Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Wednesday Reads and I Had a Scare!

Monday morning I did my best writing of the year (986 words!). I even worked on my editing project and was implementing my changes on the document when I realized my keys weren’t working. The mouse would move the cursor (so I was able to save the document), but I couldn’t type anything out.

Okay, time to reboot. Right? That’s what I did. At 1:30pm.

Five minutes later, the screen still said “Restarting.” I tried to turn off the laptop. Power button wouldn’t work. Now, before you tell me to disconnect the battery… I couldn’t. It’s built in. I needed Hubby to do that and he wasn’t due home until close to 10pm.

Yep, my computer was out of commission all freaking day and all I could do was hope I could turn it off and then turn it back on. I didn’t want to lose those 986 words (I hadn’t e-mailed the document to myself yet)! I also didn’t want my writing streak to end if by some chance I had to turn my laptop into a repair center.

But do you know what was a real miracle? I didn’t lose my temper. I didn’t feel the need to throw Big Red out the window. I was just disappointed.

Whew, you don’t know how happy THAT made me.

Good news, though. Hubby was able to pull the battery wire (he couldn’t remove the battery). Yay, it turned off. We let it cool awhile. He then plugged the battery back in, and pushed the power button.

Yay, it turned on. I emailed the document to myself. What a relief.

Here’s what I finished reading this week:

Book #14

Dates read: April 3-8
Title: “The Silent Corner”
Year of publication: 2017
Author: Dean Koontz
Genre: Suspense
Series: Jane Hawk #1
# of Pages: 434
Paper or plastic: Hardback
How obtained: Purchased
Blurb from book: “I very much need to be dead.” These are the chilling words left behind by a man who had everything to live for—but took his own life. In the aftermath, his widow, Jane Hawk, does what all her grief, fear, and fury demand: find the truth, no matter what.
    People of talent and accomplishment, people admired and happy and sound of mind, have been committing suicide in surprising numbers. When Jane seeks to learn why, she becomes the most-wanted fugitive in America. Her powerful enemies are protecting a secret so important—so terrifying—that they will exterminate anyone in their way.
    But all their power and viciousness may not be enough to stop a woman as clever as they are cold-blooded, as relentless as they are ruthless—and who is driven by a righteous rage they can never comprehend. Because it is born of love.
My thoughts: It’s horrific, but not horror, if you know what I mean. And the fight is definitely not over. It’s freaky and scary to think something like this could happen, and I certainly hope it cannot. That this is really all just make-believe fantasy. But if it’s not… Ugh. This book is not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure (think Stepford Wives). Will I read the next one? You betcha. Already own it (thanks to Christmas money!). But I wasn’t going to buy book 3 until I read this one. It’s on my list, now.

So… How often do you back up your computer? For important stuff, like my books, I e-mail a copy to myself every night I touch it. Other than that, I do backup my laptop about every 4 months, or when I think about it, like I am now. Hmmm… time to backup!!

Happy Reading!

Stacy

6 comments:

Maria Zannini said...

Something similar to this happened to me too. I was able to remove the battery and restart it, but I was sweating bullets for a little while.

Stacy McKitrick said...

Maria - It's too nerve-wracking for sure. And here I just remembered I still haven't backed up my laptop. Ugh. Time to do that now. :)

Jennette Marie Powell said...

Ugh about the computer, stuff like that is the worst!

I use Dropbox, so my stuff gets backed up every time I hit save.

Stacy McKitrick said...

Jennette - I don't trust cloud accounts.

JeffO said...

When my beloved computer started showing signs of a motherboard problem, everything went on an external hard drive. I pretty much keep everything on there now, too, and occasionally pop stuff onto a flash drive, too.

Stacy McKitrick said...

Jeff - The motherboard to my first laptop went out on me and I went crazy! Luckily, Hubby was able to retrieve my data (slowly) and I didn't lose that much. I need to start just copying my document folder to a flash drive on a weekly basis or something. But I got to REMEMBER to do that. And do it REGULARLY. Something I'm not always so good at.