Sunday, November 09, 2008

yes, I would like some cheese with my whine

Yes, I apologize up front...truly I do hate complaining. I know I don't always succeed, but I do try to keep it to a minimum. But one would never know after reading my last post, and now this one. I probably shouldn't post this at all, but I did want to explain why I haven't been and won't be as on top of keeping up with all your blogs.

Frankly, this weekend has just totally sucked.

*Crappy Event #1:
One of Rich's brothers is in the hospital. He was admitted from the ER with pancreatitis. Yes, from long-term alcohol abuse. The doctor said that 50% of people who come in in his condition die before they ever get to go home. My BIL is improving, however, and they think he's going to recover. He was told flat-out that if he keeps drinking, he's a dead man. While I fully believe in miracles, I'm just pretty certain that he's a dead man. Geez, I sound callous here. I don't mean to...we're actually a pretty close family, but his drinking has put a strain on everyone for a long time now. The hardest part is thinking about Rich's mom and all she's going through. It's been almost exactly a year since Rich's dad died and she's finally starting to enjoy her life again.

*Crappy Event #2:
Our computer has gone on strike. (I'm borrowing Rich's laptap right now.) It won't turn on at all. I'm just so afraid about what it's taken with it. I don't understand squat about computers, so I just don't know what to think. Rich just tells me he doesn't know what our chances are of recovering what's on there. And of course, the worst part of it all is that we have no one but ourselves to blame for not having more backed up. Like about a year's worth of photos (Rich is in charge of backing those up, but frankly, I've always been so good about sending them off to be printed that we haven't worried that much about it, figuring that not only do we then have the prints but also that Snapfish has our files if we ever want to order more. Of course, I've been lousy about sending them off lately, and we've now got that year's worth at risk.) Then there's all our home schooling stuff. We can't afford to buy fancy curriculums and whatnot, so I pretty much do all the lesson planning by myself. Seriously, I sometimes feel like I have no life outside of all the work I have to do for home schooling. I organize everything I find on-line and all the lectures, handouts, worksheets, etc. that I type up myself in folders on the computer. I add so much each and every day, that it just seemed ridiculous to back it up constantly, so I only backed it up by the school quarter. So now everything I have for this our current quarter, plus odds and ends of things I'd downloaded to save for possible future use are all possibly gone. Truthfully, I'm in near total panic mode now wondering what I'm going to do. And maybe most heart-breaking of all, there's Annie's writing. Including the 15,000+ words she had written of her current NaNoWriMo novel. But also numerous short stories, both finished pieces and works in progress. And I fear her entire novel from last year's NaNoWriMo, which she has continued editing on and off throughout the year. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think she ever printed off a copy. She's never let us read it all, wanting to wait until she had it polished to her satisfaction. Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for us, would you?

*Crappy Event #3:
Penn State blew whatever hope they had of the National Championship. Yeah, I know that doesn't seem all that important compared to the other things, but I tell you it just sort felt like adding insult to injury.

So, anyway, that's why I probably won't be around so much in the near future. Hope everyone is having a glorious weekend, and I can't wait to catch up with you!

20 comments:

Thoughts of Joy said...

I know this might seem insensitive, but I truly mean it from the heart. I am sorry for the woes you are going through now, but this too shall pass. The light is around the corner. Hang in there! (((Debi)))

Dawn said...

Oh Debi, I can feel your pain. I have a sister who puts herself in situations that are harmful to herself and I'm at the point where I just don't want to hear anymore about it.

My computer was doing the same thing this summer and I just felt sick to my stomach. It would just shut down on it's own and then I couldn't get it to start! It was finally repaired.

My daughter had a laptop that stopped working and she was able to bring it to someone who was able to save her hard drive. There is still hope. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

I hope things turn around for you.

take care,
Dawn

Anonymous said...

Oh Debi, oh Debi, oh Debi...

{{{HUGS}}}

I wish you were near by. My oldest could help out. He's done this sort of stuff in school.

Anonymous said...

I'm totally with you on Crappy Thing #3!

Dewey said...

I'm sorry for your troubles. My husband is a computer guy, so if you think he might be able to help, please email me.

Ana S. said...

I'm so sorry to hear this, Debi :( I'll keep all my fingers crossed! Hopefully you'll be able to recover all the files. I'm really bad about backing things up, so I've had a few scares over the years. But in the end the hard drive was always still intact despite the damage in other parts of the computer. I really, really hope that will be the case with you too.

I'm really sorry to hear about Rich's brother too. Big hugs, Debi.

Anonymous said...

:-( :-( :-( :-(

I'm really, really sorry. With the exception of the football game and homeschooling lessons, I can understand everything else you're going through now, and it's such a rotten feeling. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that nothing was lost from the computer and your BIL will miraculously recover and turn his life around.

Big hugs to you!

Melody said...

Oh Debi, I'm so sorry to hear this! {{Hugs}}

I'm keeping fingers crossed and hope that everything will get better soon!

Jennifer said...

Oh Debi...I'm sorry things are so crappy right now. I truly hope you are able to recover everything from the computer - I know how stressful you must feel right now. I'm so sorry and hope everything works out. And I really hope your BIL can get his act together and turn things around as well!
{{{HUGS}}}

Jean said...

My heart goes out to you Debi, and to Rich and Joyce. She really, really didn't need this right about now. I'll keep you guys in what prayers I do. As for the computer, I second what others said that there are computer problems and there are disk problems. You might end up having to get a new computer, but you can probably still hook up the old hard drive and get to the stuff on it. We got a special case into which you can insert an old hard drive, then connect it to the computer through a USB port. Voila! All the contents of the drive are there. We've recycled two or three old computers but kept the hard drives. As for Annie and NaNo, it's late to say it, but I always keep my NaNo novel on a thumb drive so that (1) I can work on whatever computer I'm near and (2) I don't lose it. In fact, I'm now tempted to make my Christmas present to Annie her own thumb drive to keep all her work on. Waddya think?

kreed said...

Debi-
I am sending lots of hugs to you. I feel like I should just pick up the phone and call but if your house is anything like ours it can be nearly impossible to talk on the phone with all the chaos ensuing all around. So just know I am thinking of you and hoping things are looking a lot better really soon. I know the BIL situation has been bad for a long time - I hope he recovers and this is the wake up call he needs to turn his life around.

What a reminder you gave me to get things backed up. We have an external hard drive that saved my rear when I lost some pictures last year but I must say I am much less diligent about backing things up than I need to be. But as others have said, it is rare that everything is actually really lost from the computer - hopefully it will just take a little tweaking to get it all back.

It has been a bad football year for us here...it does just make a bad day a little more gloomy.

Take care and hugs to all of you...

Bookfool said...

Oh, so sorry about all that. My uncle survived pancreatitis. I have no idea if he drinks a lot, but I do know he drinks and smokes but still has way outlived my clean-living father. Kinda pisses me off. But, there's nothing you can do to stop people from abusing their own bodies. Hugs to you.

As to #2 . . . bit of advice. We had a computer crash, one year, and my husband did some investigating to see if he could find an inexpensive place to recover the memory from our hard disk. We found a couple of students who did memory recovery to make a little money and were dirt cheap by comparison with the companies that are in it to do quick recovery for businesses. We had to wait a few weeks, but it was only about $140 -- most cost in the thousand range. So, look for students if you need help.

DesLily said...

oh boy, I do hope they manage to save your harddrive for you. That really is awful... I think we all put too much of ourselves on our computers to the point it's a devastating loss to us should the computer crash.

I back up once a month, but it's never enough. The person who invents something that automatically backs up your whole computer every night will be an instant billionaire!

Jean said...

Deslily and others, get a Mac running Leopard, connect it to an external hard drive, and let Time Machine back up your computer pretty much constantly. You can even go back and retrieve an earlier version of a document you've been modifying if you decide you don't like the way you've revised it. Very, very nice!

chrisa511 said...

(((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))

Is that a big enough hug? lol I'm sorry to hear about all of this crap Debi. As you know, I have a relative who won't stop drinking either despite having to recently have triple bypass surgery, my dad. I know how absolutely frustrating it can be to see someone throw their lives away like that and I really hope to god that things turn around for him.

As for your computer, that's awful!! I hope that everything can be salvaged. The same thing happened to me with my last computer (an HP) and it upset me so much! I'm definitely buying a Mac next time.

Hang in there Debi!!! Big hugs again!

Megan said...

I'm so sorry to hear that things aren't going well for you at the moment. Don't feel bad about using your blog to complain - sometimes doing a mind dump of all that stuff can be so therapeutic. I know it is for me!

Hope your BIL does recover and takes it seriously enough to make some changes in his life. Here's hoping that, at the very least, you'll be able to get most of the stuff back from your striking computer, too!

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

I'm sorry to hear about your brother in law. Have faith that he will do what he needs to do in order to make things right with himself and others (or maybe just hope). Husband's dad basically died in front of him when he was 10 years old--alcoholic. The doctors told him he would die if he ever took another drink. He's been sober ever since (of course, he still drinks his NA beer like a fish...). It's been a tough battle, but that's when you learn what you are made of.

In terms of the computer--I am terribly terribly sorry. I fear that my computer is going to crash on me any minute and have been backing it up every couple of weeks. This reminds me that I need to do it NOW before I loose the last couple of months worth of pictures (since I haven't been good about printing them either). I hope you're able to recover Annie's work--how devestating!

And I wish I could offer wishes for Penn State, but since we are Texas Tech Red Raiders it only helps us out... Eeeks...stop giving me that look!! :)

Ok, back to the hugs. Hope things look up...

Anonymous said...

oh dear oh dear. oh dear oh dear oh dear!

thats all i can say!

my thoughts are with you!

(and i can VERY much relate to the computer frustrations...!!!)

Carl V. Anderson said...

I am so sorry to read about all these things. I work in the mental health field and part of that is of course working with people who abuse substances. They are a frustrating group of people to work with because of the fact that so many of them may want to get better but do not manage to actually succeed at it. Ultimately what has to happen is that those who work with them and those who love and care about them have to be able to love them in spite of their choices and their disease and not let themselves be dragged under by the depressing state of affairs that often are these peoples' lives. It is a hard, hard thing to do. I'll keep him, and all of you, in my prayers.

I've had so many computer issues this year but nothing like what you guys are going through. I am so very sorry. It is easy to want to blame yourself because of not backing stuff up but the reality is that few of us do. It is a good habit to get into, especially regarding photos and things one is writing, but again who thinks about it? I sincerely hope that your stuff can be recovered somehow and again I am so sorry, especially with all the stuff that Annie may lose. I hope things get better from here on in!!!

Kim L said...

I'm sorry to hear of all the crappy things going on for you. Family problems suck! I have a self-destructive sibling that I can't even talk about sometimes I get so frustrated with him. I hope things go well.

Computer do indeed suck as well sometimes! I hope you are able to get it fixed. I know when I have had issues and brought my computer to Best Buy, they can make a copy of the hard-drive even when you can't turn the computer on. Hopefully they can do something like that to your's. Best of luck and lots of hugs.