I’ve spent the past few day settling in with my “new” computer, settling down to some new routines, and trying to change the way I approach the things I try to do during the day. I’ve been somewhat successful at working in some freewrite time during the day, and I’m slowly getting back into a schedule around the house. It’s all a work in progress, but I’m trying to balance a lot of things in my life and I’m not going completely insane yet..!

Had a great work day yesterday; I was reminded of some of the reasons I like doing what I do, which is good. I may have ruined (mostly) my hobby, but I can still do it, even for fun, and I’m starting to like doing it again in general. (I was hoping this would happen eventually.) I’m still catching up and will be for some time yet, but I feel good about the projects I have upcoming and the time frame I have to handle them in.

Now that things are mostly the way I like them (computer), I hope to get back to blogging more regularly. It’s taken some definite effort to get back into a routine, online and off, and I’m still struggling with it. It’s not impossible, it just takes work. I’m learning how to work, how to stay working, how to focus but not be overly focused. (I’m discovering that I’m lazy and I don’t want to work at anything, deep down. That’s a terrible thing, I wish it weren’t the case. Will take a while to break out of that, I fear.)

Originally I was very focused on getting my computer back exactly as it had been before the crash; same settings and desktops and icons and colors and… everything. I just wanted it all back, exactly as before. I’m finding I like the fresh start after all. Lost all my Firefox bookmarks, but now I’m making a completely different organizational scheme, all different priority (toolbar) links. I like what’s on my toolbar. I’m using a different chat scheme. A different hard drive icon. Different desktops, at the moment, until I can download others.

I’m enjoying it. I really didn’t think I would, but I am. It’s nice to start afresh.

Doing some freewriting on Selene; reconsidering my category/tag strategy here @ Hoshichan, and preparing to axe one of my projects that’s long languished. I feel good. Really good.

Lappy is home as of Saturday night, and I’m a full day into application-installing, preference-setting, upgrading, data-importing, serial number look-upping and comparative file-replacing. Right now I’m ripping the contents of my iPod back into iTunes. (This time, with playlists!)

Oh. I did lose all my data, btw. I suppose I should have said that at the start.

I’ve done very little work in the past few days, a lot of teeth-clenching and quite a bit of crochet. I’m glad to be back on my own machine, “in my own digs” as it were, but still, there’s a lot to be fixed and fussed with. And I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less, than all this installing and fixing and fussing. I’d gladly consider cookies today, were it not for eating so much dessert over the weekend. Erg.

Inspired by a collaged notebook project of Lenneth’s, I collaged up my own notebook for Selene note-taking. Scanned for your viewing pleasure:

Neither side is 100% moon-related; I added some interesting nebulae and stars as well. Still, I’m very pleased with the colors and general look. (Stripes seen are packing tape strips, with which I covered it to make it more durable.)

I was tagged yesterday by Angela but was away from my books.

The rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment on Angela’s blog (she’s the one who tagged me) once you’ve posted your three sentences.

I’ve just started Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle, so it was closest:

Somebody who has to remember all the time what feelings are isn’t going to be any good at hiding them. Tamsin looked at me for a long time without saying anything, while I was apologizing and apologizing for mentioning the Other One at all. Finally she smiled, and it was all right, like that, the same way it had been absolutely, horribly wrong a minute before.

Unfortunately, people I would tag have already been tagged by Angela, are Angela, or are on LJ and probably won’t see this — maybe I should have posted this there? I dunno. Anyway, I open this up to anyone that wants to do it. ^^;

Just an update on the last post — as it turns out, I did *NOT* lose the Serenitatis and Serapii-Kisu material I thought I had; I did lose my trip photos, many downloaded pictures, some resources, layouts and settings. Bookmarks, the like.

Did some work on Selene last night. The character I’d started working on earlier turned out to have more of a novel arc than a short story arc, so I’m starting afresh and trying to just freewrite. I think I see the first glimmers of a fresh character and hopefully she’ll fit better into a 2,000-6,000 word length.

Just moments after posting, earlier today, my computer crashed. Rather, I should say that every program locked up, in a stream, over a period of ten to fifteen seconds. The menu bar started to freak out, and as nothing else responded, I had to force-shutdown. Seeing this as a signal to take a shower, take a break, etc, I left it at that, and went cheerfully off to cleanse myself and eat some lunch.

When I returned, hit the faithful power button, I was greeted with a grey screen, and a flashing folder icon: Finder icon, ?, Finder icon, ?, over and over. For those of you not on a Mac, this is about the worst thing you can see; it means the computer can’t find your disk to start up from. I booted off the system installer cd, tried the Disk Utility… it couldn’t find a disk to scan. I had J walk me through a few more steps; still no disk. I let AppleCare walk me through a few other things, and still… no disk.

No disk. No disk.

Did I mention I didn’t back up recently? Things like… pictures from our last trip? Two sites’ worth of layout (layered Photoshop) files? Recent downloads and writing resources? (Not too many of these, but a few that really cheese me off.) Some songs I just bought.

Mostly the client layouts bother me; fortunately the one that took the longest was just finalized, so I’m “safe” as it were, but I’d hate to have to recreate it (heck, it hasn’t even launched yet; was going to do that today too.) I hate not having my computer — taking it to a repair shop tomorrow, thank God for AppleCare — but losing data like this… eh. I’ve never experienced it. I remember J’s Big Crash of 2000 and how long it took him to recover; that just wasn’t in my plans for the merry month of May!

Actually I have a tight work schedule this month. Yippee. I’m working on a loaner laptop (my FIL) but I don’t know how long I’ll have it for, or when I’ll be online, etc.

Did I mention I lost at least 500 new pictures for Serenitatis and I don’t even know where I found them originally? Same goes for SKnet. And Common Themes material. And….

I’ve used up enough swear words for the next several months, all in an afternoon. I then alternated between laughing and bawling my head off. Now I’m just sortof numb. This computer isn’t mine and it’s foreign and I don’t like it. [sigh]

It’s not the 13th or anything, is it? No? Just checking.