Aug 14: Observations about this blog
You're all waiting for the vacation report, I know. But a few other things first.
The last six and a half hours have been spent with the blog. It occurred to me today, not sure why, that if this site crashed a huge amount of the documentation of the last four years would be irrevocably lost. While I've made some entries in my laptop diary, the bulk of the detailing my life has been in this venue. So, despite the beautiful weather outside, I decided that everything needed to be downloaded or backed up or something-or-other RIGHT NOW.
There is a tab for actions that leads you to believe that you can send the information to your computer or a flash, but it lies. Checked on-line, a few other people had the same problem. Now I'm just panic-stricken. It doesn't matter that there haven't been any problems in the last 229 posts, if something happens in the next few minutes I will never, ever, forgive myself for not having taken care of this RIGHT NOW.
So, for hours now, I've been copying the majority of the posts (more need to be done) and pasting them into Microsoft Word. One by one. In my haste I didn't put in year groupings, so then lots of pasting to set up things differently. I'm sure there is a much easier and faster way to accomplish this with a lot less effort, but, again, I was compelled to do it RIGHT NOW.
If you didn't know before you certainly know now: I've got a little OCD issue. This shouldn't be a surprise. In my defense, it is the most common personality trait in emergency response personnel.
So, trumping vacation in my thought process are all the things that have cropped up while reviewing the last four years of posts. Here are a few:
1) THANK YOU for following my journey and nudging me when I wasn't writing regularly. That, more than anything else, has kept me at this. Being a terrible procrastinator I was sure that 'tomorrow' would be my next entry, but knowing that people were taking time out of their schedules to read this and it wasn't fair to go too long without saying something kept me much more disciplined than if I'd been doing everything privately.
2) There's a lot more stuff here than I realized, doing a book wouldn't be starting from scratch. Yes, yes, many of you have said that to me. But seeing the number of pages that resulted was pretty mind-boggling, although most of the time I also copied all the comments as well. But there's a lot of stuff here!
3) Serious editing needs to occur in most of the postings, including grammar and phrasing. I cringe when looking back on many of the entries, despite often spending more time correcting before posting than writing the post itself.
4) Wow, it's been quite a ride.
The material is more emotional since it was written at or close to the time of the events. That wouldn't be possible if I was looking back and recounting tales now. Being reminded of those raw emotions takes me back, but it's so much easier looking back instead of being there.
While I've been planning on a post specifically detailing my improvements let me just say now that it is so encouraging to see how far I've come.
Right now I desperately need to take a break, watch some TV with the fuzzy ones on or around me--they really like it when I'm on the couch. So, coming attractions:
-Vacation & activities
-The Climb
-Cardiology appt
-Excitement at SGM (w/o personal details, as part of our covenant)
-Next goal
More soon, Laurie
The last six and a half hours have been spent with the blog. It occurred to me today, not sure why, that if this site crashed a huge amount of the documentation of the last four years would be irrevocably lost. While I've made some entries in my laptop diary, the bulk of the detailing my life has been in this venue. So, despite the beautiful weather outside, I decided that everything needed to be downloaded or backed up or something-or-other RIGHT NOW.
There is a tab for actions that leads you to believe that you can send the information to your computer or a flash, but it lies. Checked on-line, a few other people had the same problem. Now I'm just panic-stricken. It doesn't matter that there haven't been any problems in the last 229 posts, if something happens in the next few minutes I will never, ever, forgive myself for not having taken care of this RIGHT NOW.
So, for hours now, I've been copying the majority of the posts (more need to be done) and pasting them into Microsoft Word. One by one. In my haste I didn't put in year groupings, so then lots of pasting to set up things differently. I'm sure there is a much easier and faster way to accomplish this with a lot less effort, but, again, I was compelled to do it RIGHT NOW.
If you didn't know before you certainly know now: I've got a little OCD issue. This shouldn't be a surprise. In my defense, it is the most common personality trait in emergency response personnel.
So, trumping vacation in my thought process are all the things that have cropped up while reviewing the last four years of posts. Here are a few:
1) THANK YOU for following my journey and nudging me when I wasn't writing regularly. That, more than anything else, has kept me at this. Being a terrible procrastinator I was sure that 'tomorrow' would be my next entry, but knowing that people were taking time out of their schedules to read this and it wasn't fair to go too long without saying something kept me much more disciplined than if I'd been doing everything privately.
2) There's a lot more stuff here than I realized, doing a book wouldn't be starting from scratch. Yes, yes, many of you have said that to me. But seeing the number of pages that resulted was pretty mind-boggling, although most of the time I also copied all the comments as well. But there's a lot of stuff here!
3) Serious editing needs to occur in most of the postings, including grammar and phrasing. I cringe when looking back on many of the entries, despite often spending more time correcting before posting than writing the post itself.
4) Wow, it's been quite a ride.
The material is more emotional since it was written at or close to the time of the events. That wouldn't be possible if I was looking back and recounting tales now. Being reminded of those raw emotions takes me back, but it's so much easier looking back instead of being there.
While I've been planning on a post specifically detailing my improvements let me just say now that it is so encouraging to see how far I've come.
Right now I desperately need to take a break, watch some TV with the fuzzy ones on or around me--they really like it when I'm on the couch. So, coming attractions:
-Vacation & activities
-The Climb
-Cardiology appt
-Excitement at SGM (w/o personal details, as part of our covenant)
-Next goal
More soon, Laurie
posted by Laurie @ 9:32 PM
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