Monday, Monday!!

In Response to the latest comments...



The responses to the Splash Into Summer Giveaway make me want to cry... I mean, so many people have lost some sort of digital content.  But this comment takes the cupcake so far... if we were handing out prizes for craziest disaster, YOU WOULD WIN, April!!!!  Not sure how prestigious that is, but being chosen by lightning has to be worth a cupcake, at least!!  Please, have one for all of us (with a cup of tea, of course!)

~April~Monday, May 28, 2012 1:53:00 PM PDTI have had several computers to crash but I think my worst experience was when my house got struck by lightning and took out my computer, router, modem, external harddrive, phones, TV and everything else electronic in the whole house. :-)

I felt super-bad about ~Enamored Soul~'s story, too. She paid to get your info back, only to find it was irretrievable. UGH.  See... that sort of thing makes me so glad to have geeks for relatives. My bro laid it to me straight... "You can pay $120 to try and retrieve data, but you have a 50% chance of not retrieving anything. Up to you." I have my broken hard drive in case I remember something I simply can't live without, but until then.... I'm recovering from the blow and movin' forward. 

You know?

I mean, I'm totally suspicious of all things digital and backing up my back-ups, but Onward Ho!!!



Speaking of which, is anyone else doing the Armchair BEA?!  :-D  Woohoo!!  I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'M IN!!!!!!

I think there's gonna be cool interviews and swag & books to win and fun stuff, which I can "attend" in my PJ's. I'm all about hangin' out in PJ's as long as possible!!!

If you're IN... register over HERE.  Or fill me in on how to join in on all the fun. I'm like an enthusiastic top spinning in circles, ready to go, but not sure which direction. Woopee!!

It's Monday, What Are You Reading is hosted by Book Journey.

I'm reading Failstate, of course. I'm still finishing Insurgent (I might break a record on the longest time reading such a fast-paced book.) I'm critiquing a book that I WISH I could talk about... I so seriously LOVE IT!!!!  And, of course, I'm writing mine. Which is also rather exciting, if I can say that about my own ms.  (That's a little weird, isn't it? I get all trembly exited, anticipating the next scene as it flies off my fingertips, so that counts as "exciting", right?  No promises of delivering all the trembles to the paper, but that's sort of the plan. *ahem* Theoretically.)

Next book?  


I don't even want to go there.

I'm carrying around so many books that I can't wait to start, it's ridiculous. I nearly snarled at the gas station attendant again for not taking longer to fill my gas tank. Forty bucks just doesn't take long to pump, anymore, what with all the great gas prices and all. (If I could paint that sentence with the color of thick sarcasm, I would. Oh, why do I need an SUV?!  Oh right... 'cause we had so much fun having kids, we grew out of economical rides. But that's a bunny trail for lazy Saturday.)


Memorable Monday is hosted by Escape in a Book.

This week I'm sharing a fun confrontation from Failstate. All the heroes are in costume, waiting to talk to reality show cameras about a recent tragic death.

Kid Magnum roared and took another step back. Barrels popped out of his wrist plates and he took aim at me.  

I lashed out with my power to form a destructive field that was flat and thin, like a knife blade. I drove it between his armor plates. 

A second later, most of Kid Magnum's armor clattered to the floor, the straps cut from within. He froze, his head tipped at the pile of metal at his feet. Pg 83

I get a kick out of the cool super powers mixed in with such normal people, like Kid Magnum watching his cool armor clatter to the floor. A few pages later, they're negotiating who's going to pay to replace the cool wrist guns and the benefits of keeping backups handy. Just cracks me up.

Snapshot - Purges and Roller Coasters

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by At Home With Books. I took some liberties adding the pic of Julian and the video at the bottom. This is strictly a "share your own pictures" hop, so feast yer eyes on the first pic, Snapshotters!!

This week finds me very serious. *____*

I took a picture of the pop-up box that was the entire extent of communication between me & my laptop this week. I tried "Repair" and it worked at it aaaaaaaallllllll day. I was hopeful all day, too.

Then I tried all the other options, which took monumental patience, 'cause this box took about an hour to pop up each time I restarted my computer.

The grand conclusion was my Hard Drive was totally busted beyond retrieving stuff. I should be crying about the pictures lost, but I shared so many of 'em in emails and posts and Facebookin' that I feel challenged, instead, to track down my 2011 and get it back.

You know what I freaked out about?  Well... after I realized I could find all my books somewhere, 'cause I missed them all instantly. My writing.  After freaking out, which looked a lot like Juliette in Shatter Me freezing immobile while her thoughts flew (only I'm not quite that hot) I realized that very little would have to be rewritten from scratch. (Tentative *phew!*?)

I'm still in a frozen state of "Should I panic now?" I'm not quite ready to relax and say, "All's well", yet. I keep waiting to remember that essential thing that I can't live without that is locked inside that stubborn Hard Drive.

This morning I felt like I needed to post, but my thoughts are obviously much too serious, still, to come up with something cute & witty.  For the Splash Into Summer Giveaway, I asked for comments sharing other digital disasters and my heart keeps breaking every time I read one. We trust technology with our treasures, you know? And sometimes it drops the ball.

I've also been thinking about Journaling, which I'm going to blog about soon. For me, it relates closely since I jot down my thoughts all over the place. This is sort of a leap, but it makes sense in my head.

I've had three major Purges in my short life.  

This past week counts because it wiped my slate totally clean and I've launched into this Evaluation Mode of What's Most Important, prioritizing my time and cleaning up my storage spaces. (It reminds me of doing taxes, but it's all emotional ties instead of receipts.)

The second  major Purge was when thieves broke into our house two years ago and stole my laptop and other irreplaceable treasures. That was much harder than just losing a Hard Drive. It was creepy. Someone had thrown my underwear on the floor, figuratively & literally. I wasn't online as much two years ago, so it was harder to track down missing pictures, too.

The third major Purge was self-inflicted. My mom reminded me of when I threw away all my journals my senior year of high school. I remember that I "sacrificed" my favorite stuffed animal from my childhood and my favorite book, but I'd forgotten about the journals. (I was looking for them the last time I cleaned out the storage!)  My goal was to start new and fresh and forget the past, I guess.

It became a bonding thing between my Love & I when we first got together 'cause he dumped his past into the Willamette River.  NOT recommended!!

I mean, don't clutter up beautiful rivers, for one, but also... it's not the stuff from the past that clutters a future, it's the choices we make. If I could rewind time, I'd tell both of us to choose something symbolic to represent the New Beginning. *snort*  There's plenty of Purging that comes naturally.

Pretty serious thoughts for a Saturday morning, hey?

It was really bad timing for me... or maybe really good?  (Definitely "really" something!) 'Cause I feel like I'm lookin' down the barrel of an impossible three weeks. Most of it's personal stuff I'll have to share very figuratively, if at all.

But I can share that our kids both have their "Golden Birthdays" this year. (Is that the right term?!) Trinity is turning 7 on the 7th of June and Dash is turning 13 on the 13th of June. I am looking forward to making this year memorable for them.

Not "memorable" as in "The Year Mom Really FREAKED Out" either!!  Lol. Although, I'm not sure how I won't go insane, yet.  A gun is not a very good example of how I feel 'cause that just leaves me to dodge bullets really, really fast like Failstate in the book I'm reading.

So, instead, I'm going to imagine I'm at the top of a roller coaster and I found you a video so you can share the experience with me!!

Julien: [as the plane dives] Raise your arms, Maurice! It's more fun when you raise your arms up like this, ah ha ha ha! 

Wow - Etiquette and Espionage + Update!

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine.

I found this amazing-looking book on an author update on Goodreads... a feed off of Gail Carringer's blog.  I love the colors & the similarity to the Parasol Protectorate Series... but the title. Oh MY!!  This sounds like a book I can't wait to get my hands on... only I'll have to. Wait, that is. It doesn't come out 'til next February!!! What's up with that?!

 

Etiquette & Espionage

by Gail Carriger

It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to finishing school.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is the bane of her mother's existence. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea--and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right--but it's a different kind of finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine's certainly trains young ladies in the finer arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing: the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at school.

First in a four book YA series set 25 years before the Parasol Protectorate but in the same universe.

Update:  I brought my laptop out to my brother today (an hour away). He's a programmer and my dad, a professional tech supporter, zipped over with his computer tools and something that will suck info off my hard-drive.

The prognosis is that my hard drive did, indeed, crash. I'm not sure whether I should pull my hair out that I haven't backed anything up for a year... or whether I should count all my blessings.

'Cause I had started rewriting my book... so all my previous drafts are on my Nook to read and I hadn't written much, yet, compared to next month, even. (Which will be backed up!!!!)  And I posted so many of my favorite pictures somewhere. All my books are all retrievable, if they aren't already on my Nook... which leaves my blog. If Blogger will just behave 'til I get my other duckies all in a row, I shall be so careful to back up everything everywhere.

Of course, the biggest blessing is having family that will leap to my rescue, saving me a lot of money in repairs for the time (and care!) involved in this rescue.  Greater yet is the undistracted quality time I've been spending with my family, since it's so awkward to get online.

I wish I could claim extra reading time, too, but I've been running around like a maniac. I'll see if I can't add that to my Thankful List while my laptop is painfully far away getting worked on.

Since I did not get my post up for Shadow on the Wall today, I will have an author interview with Pavarti Tyler SOON, which will be even better!!!

If only I pre-wrote my posts a week in advance!!!!  Yea... right.

NO!!!!

Oh, yes.

I'm outa here... takin' an impromptu vacation. I think it serves me right for posting how I had "so much to do" yesterday. Having a deliciously busy schedule is a LUXURY!! I will not forget that (for a few weeks, at least) if I can get my computer up and running again.

Oh, yes.

It's full mayhem over here... I ran down to my husband's shop to send a few emails. You know, see if I can actually post something. While trying to save my crashed computer. Crashed. Burning... explosive mess.

Not really. I'm being dramatic. It's just giving me a blank screen and bleeping at me like I should be happy about that. I'm not. Happy about that.

I'm wondering if I should panic.  I have a computer wiz for a brother, so he's keeping me posted on how far up and down I should be on the Panic Scale dependent on what's happening. I'm trusting him, 'cause I'm illiterate about that stuff. Oh no... this computer doesn't have spell check. What sort of dinasour is it?!?!  Aaack!!  Did I spell that right?!  I'm outa here before I embarrass myself. More.