Um... Hi?

Yikes, it's been ages since I last blogged! It's been almost as long since I last read any of the blogs I used to read on a daily basis. Sorry about that. I'm trying to get caught up, but it's really kind of an uphill battle-type-thing.

So let's see... what's been going on in my little corner of the world. School's almost out, which means kidlets will be home. And that means I spend more time breaking up fights and sending little people to their rooms than I do breathing. Yay.

I'm working on getting the first draft of A Perfect Lady whipped into shape, since I have to turn the book in sometime in the next six weeks. Eek. Although, as I'm reading through it, I'm finding it's really not as bad as I thought it was (I probably shouldn't say that, right?) and I'm actually thinking it's a pretty good book. Of course, I'm only about 50 pages into it, so there's still time for it to hit the wall.

I also made a happy discovery last weekend. My very first laptop was a Sony Vaio and I loved it. Unfortunately, the hard drive just didn't have enough memory and even after expanding it, it still wasn't enough. According to my computer guy, I couldn't put a bigger HD in it, so I had to replace it. No laptop I've had since has been nearly as awesome as that Vaio. I held onto it, and the kids used it to play games, but eventually it didn't just stopped booting up, How sad.

Well, long story short (I know, I know, too late, right?) I had a few manuscripts on that machine that I never finished and never transferred (oh, the horror!) For some weird reason, one of those stories popped into my head and on a whim, I decided to see if I possibly saved it to disk.

Turns out, I saved not only one, but all of them. Yay! So I spent last weekend transferring, printing, and reading said manuscripts. One is beyond cringe-worthy, but other two are (I think) salvageable.

Of course, for every up, there has to be a down, right? That down is the backspace key broke off my keyboard. Grrr... Turns out you can't just replace a single key (which is just moronic, IMHO and yes, HP, I'm looking at you) so I ended up having to buy an entire new keyboard. No problem, the guy at the Big Blue Box Store with the Squad people, assured me. Yes, you can swap it out yourself. It'll just pop out.

Um... no. No, it doesn't work that way.

Not only did the old keyboard not pop right out, but the new keyboard came without any installation instructions.

No, wait. That's not true. The instructions? Call Customer Support because they are there to help you.

And if by help, HP means, "We'll keep you on hold for half an hour "transferring" you to the person who can help, only to have that person say, 'Oh, we don't know how to do that. You have to take it to someone else," then HP's "Support" is aces.

But, if you really want true support, just bang your head against the wall for an hour or so. It won't get that keyboard installed, but it'll feel terrific when you stop. Oh, and it is actually much greater support than HP's so-called support.

Ahem...

Okay, no problem. Big Blue Box Store Squad guy also told me that if I can't install the keyboard myself, they can do it for me. No problem.

You know what's coming, right?

I call Big Blue Box Store Squad. They can help me, but they'll have to charge me for a whole new keyboard because, hey, they have to suck as much $$ out of you as possible and OMFG they can't possibly use the keyboard you already bought because the seas would boil and cats and dogs would fall from the sky. So in essence, I'd have to pay for the same $%$@ keyboard twice.

Go. Screw.

So now I'm waiting (almost two days, which does NOT make me happy) for my computer guy to get back to me on whether or not he can/will fix this keyboard. If not, I have a brand new keyboard (that HP WILL be receiving back) in a box, and a missing backspace key (there's a nub that sort of works, but talk about annoying.) If so, then perhaps I stand a chance of getting this fixed. One thing is for certain, HP's support sucks (at least for this it did) and I'm going to make damn sure my next laptop is another Vaio. That's two things, isn't it? Oh well...

So that's what's been going on in my world. Nothing like a little drama, eh? It's fun. And by fun, I mean, "damn do I need a vacation."

Off to a Rocky Start

2011 is, anyway.

My computer got hit with a virus over New Year's weekend, despite my anti-virus program AND Windows Defender. I tried removing it, both programs told me the computer was clean, but when I rebooted, the $@!$ virus pop-up came back. So, I had to have someone who really knows what they're doing get rid of it. Which meant I was laptop-less.

Fortunately, I still had my old Toshiba laptop (my husband uses it to manage his Facebook addiction. :D) Unfortunately, in being forced to use it, I remembered why it was I was so happy to replace it. It's a temperamental, slow, freezes-up-every-time-you-look-at-it-wrong POS. But, in a pinch...

It wasn't all bad, though. It was kind of nice, because hating the Toshiba meant spending as little time as possible on the computer. I worked on the hard copy of The King's Bride, which is almost ready to go. I could read emails on my BlackBerry and access my Gmail on the Toshiba. All was not lost.

But now, my HP is home where it belongs. Yay! And that means I can now (try to) get back to regular blogging. Right after I catch up on all of my blog-reading. :D

Almost Back on Track

This is how I feel right about now. For the last two days, I've been busy retrieving already retrieved data from my old laptop, to put it on the new laptop. What a chore. You don't realize just how many emails you have, until they are all gone and you are frantically hoping they can be found and salvaged. Same goes for pictures. And internet bookmarks. And manuscript files. Egads - there was a lot of stuff on that machine and now I think I have everything back.

Some of it was easily replaced, but others (such as those wayward emails) I found by sheer dumb luck. And thank God for sheer dumb luck.

Of course, of all the manuscripts I had on the old machine, there was only one that was damaged to the point where it can't be opened, and that was the most recent (of course) draft of Tiger Eyes. I don't know for certain, but I think it might have been opened when the old machine died and that's what screwed it all up. But I can't get to it. Which wouldn't be too bad, since I have everything backed to a flash drive. Or so I thought. Turns out that somehow, that draft was not backed to the flash drive. I don't know how I missed it, but I did. Fortunately, the changes between draft number 4 and draft number five (the most recent) are minimal, but I will have to pay extra close attention, just to make sure.

It was a hassle, having to go back and get all that stuff onto the new machine, but hopefully it's all behind me. Now, I just have to get used to the new machine (which I have to confess, I love) and catch up with all of my blog-reading (I'm waaaaay behind on those) and all that other fun stuff. But for tonight, I'm just going to sit back and work on a book I'd trunked about a year ago. I came across it cleaning my office a few weeks back and, after a quick read-through, I think it isn't nearly as awful as I'd originally thought. So that's what I'm doing right now. Once my energy levels return to normal, I'll finish up Tiger Eyes and get it out. By then, I should be caught up.

Mea Culpa

It's been waaay too long since my last post and I'm sorry - life, in its infinite wonderfulness, threw a huge curveball at me back around Wednesday and I'm still playing catch up.

First, both the Boy and the Girl were not only sick, but both came down with pinkeye as well. Oh. Joy. Eye drops all around.

Then, I got hit with either a wicked cold or a mild case of the flu - I was running a fever Thursday, and as of today, I sound very much like Fran Drescher, according to the Girl.

And to top everything off, my laptop up and died on me last night. Keep your fingers crossed I can retrieve the pictures and a lot of the internet bookmarks I've collected over the years (so many research sites... I may have a nervous breakdown if I can't get those back.) So now, I have a new laptop, which my husband and I knew we were going to have to buy, we just didn't really want to do it now.

So, until everything evens out again (and considering Christmas is only what? Ten days away) chances are very good that I will not be posting regularly just yet. I'll try, but there is just so much other stuff going on...

Anyway, wish me luck with retrieving that info. Fortunately, I have copies of most of the pictures, but since I can't swear to it, I'll sleep much better if I can get the ones on the old laptop. And those bookmarks... ugh...

On the brighter side, revisions to both Tiger Eyes and Devil in Disguise are finished. Tiger Eyes will be ready to go shortly after the new year. Devil will take a bit longer, but I'm hoping to have it out by early spring.

Hoping...

hoping...

What Am I Getting Myself Into???

Well, anyone who's been following my "Adventures with Web Guy" know that my adventures have mostly sucked. And it's about to get better...

Yep. I'm going to take over my web site and be my own web guy.

What the %#@#%! am I thinking?

Seriously, I'm only just a little bit fluent in html and am just beginning to learn about CSS. I know it's writing a LOT of code to get a tiny bit of web page.

I've gotta be nuts.

But I'm tired of chasing Web Guy down and hounding him in order to get answers to questions. Technically, I'm going on Day Three of waiting for an answer to a question. Fortunately for me, dumb luck was on my side and I just happened to stumble across the answer myself. But it's things like this that make me determined to just do it myself.

That and some good ol' fashioned Irish (or maybe it's German) stubbornness. I can do this and I will do this.

Or so I really hope.

Now, I know this is going to take some doing and my web site is really out of date. But I'm hoping I'll have it current, up and running by March. I hope. Boy, do I hope.

So how crazy am I? How badly am I going to regret this? And will my back ever stop hurting???? (Yes, I was feeling better but then just had to clean my daughter's gerbil tank. BAM! I'm right back where I was last week. Rats. Hopefully I'll be back to my old self by next week. This not going to the gym is killing me, you know.)

Oh, and my son started preschool last week. He rides the bus every day to and from school. By himself. He's three. And he looks sooooo tiny in that seat, it just about kills me to see him go off like that. But this is a good thing. It's a special preschool for kids with his type of problem (the whole speech thing - sigh - he's getting better, but not quite there yet, if you know what I mean.) He loves it. He's already made a little friend and he can't wait for the morning, when he can ride the "schools bus" as he calls it.

Okay, that's it for now. My back hurts and sitting at this desk isn't helping. Hopefully, sometime this week I'll start Adventures with Me as Web Guy, and we'll see how well that goes (I'm trying soooo hard not to snerk when I say that. I already know. And it's not good. Not good at all. But I'm trying to stay positive!)

Ahem...

So keep your fingers crossed. Oh, and if anyone knows a good bail-out-the-web-chick-who-should-be-kept-far-far-far-away-from-the-computer person... I'm all ears! =)