... The card is at the end of this long post. Skip my long story if you want to see it...
Yesterday afternoon I noticed that the space bar was not functioning on my laptop. Whenever I'd press that key nothing would happen. Got the compressed air out and cleaned the keys. Then it worked. Several hours later, the "T" and "L" keys wouldn't work. Then after work Randy started playing some Facebook game and reported some more keyboard malfunctions to me, the resident computer repair person. To my knowledge -- no one had spilled anything in/on the keyboard. With an average PC, one could just by a new $20-30 keyboard and be done with it. Then I got to thinking, what does one do to repair a laptop keyboard???
Got up this morning and got into my email with no problem. (I'm not going to give away my password, but it doesn't contain the letters "T" or "L.") Then when I went to make a comment on someone's blog, I couldn't type the letter "T." So I gave up and turned off the laptop.
Later, Bradley was in
dire need of charging his iPod, so her turned on the laptop. It made a funny noise at the beginning, then started just fine. (I didn't check the functional capabilities of the keyboard at that time.) After feeding all the kids, I packed them up and went to my mom's house. She needed some assistance in cutting some binding for a quilt. After getting that done, I asked my dear children if they wanted to go to Staples with me or stay at Grandma's house. They all yelled, "Stay at Grandma's!!!" Knowing that I wouldn't have to take them to Staples, I had already packed up the laptop and took it with me.
On the drive there I was thinking to myself, "I really hope that my warranty is not for just a year because our laptop is 15 months old." I get to Staples and the ladies there are really nice. At the same time, a mean man came in with a screeching (literally!) computer. I think it had fried in the terrible thunderstorm that we got last night. He was asking those poor ladies, "Can't you look it up by my name? I think I used XYZ credit card. Can you look it up that way?" Without that Staples Rewards card, they can do NOTHING for you.
Good thing is that the expensive warranty that I bought on the laptop is valid until March of 2012. Bad thing is that I had to call the 800 Staples Warranty center. They are sending me a pre-paid box to send it to some contracted company for repair. I can't get it repaired locally. That's okay, it's covered. That's all that matters!
Just for fun one of the ladies turned on the computer to see exactly what the trouble was. After she turned it on, the computer wouldn't even boot up! (Maybe it also got fried in the storm. I admit to leaving it plugged in without proper surge protection!) How was I to back up my files??? There really isn't anything that I couldn't live without on that computer. But the more I thought about it, the more I wished that I had backed it up when I had the chance.
Wondering what would happen, around the kids bedtime tonight I turned on the laptop. It made a funny noise, but Windows 7 came right up! I quickly sprang into action! Found a data stick and transferred all of my precious documents onto it. I have to add that just two days ago I spent about a half hour organizing my Word documents into several folders. Most of it was tutorials, business related items, card samples, and publicity items. I also have school-related file for my dealings with the public school system (I'll save those details for another blog post.) and I have one other folder for breastfeeding information and one for recipes. This reorganization made the transfer a snap. I got all of my files uploaded and copied onto this computer and onto the external hard drive. Copied my recent photos onto the external drive while I was at it.
I could not check my email because many of the characters that I use in my password won't type at all. But I just got the notice via email on this computer that the box to ship back my laptop has shipped. Once the company gets it, they generally take 10 business days to get it back to me. We'll see what happens! I have Strength & Hope that it'll all work out : )
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This was the first card that I made with the Strength & Hope stamp set. The butterfly is stamped once in Pacific Point on Very Vanilla card stock. The second on on the top is inked up in Pear Pizzazz, then "rock and rolled" in Pacific Point. When I cut it out, I didn't have to cut around the antennae because they're already stamped on with the first layer.
Stampin' Up! is donating $2 from every stamp set sold to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. So far, I've done three stamp camps with 16 ladies and am scheduled to have another camp with at least four more attendees. My personal commission is going to the American Cancer Society. I got this idea for this card from a training video from Stampin' Up! Unfortunately, this card did not make the cut for my Strength & Hope stamp camp.
Stamps: Strength & Hope
Paper: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Brights Patterns Designer Series Paper pack (Pacific Point)
Ink: Pear Pizzazz, Pacific Point, Soft Suede
Accessories: Old Olive 3/8" taffeta ribbon, dimensionals
Funny that my last post contained advice on changing passwords to protect yourself against email hijackers because this post is about backing up your files.
Happy Stamping!
Susan
Please, please, please! Back up any important files on your computer right now. Do it for peace of mind!
