Backup

Ahhh… September is in the air. When the alarm went off this morning, it was so dark, and it was sooooo hard to get out of the cocoon of coziness to face the day. When we left the house, there was a bit of a nip in the air as we wove through the blocks to the train this morning.

Since it is the beginning of the month, I want to send out a reminder to anyone who may be reading this… back up your computer files! It is a good habit to get into. I wish that I did mine on a regular basis. I lost a lot of information with the crash of an external hard drive, and the loss of a flash drive. I backed up my flash drive back in May, but that wasn't quite good enough. I'd put additional stuff on there. Stuff that I can't recreate. Writing. Stuff that I don’t even have notes to refer back to. Ugh.

I've been struggling to put together my grad school apps over the past couple of weeks after the loss of the flash drive. The sheer irony of it all was that I had the flash drive in my purse. I carried it with me every day for the past year. I never lost it or even came close. Then we were going to go on vacation. I decided to take it out of my purse… so it wouldn't get lost. I left it at home and now it has disappeared. Makes me sick to my stomach.

But I did go through and pull out an old flash drive today. I grabbed it and brought it along with me, not recalling what was on it. I didn't know if it had any room or not. Unfortunately, I got to work and discovered that there was no space remaining on it. But… I did find a lot of happy memories. Stuff I'd put together prior to the wedding. Our announcements, the reply cards, the wedding programs, some of the decoration stuff and quotes for the wedding. How fun.

And then I found this little gem. It is about meeting Tim and I was going to (somehow) incorporate this into the story I was writing. But now maybe I'll just do a little kids book someday. :)

“In the land of far away, a tall tree stood upon a grassy hill. This was a rather common tree, filled with hundreds of guavas nestled among the branches. Beneath the tree, a weary grasshopper rested in the shade. The lonely grasshopper had traveled far and searched high and low for companionship.

When the grasshopper saw the guava tree, it tried to leap in the air and pluck the fruit. The poor tired grasshopper was only able to jump high enough to grab the fruit from the bottom branches. The low-hanging guavas were slightly damaged from the elements and other insects. Although the grasshopper was able to obtain the fruit, most of the guavas were bitter and offered nothing in the way of companionship.

The grasshopper began to look past the fruit on the bottom to notice that there were some other guavas, higher among the branches, not quite within its grasp. The grasshopper began a conversation with one of the guavas high in the tree. They talked about many things and finally the grasshopper asked the guava to come down to join it on the ground. The guava was not yet ready to leave the tree. This made the grasshopper sad.

A wise crow sat perched upon a thin branch above the grasshopper.

‘Little grasshopper, you must wait for the guava to ripen. You have been impatient and ended up with fruit that was not ready to be picked. This particular guava is not quite ready. If you wait for the guava to ripen, you will have the sweetest fruit. Do not give up hope.’

The grasshopper rested patiently. It was weary, but it was also tired of picking fruit that was not ready. The grasshopper continued to talk to the guava, forging a friendship across the empty space.

Many days passed and the crow flapped its wings and called out to the grasshopper.

‘Little grasshopper, the guava has had an opportunity to ripen. It is now time.’

With that, the mighty bird swooped into the air just as the wonderful guava fell to the soft green earth near the grasshopper. Never before had the grasshopper experienced such happiness. The grasshopper and the guava nestled together in the warm sunshine and lived happily ever after.”

Fun times.