since yours was out 8. So glad to get it back, but it was nice to have a “vacation” too. Ha! Happy New Year to you!
OH MY GOSH!! I can relate – this happened to me a few years ago and I learned my lesson. I use Google Drive to back up EVERYTHING. My photos are automatically added and I add my blog posts once a month manually. But you sure accomplished a lot without the computer lol! I’m still purging in anticipation of us moving in 5 years haha! That’s how long it will take to get rid of everything! I’ve purged my craft and stamping room at least three times. I find I can’t part with it all at once but if I clean it out once a month, I get rid of more and more!
I have Google Drive, and I just upgraded. When I have more to save, I’m going to start using it. Thanks for that great idea! Yes the purging was wonderful. I finally got rid of stuff I should have let go years back. The hard part is going to be purging the more sentimental stuff, and the more valuable things I don’t use. Haven’t done that yet. Good for you for starting early for your upcoming move!!
Happy New Year Florence and Happy Birthday! Computers are THE MOST frustrating piece of equipment, aren’t they?? I am sorry you had to deal with that frustration and hope that it will never happen again. In the meantime, I haven’t backed up my blog is a really long time. Good reminder for me to go do that! Thanks! All the best in 2018!
Thanks Kim! Yes computers are frustrating. They are like eyeglasses, or at least mine anyway. Can’t do without them, but can’t see enough with them. Sometimes I look at my computer and want to scream and toss it out into the driveway.
Oh no that’s terrible! I had to get a new hard drive recently l, and not was that expensive. U could of bought a new laptop almost instead. I’m thankful that u had some warning, and was able to back up stuff. But the time bluehost lost all my photos on my blog I wanted to sit down and cry. But after asking around I found a computer tech and he was able to restore them all.
Happy to hear that you were able to get something productive accomplish even if it wasn’t blog relative. That us something that I need to do. We have boxes still unpacked from our move 3- 4 years ago, plus a closet full of clothes that don’t fit. I am thinking of trying to clear out using eBay. I bought a couple ebooks on it.
I hope 2018 is a good year for you, and with no more crashes. 😊
Just what I was thinking at the time…could have bought a new one. The only reason I had it fixed was to save the data, but couldn’t save it anyway. Bummer. I wasn’t able to back up anything, but a few things were still there thankfully. I’m glad you got your photos back…my goodness, Bluehost lost them? That would be terrible! So happy to have gotten a little purging done! I can imagine you still have boxes packed left over from moving. Look at it this way…if you haven’t needed it enough to open the box, you don’t need it! You can donate it! How’s that for logic??
Such a frustrating story! I too have learned the hard way and did no back up and ended loosing all my pictures and logo a few months ago! In fact I was hoping to use one of the logo for a new look! We’ll life goes on. Happy New Year.
Maria
Yes life goes on. Hasn’t been too bad really. Just have to deal with it. Happy New Year to you too Maria!
Oh my gosh, I was feeling panic reading about how you lost everything. My laptop has been acting up lately and now I’m scared. As soon as I’m done commenting here I’m backing up everything onto an external hard drive. A few years ago I spilled an entire cup of coffee on my laptop and it was toast. So I remember that panic feeling. Sorry to hear the end of 2017 was such a stressful one for you. Sorry, but you had me laughing out loud at the 1¢. Well, at least you started 2018 with a new slate, literally. Happy New Year!!!
LOL, I seem to be having that effect on people. They plan to go back up immediately. Glad you enjoyed the post Marie! That would be my horror…to spill coffee (or anything) on the laptop. I’m always doing 3 things at once…one being eating & drinking while I’m working. It’s bound to happen sooner or later, I guess.
Thanks for all the info and a good laugh. It CAN be so frustrating, and in the end, somehow we figure it out. I liked reading about your purging and organization. I started, but definitely need to do more. Ugh.
Friday is the day for me to keep this pattern going…
Good luck with your purging Meegan, and thanks for dropping in. Glad you enjoyed the post!
Oh that’s just awful Florence. It’s not a nice way to end off the year but I’m happy you found some time to clean out and purge some stuff. Sometimes we need to take that break from technology, even if we didn’t want to. It’s good for the soul and makes us realize how desperately dependent we’ve become in a world of interconnected data and devices. I hope 2018 treats you well my friend
You’re right Michelle. Not a nice way to end the year, and so frustrating, but it was good for me to be unconnected for a while. I remember you talking about “laptop butt.”Ha! I definitely can relate to that one. So it was good to get the butt in gear for a change.
This is great, Florence! I mean, it’s not great that you went through all this hassle and the loss of your computer ~ your story is great and SO RELATABLE. Thank you for the laughs!!! I love the O and the Y that died in a storm but the J was held onto. I have to tell you, my inlaws are HORDERS and I dread the day when Charles and I have to go over there and try to make heads or tails of all their stuff, plus Charles’ grandmother’s stuff out in two sheds outback, and even more stuff from ancestors cracking and dying in their main garage. {I hope my mother-in-law NEVER sees this post… Lol!
We are both thinking the same thing: get rid of it! When we get all of our stuff here from California {or purge it there before it gets hauled this way and costs money in the process} hopefully next spring, we will be donating and selling a lot. Just don’t need it and will be cutting out losses. 🙂
Glad you got your computer back and that you were able to clean out this attic room. Doesn’t it feel good to get a long needed project done?!!!
Barb 🙂
I know what you mean Barb. I dread that task for you. Maybe you won’t have to be the one that does it. Maybe they will already have done it by the time that comes. Ha…in a perfect world, right? So glad you enjoyed the post! And could relate to it.
Whenever I read about issues with computers, I literally feel a pit in my stomach! I can relate to this in many ways, Florence, and always feel helpless when it comes to tech-stuff. But, you really did make the most of all your spare time. Good for you for turning this frustration into something productive and fruitful.
Thanks Jelica! Scary when you realize you lost everything! Be sure to backup if you haven’t already. Don’t do like I did.
You had such a time. And woke me up, I feel like I am living on the edge. I do have all of my passwords in a book though. You make me laugh and cry. !2 gym bags? But we may have a use for it, right? Glad you are back up and running.
I have all my passwords written down too, but can’t replace those photos! Darn! Glad you enjoyed the post!
You sure found the silver lining. Thanks for hosting Sweet Inspiration Link Party. My shares this week are “Use Colors You Love in the New Year” #100, and “Shower Power and Affirmations” #101. I’ll pin and re-share this and as many posts as I can, because so many look great.
Thanks Nancy! Appreciate your shares and pins!
Oh my what an experience! It’s a good lesson for us all to BACKUP! Glad you accomplished so much!
Yes it is Laura! My lesson for us all…Back up! Thanks for coming by to comment!
Oh God! Reading your post Florence I realized that I have no a backup at all! I am so sorry you had all these troubles with your computer. I am useless with technology and I know that if something happens to mine I will lost everything. But I wish you Happy New Year and no issues at all 🙂
Hi Christina! I’m useless with techie things too. Hopefully you have a resource you can turn to. I didn’t think it would happen to me either, but it did. Go get that backup! Don’t be like me.
OH NO! That would be my worst nightmare, Florence! I can’t even imagine. We finally bought an external hard drive last summer, after our daughter shamed us into getting one. She actually recommended one that is sold at the Apple store and it’s been so easy to use. You had me laughing about your purging and all the items you found. That was hilarious, but why do we do this to ourselves? When we moved over 4 years ago, I thought we had gotten rid of all those ridiculous things we had kept, but every now and then something will show up and it’s like “why did we pay to have this moved with us”.
Carol you’ve inspired me to get an external hard drive from Apple so this won’t happen again. I’m encouraged to hear that it’s easy to use, since I’m so non-techy. Glad you enjoyed the post! Thanks for dropping by.