Crash and Recover

It happened today--the nightmare of all writers. I was pressing toward a deadline (tomorrow noon) to have chapter 4 of my current Bible study completed. I had been waxing eloquent for 3 hours when suddenly my computer starting sending me coded messages: disk full unable to save document; chapter 4 error disk full...I can't even remember what they were. Since I didn't have a disk in my computer, I just "x"ed them out and ignored them when all of the sudden the entire computer froze up. The curser wouldn't move, the letters wouldn't type, and I thought, "Hmmm, I should save this file!" Only, when I went to save it I just received the same weird messages.

So, I did what all computer savvy writers do. I turned off my computer. No, I didn't hit "shut down" I just clicked the switch. Then I left my office to go eat a cold piece of pizza for lunch and I prayed God would recover my file.

After lunch I turned my computer back on, opened the file and sure enough I saw my recovered file in the left column so I clicked on it, only to receive the same error message, "Disk full, cannot read." Then, I got another message "Cannot delete this file" which was fine with me because I DIDN'T WANT TO DELETE IT! So I clicked on the "x" to shut that command down and that's when it happened. My recovered file disappeared.

It vanished into computer never, never land.

I cried.
I prayed, "Dear, God! You know how great that chapter was and that I was more than half way done, Please, please, please give me back that file!"
Then, I called Andrew (our IT guy at TSC). He gave me specific instructions on how to recover lost files, I went through all the steps but my file never appeared again. It was gone.

So, I cried again. I prayed again. I tossed a few books across the room and tore a few slats in my window blinds (accidentally).

And after that, I started over on page one of chapter 4. It's 10PM and I'm not yet back to where I was at noon. But--I'm feeling much better.

At 3PM I had to fetch my 8th grade son. He took me on an errand to Target, then went with me to the post office (to mail books that are completely done and published!) Then we actually made it to happy hour at Sonic and I purchased my favorite Sonic beverage, unsweet peach flavored iced tea. (Sonic ice makes me happy.)

By the time we got home I only had 20 minutes before I had to go get Kaleigh from tennis practice. She and I then took TJ to basketball try-outs (travel team) and then she invited me to Chili's for dinner. We ate, talked about boys and mission trips, and order a chocolate molten cake. Somewhere inbetween "how cute is he?!" And my first bite of chocolate gooey-ness I felt much much better. Molten cake and dinner out with Kaleigh makes me happy.

So, life goes on. I'm trying to finish day 3 (of 5 I need for chapter 4), and I'm sipping some herbal tea (kindly served by Kaleigh). So, I will survive. And now Tom's commiserating with me, and that too makes me happy.