Some Days I Hate Technology….

I have never been so glad to see Friday this week in a long, long time.

 

You know how it goes.  When you’re young and carefree (read young adult), you look forward to Friday for lots of reasons:

There are parties.

There are dates.

You can sleep late.  Really late.

Alcohol is generally not an issue when you’re in your young adult years.

 

However when you reach a more …  mature stage in your life, the weekend means something else:  You don’t have to deal with adulthood for perhaps twenty-four good hours.  At this point the kids are grown and out on their own (hopefully), and you can settle into a few hours of mowing the grass and a good glass of wine or three.

 

This week… this week for me was a real…witch.

To begin with on Monday, for whatever reason – virus, update gone horribly wrong, whatever—the files on my laptop decided to disappear. Gone.  Completely.  Not to be deterred, we have Carbonite that backs my hard drive up, so I figure we’re all good.  I got on line, chatted with a nice person named Cory, and was told that since it was more than 24-hours since the hard drive breakdown occurred, I would have to manually reinstall the files since Carbonite had already back up pretty much a blank hard drive early Monday morning.  In other words, the latest back up had nothing in it.

 

Seriously?!

 

So, all this week, it’s been a process of downloading zip files and re-installing.

 

Those folks out there that know me well remember one very important thing about me at this point:  I have no patience for technology that is slow or doesn’t work.  The biggest hurdle I had to get over with my long arm Loretta was that there was a technological learning curve and I had to take my time to learn it.  I’m the type of consumer that if I pay good money for something, turn it on, and it doesn’t work (or at least is user friendly), I’m on the phone demanding customer service fix it now.  I’m nice about it, but I have no time for dilly-dallying around a piece of equipment that doesn’t do what it says it will do on the box.

 

I’ve spent hours of my life downloading files this week.  Hours that I will never get back.  On the bright side, I am incredibly thankful that we did have backup, that Quickbooks was backed up on a flash drive, and that the back ups did work when re-installed.  Nothing was lost – nothing but hours of my time at the office and at home

 

Then my car decided it had to throw itself into the mix.  I drive a GMC Arcadia.  I like it (most days), but on the whole, when I get in the car, put the key in the ignition, I expect it to react accordingly and take me where I have to go.  Let me insert at this point, I do take care of my vehicle.  It gets its oil changed on time.  It has regular maintenance and tune-ups.  And it’s filled up with fuel every Wednesday when I’m running errands.  So Thursday I get in my car to go to work, pull off Emsley and onto Kivette and begin to try to inch the speed up to 45 mph, because that’s the speed limit.

 

No going.  It won’t get itself out of first gear and now the engine light is on.

 

Like I said earlier, after the computer and now the car, Friday could not get here fast enough.  I turn around, go back home, and call the DH because as far as cars go?  My blonde hair doesn’t stop at the root.  It goes clear through the brain cells because I know nothing about vehicles.  Long story short, there’s this tiny button on the side of my gear shift.  When you press the button, it puts the car in manual mode.  Either you have to press it again to take it out of this mode or turn the engine off for a while and the computer resets itself.  Evidently, I had pressed the button when I moved the gear shift from “Park” to “Reverse.”  I’ve had this car for nearly two years and have never pressed that button.  This week, of all weeks, I did.  My day was in tatters due to another computer.

I know technology is not inherently evil, but this week it certainly had it out for me.  That said, I got literally nothing done in my quilt studio this week.  I’ve been working on the Halo Medallion, Country Inn, and Farmer’s Wife.  I’m holding off on Santa’s Loading Dock until this week when my group meets again.  I’ve decided I’m not happy with my tree, and Lisa has promised to show me how she did hers.  Fate being what it is, I did find some of the pencils she used to paint her tree at the Heart of the Triad Quilt Show last weekend.  A lesson is in order.

 

There will be no blog next week due to the fact that The Applique Society’s annual meeting is taking place on Friday.  It’s in Pinehurst  and I’m excited about it.  I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to be President of this phenomenal group this year and I am eagerly looking forward to actually meeting some of the women that I conference call with once a month.  I will also have the opportunity to meet Anita Smith, the lady that organized and “birthed” this organization.  Much fun, laughter, and mayhem (not to mention fabric shopping) will ensue.  I will have pictures and stories on my next blog….just remember ladies, what happens in Pinehurst, stays in Pinehurst…

 

Still quilting fearlessly as technology allows….

 

Love and Stitches,

 

Sherri and Sam