Wool and Spice

So sorry for the long silence, it wasn’t at all what I had planned for this month. I planned Christmasy lists,  ponderings of the mystical kind, recipes for holiday goodies and sweet and sappy pictures of little kids on Santa’s lap — which would have been difficult since I don’t know any sweet and sappy kids, only the good kind. Instead you got pictures of ducks in the snow for a week and a quick Christmas greeting last night. I hope everyone got what they wanted for Christmas, whether it was togetherness, simplicity, or lots of presents under the tree. Our day was low-key and just what we wanted.

I caused this month’s meltdown because I took a metaphorical hammer to the laptop when it wasn’t responding. Thanks to the local computer shop who only charged me $150 for the lesson (F8 puts your computer in safe mode), all’s better now and as soon as I tidy up cables and power cords and put routers and back up drives where they belong, the office won’t be such a disaster. At least no more than normal.

I also learned that my back up drive is failing since the fan may blow (get it? fan failure?) at any time. This thing is going on three years old and apparently I’m lucky it hasn’t died already. Online back up looks more attractive every day.

Continuing the theme of being technologically challenged, I managed to break the blog Wednesday for a couple hours while trying to figure out how to back up the database. Instead of a hammer this time, I used a monkey wrench and it was much easier to fix. I have to  give high marks to Dreamhost’s customer support. They responded to my cry for help instantly with good humor and didn’t make me feel like an idiot — at least no more than usual.

In the end I was able to do a backup relatively painlessly and learned a little more for next time.

But given my poor track record this month, I think I’ll wait to upgrade to the new version of Wordpress until next year. While things seem to be back to normal around here, the universe may decide to screw with me again; it’s just a bitch that way.

Meanwhile there’s been knitting going on, so there will be pictures more appropriate for a knitting blog soon. And I’m looking forward to the start of the new year — new projects are on my radar and I can’t wait.