Seriously.

So, Wednesday night, our kitchen sink clogged again. This happened last month and the plumber had to come out and snake it. Apparently you shouldn't put egg noodles down the disposal. And then it happened again. For the record, the first time I put a good size container of noodles down the disposal, so I suppose I wasn't too surprised to find out that's what caused it. But since then, I've been very careful about what goes down it. Wednesday night I was rinsing a plate and not really paying attention when I put 3, yes only 3, noodles down the disposal. I thought, well, it's only 3, I'm sure it'll be okay. Nope. Wasn't okay. I've got a clogged sink.

Thursday morning, I get on the computer to email Michael about the sink issue when the computer freezes. I turn it off, turn it back on and get a nice blue screen telling me there's an "unmountable boot error." Awesome. Now I've got a clogged sink and a crashed computer.

I call Dell, spend 45 minutes trying to fix it before it's decided that while there's a slight chance some data will be saved, the only way to fix it is to use the recovery CDs and put it back to factory settings. (And please, if someone knows of someway this could've been avoided I don't want to know.) Of course, I can't find the recovery CDs, so he tells me he'll mail them to me and I'll get them Monday or Tuesday.

A little while later, I pick up the phone and discover it's not working. No dial tone. Great. I've got a clogged sink, a crashed computer and no phone.

Thankfully, that was a quick fix and as soon as I called the cable company (we have everything bundled) she was able to fix it immediately.

So, it's late afternoon, and I feel a bit cold. It felt drafty like a door was open, I checked, none were, so I turned on the fireplace. Do you see where this is going? After dinner, I decided to check the thermostat. It's set on 70 yet it was only 65. Yep. The furnace wasn't working. I've now got a clogged sink, crashed computer and broken furnace. Seriously, could the day get any better?

By Friday afternoon things were getting better. The furnace was fixed - needed a new circuit board. The plumber had snaked the sink and it was working. He walked in the door, looked at me and said "Did you put noodles down the sink again?" Um, yes. And the nice Dell tech overnighted the recovery disks.

On Saturday, after 3 45-minute phone calls to different techs throughout afternoon and night, the computer was up and running. Unfortunately, it was wiped clean and it's like having a brand new computer.

Thankfully, I'd backed up pictures from June back, and I'd ordered over 600 pictures from Shutterfly early November so those are all online. I have early November and early December on memory cards, so I only lost about two weeks of photos. That I can deal with. The part that was hard was losing all the video I'd taken with my camera. Mackenzie walking for the first time, rolling over, laughing, eating cake (that's on my blog, whew!), Emma singing in the car, and lots of other memories and events I'd hoped to always have on video. I had a good cry about it. Emma did her best to cheer me up though. She kept hugging me, giving me kisses then telling me I was all better. :) I guess before I put anymore video on the computer I should really learn how to burn it to DVD. I kept saying I'd figure out and never did, hence it's all gone.

I know you've all probably heard it all before, but back-up, back-up, back-up!! I've got some friends this has happened to so I knew better, yet I still didn't have everything completely backed-up. We also lost music, some Word documents, Excel spreadsheets. (Speaking of, lost my Christmas card list, so if you don't get one from me this year, that's why.)

Tonight, I'm reinstalling all the software for the printers, cameras, Photoshop, itunes, etc. Lots of fun.

If anyone knows how to get video off a blog onto your computer or how to get pictures from a Shutterfly album to your computer and could let me know, I'd really appreciate it.

Back to work...