Hi y'all!

[backafteradozenyrs]

I've been lurking a lot for a long time...guess it was back last Autumn when I last posted? (SOMETHING like that!)

Oh the year we've had! A refrigerator repairman ran over the water line & caused $10k in water damages (remember, we JUST bought this place last September!) So I'm in the middle of a re-model. THEN the casing on the well cracked (DH & I both think the cheesy owner before "repaired" it and that repair lasted all of 6 months). We're glad for the new well, though. The old one had that Iron bacteria junk that makes the water orange & smells awful (but is still considered a "potable" well?!)

To top it all off, DH decided it was time to up-grade my pc (first time in 2 1/2 years) I do all the family finances on this thing, sooooo. I backed up all my important stuff to where he told me too...except that it was still on the same hard drive. When he hooked up the old to download into the new, the old one FRIED OUT. He's done everything sneaky, possible & fattening to get my stuff off the old hard drive. I wanted to cry! Family pictures. My checkbook register (I had been backing up every 3 months & THAT is how far back I had to go to fix it). ALL kinds of business correspondence....on & on. I *thought* I'd seen the extent of the loss last month.

Then it hit me.....my HEAD's & Chat charts! I am SOOOOOO thankful that I thought to forward the original emails to me from HEAD & ECS to my other email! (I had printed out hard copies, but they are in a box somewhere....remember, we've moved!) So I've re-downloaded them from my emails & saved 'em on my hard drive PLUS saving them in my folder on our network (he has a server).

Just a caution to all y'all! Keep MULTIPLE copies of your electronic PDF's (the Chat. charts email actually suggested it to me).

edited to add: I only keep multiple electronic copies because the HEADs & Chats are such intricate charts (ie--will take me YEARS to finish) that I fear loosing my investment! I'll only use each one for one creation--I like to abide copyrights & only keep 1 working copy print-out.

[Rose]

Wow lots of stuff going on. I really hope things will calm down a bit for you and yours.

[Serinde]

No wonder you've not had to time to do anything but lurk! Well, I'm sorry for all that trouble (computers! ), however, hope the new machine was possibly, maybe, perhaps worth it...?

[rcperryls]

so glad to have you back!! You have really been through a lot and I hope that it all slows down for a while. I can imagine that stitching was one of the furthest things from your mind!

When I retired I scanned all our family albums into the computer (took a good long while) because I realized that if we had a hurricane I wouldn't be able to take all of them with us and they could be lost. Then the external backup drive that I had failed, so I decided the pictures were worth using an internet backup service. So I have an external drive and the service. I also email my pdf charts to my gmail account. I know I go overboard a bit with this, but I figure that the $50 or so yearly fee is worth it. The only time I've had to use it was when Shirley deleted all my bookmarks several years ago. Those I could have replaced but not the photos.

Can't wait to see what you plan on working on.

Carole

[Oriettait]

wow that was a though one! I work in the IT and I will never get tired to tell all my coworkers and friend and family to do multiple backups!!