Another One Bites the Dust

The sun set on my old computer. It was a good and faithful friend. I'd had it since December of 2009. For a piece of technology, it was practically as old as Methuselah, that Biblical patriarch who lived 969 years.

It's never a good time to lose a vital tool. However, the computer crash happened as I was trying to reconcile treasurer books for Master Farm Homemaker Guild. Anyone who knows me at all knows I am a word person - not a number person. However, in the Guild, the treasurer is the first step in the ascension through the offices. I tried to tell people that I'd be secretary four times if I didn't have to be treasurer, but that would have goofed up the rotation.

Case in point: My mom has passed along some of the scrapbooks she made from my childhood. Stuck inside a Certificate of Award for Achievement in Spelling, English and Writing is a less positive note from my teacher:

Working with Kim has been a pleasure. I am letting Kim use the arithmetic combination cards this summer. She is very weak in the addition and subtraction combinations. Right now she should be able to answer fluently every addition and subtraction in these boxes and know the multiplication and division combinations up to and including the fives. She said she'd have time to work on them this summer.

Well, at least working with me was a pleasure.

Thankfully, I'm not a last-minute person, and I had literally printed the balance sheets for February right before the screen blackened and my heart threatened to beat out of my chest from the anxiety. (That's not even too much of an exaggeration.)

 

It's never a good time to lose a vital piece of equipment. Those trips to Hutchinson for emergency parts during harvest always seem to take longer than the leisurely trip to the library, for example. But it was a logistical nightmare as I tried to get my treasurer's notes and membership spreadsheets ready to pass along to the next victim. (I mean "officer.")

I ended up buying a cheap laptop to tide me over, and it likely saved my sanity. And, if truth is told, it probably saved Randy's sanity, too.

The computer crash was also the reason for my longer-than-usual absence from the blog world (in case anyone noticed).

The day after the crash, I purchased a replacement computer from a locally-owned store in Hutchinson. And I would have had it last week except we were in Manhattan for the Master Farmer/Master Farm Homemaker meetings (and then some time with our family - always good for the heart and soul). I picked up the computer yesterday, and once Randy got it all connected at home, I discovered that my thousands of photos on the old hard drive hadn't made the trip to the new computer.

But they have them, and the computer will take a trip back to Hutchinson today and will get fixed up while I'm at the eye doctor.

These are some old sunset photos that I'd already uploaded to my blogging platform earlier and had just never used. But I was too worried about those numbers from the treasurer's report to use my words last week. (Good news: The audit of my Guild books went well. Whew!)

I know it will take awhile to get used to this new machine. But I hope the sun will soon set on these computer issues,  and I'll ride off toward the horizon with a happy ending. I'm not quite ready to cue the movie music, but I'm getting closer.