Lost in somewhere-Land?

Okey Dokey... Just in to say - I am STILL here, we have not blown away in an Oklahoma Tornado or other big wind (and let me TELL you... these big winds can be BIG! I had forgotten, living in an Oregon town with an average wind speed of 2.1667 mph!!); we have not been washed away by the 6+ inches of rain that we received over the coarse of 2 days (our little run-off pond is looking quite a bit better thanks to that rain, though)! We are still here plugging away.

You wanna know why I was absent all last week?

The whole answer and nothing but the truth answer?

OK - that's what I'll give you, just know that you can skip the whole story and be satisfied by "I am a mom with a busy set of 4 children, a funny farm, home learning, etc... and all of that got in the way of my blogging." OR, you can continue to read, but I leave that up to you and hold you responsible for the information that fogs up your brain. Amen, alleluia, where's the tylenol.

OK - all the way back to the "beginning of the end." I posted on Friday April 20th a "Focus Pocus Magic Moment" on our iMac - a big ol' imac computer that has easy access to old photos. As I finished the post, I saved it and went to use my macbook on the coffee table where I have cookies enabled that help a whole lot with things like finding that site that had the linky tool to allow link ups with my post. I was busy working away and nearly ready to head out with the family to the library book sale - so the treekids could gorge themselves on $0.25 books! I was hurrying and UPS arrived with my Amazon.com order for a couple computer games that work with a mac. Pops hollers that he wishes he would have known I was ordering from them since he needed a book ordered so that he could read it before a meeting that he was having to attend (ironically, he's on a plane for that destination today). I finished up my post and began the hunt for his book.

The book would not ship from amazon for 2-3 weeks. If you do the math, he would be flying away before the book would even ship. So, that wouldn't work. BN.com has the book in a nook book and paper available to be here within 3 business days. While the nook book would be instant, it wasn't charged AND Pops likes to use his red pen and mark up a book to his liking. SO, I began to hunt for an online coupon. I should have just ordered it, but I didn't. I felt that I needed to save a WHOLE dollar on my purchase. (That was a lot of wasted time for a dollar and I had to end up buying another item to get that discount - I was planning on purchasing it, but just not quite yet.) As I was trying to finish up my order, Bump came running into the room and I put up my arm to hold his enthusiastic and loving self back a bit but he swung his arm a little wide and with that... WHOOOOOSH... He knocked over my little bottle of diet coke. (That I did not have the lid screwed onto, that Pops had suggested and chastised me for not doing. I do not like the extra fizziness that seems to be in bottled soda. So, I usually pour it into a cup with ice - I think I would likely have had the same situation occur.) There was a towel laying there that I used to mop it up. I got everything mostly dried. I shooed everyone outside and I took off the back of the laptop and mopped up the teeny amount of coke and then took to it with a hair dryer (as suggested online on my iMac, now sitting alongside.) They recommended allowing the computer to sit and dry out for a week or so. I have not had the time to put it back together and turn it on. Because once I do turn that computer back on, I will be transferring all pictures immediately to my external hard drive. I don't know if things will short out after I turn it on, I don't know if there was much if any damage done. BUT, I know that it has been a stress this past week. I could have gotten on here and just told all about it like I am now...

BUT, we also had an additional stress added to our life! Our landlord decided to go ahead and put the property up for sale. SO, we have had about 8 showings in the first week. I hope that things either slooooooooooow down or they sell it so that we know what we are up against and can just move on. We have considered buying the property, but there are still many things to consider as far as if it will work out for us or not. My "computer time" this past week has not been used for blogging. I have been hunting for A.) a new rental acreage and B.) the Perfect home to purchase. I haven't found either, yet. I think that we will either need to change our search criteria or redefine "perfect"!!!

I am usually a photo blogger and rarely just post my novels. But, I haven't many current photos on this picture to make a nice picture story... So, I will just share this photo from May of 2008. I thought that my old dog looked old then... when I see her now - sheesh, she looks almost like a pup in this picture!!

I hope to get my laptop back together with photos all saved onto a external hard drive tonight - but it might have to wait until tomorrow night! Cross your fingers that I can retrieve my photos!!