BAAAAAH!!!!

What a way to ring in the new year, as a mute!

Long story short, (since I haven't a whole ton of time, and there's lots of catching up to do, plus my church calling to ALSO catch up on, home stuff + mom stuff to do, and volleyball to prep for--for the first time in WEEKS--tonight)...poor, faithful ol' Lappy died.  RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF EDITING SOME GREAT PHOTOS AND COMPOSING AN AMAZING CHRISTMAS POST!!!!

(Courtesy Google Images)

 Everything is GONE-ZO!

Anything I didn't have saved on my external hard drive has vanished.  (Good thing my friends, the DeCoursey's, have their family photo CD, otherwise I only have raw shots still on a memory card in the camera bag.)  Including my AM-A-ZING frost photo--I'm soooo ticked (since I was planning on putting all from the desktop onto the hard drive the next day actually, in preparations for the upcoming new year)!

**If you need help imagining my physical & mental state at that point, you should know that there were tears falling, dizziness ensued, some sharp chest pains were present, as well as some shortness of breath, and a clutched paperbag was at the ready--just in case.  Not much was being thought through my head, except I kept picturing myself atop a tall building, grossly sweating, and being told by Arnold S. to "Get to 'za Choppa!"**

Lucky for me, Arnold, and the rest of the world Mr LKP swooped in to my rescue just in time, and I received a belated, and MUCH appreciated, Christmas gift: 
Our happy new PC. 
(I'm thinking of naming her Polly.  She's so pretty, and BIG....mega memory kinda big!  Too bad there went all our money for our trip back to Rexburg at the end of this week!!!!)

(Courtesy Google Images)

Hopefully there's a chance we can recover at least SOME of what I had on the laptop.  But, Lappy was getting up there in computer years, so it won't surprise me if all hope of a full recovery is lost. 

The worst part/damage?  My beloved PhotoShop CS and Adobe Illustrator are gone as well, since supposedly NOTHING backed-up somehow since 2006 or early 2007.  I still have my PS Elements 8 software, but the other two (much more in-depth programs) had been installed on my laptop back at my last radio station in the summer of 2007 (so I could more easily churn out awesome stuff for the promotions department).  The mother software is still in Eastern Idaho, and sadly I am not.  ::tear::

So, piece by piece we'll be restoring my digital life to its previous glory.  However it's going to take a LONG time and a LOT of elbow grease.  To make the process feel the teensiest bit more manageable I've started listing what I need to re-establish...starting with loading my Microsoft Office, Mozilla's FireFox (I can't STAND Explorer!), PS Elements, and seeking back out all my favorite fonts!

If you don't hear from me in a while, it's not because I don't love you.  I'm just patching my life back up, one scrap at a time.  Many hugs & kisses!

(Courtesy Google Images)