Good news and more good news!

I'm coming to you live from my newly re-built computer! :D My friend's hubby put a new hard drive in my old desktop and it's running great! Now I just have to get all my bookmarks on this one and we'll be all set! YAY!

and in other good news... DH will begin his journey home this week! His actual arrival will probably take the entire week or so as it all depends on availability of transportation. But we should have him back home soon! Yippee

course when he gets home he is supposed to have a lot of time off...I don't know what I'll do with him here all the time. ugh

Good News/Bad News

The good news is won't cost me any more to retrieve my data from the old hard drive.

The bad news is that the reason it won't cost me anything is they CAN'T get it!!!! Something has written over all my old data and it is all gone! Yes, they could use other software to rewrite the data like you see on TV crime dramas...but that costs tons of money and for my data it isn't worth it!

So now my hard disk will just be shredded and recycled.

4 years worth of pictures that I never bothered to print...GONE!
Music files that we paid a buck per song...GONE!
My "how to run the house" file that DH wrote for me...GONE!
My spreadsheets with all my homeschooling info...GONE!

ARGH!!!!!

I'm gonna go cry now!

Oxfam America Unwrapped Blog Tour

Make your own Countdown Clocks

With the holidays right around the corner, my thoughts inevitably turn toward the challenging task of buying gifts for friends, family, and colleagues. With an ever-growing list of people to buy for, each year I find myself searching for unique, meaningful gifts that fit my budget. Instead of giving to the Human Fund, I found this…

This year, Oxfam America Unwrapped introduces gifts that help those who need it most. From $20 for a pair of school uniforms donated to a poor community to a $50 goat sent to a struggling farmer to help provide fertilizer and food for his family, Oxfam America Unwrapped offers a convenient, easy way to find something for everyone on your list while helping those less fortunate and avoiding the excess of the holiday season. When you buy a gift from OxfamGifts.com, your recipient gets a card with the image of your specific gift and the money goes toward providing lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice in over 100 countries.

To see how your donation affects the lives of people around the world, log on to the Oxfam America Unwrapped website and click on the "How your donation helps" section. Visitors can learn about Oxfam America's amazing work on projects such as restoring Mangrove trees to Vietnam's coastline and the creation of savings and loan programs in Mali, Senegal, and Cambodia.

Last year we were able to provide a donation of chickens to a village. It reminds me of the saying “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime.” And I’m also reminded of the Girl Scout law that says “Make the World a Better Place”. I hope in some small way I can do that, one gift at a time.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Oxfam America Unwrapped and received a credit for a gift on the Oxfam site.

Christmas Ornament Exchange! :D

Christmas Ornament Exchange 09

It's here!  It's here!  Time to sign up for the Christmas Ornament Exchange!  Woo Hoo!

I know that when I did this last year a few of you (1 or 2) said that this is something that you might be interested in doing also.  So here's the link!  Go sign up.  It's very easy.

Here's what Kailani says:

For the past couple of years, I’ve been hosting a Christmas Ornament Exchange and have been able to add some really beautiful ornaments to my tree courtesy of some of my blogging friends. It’s so exciting when you don’t know what you’re going to get. That’s why I’ve decided to host it again.

Here’s how it works:

■Ornaments should cost between $8–$10 + shipping.

■If you’d like to participate, please fill-out this form. Your information will be kept private and will only be shared with the person you’re being partnered up with.

■You may participate even if you don’t have a blog.

■The sign-up will continue until November 25th and partners will be announced soon after. Please try to mail out your ornaments within the first week of December.

■Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

 

Please take some time to get to know your partner and hopefully you’ll make a new friend in the end. Have fun!

Now I need to run over to my Christmas store and see if the ornament I wanted to send out is still available.

dead desktop update

well it's not much of an update really. My friend has removed the hard disk and I am shopping for a data recovery place. Apparently they're quite popular.

I sent an email to the one closest to me asking:

1) how is the data returned to me?

2) aproximately how much does data recovery cost?

they emailed me back "we would love to recover your data for you. Just bring in your hard disk and we'll take a look at it and quote you a price."

...

...

Yup! That's all they said! No answer to the questions I asked. The reason I'm asking how the data gets returned is I need to know if their price includes a new hard disk (some places put the old data on a new hard disk that you just put into your computer.) Or will I need to provide them with something to put the data on? I have no idea and when I tried to call them, no one but the voice mail would pick up the phone. sigh

off to look elsewhere.

I've sent an email to a company that's a bit further away but their website has a "request a quote" link. I've requested the quote.

desktop died

I'm reporting to you live from my laptop as my desktop computer has died.

It started by giving me the blue screen of death. I some how managed to overcome this a few times, but then alas the desk top was asking me for things I just couldn't give it...like a reboot disk (honestly I think I was supposed to make one when I first plugged in the computer...but I didn't)

So I took my computer to my friend's hubby and he has diagnosed it as having a dead hard drive. He was able to get to the "second hard drive" that I learned isn't really a second drive but the second split of my dead hard drive. :(

so now I get to buy a new hard drive. sigh! and research how to recover all my data that I haven't been backing up.

oh lovely laptop...please don't ever die on me.

Life in a small-ish town funny

The other day Darly & I were shopping at our local Wallyworld. We had finished our purchase and were waiting for our friends. Darly looks over and says to me "I think I know that guy from somewhere."

I look at who she's talking about...who has now passed us by a bit, but I could tell who it was.

I say to Darly "read the back of his jacket"

She does and now knows who it is... the back of his jacket (a high school letterman style jacket) has in script letters The Mayor. This is the same mayor we had just saw a few weeks ago at the Cemetery Walk who was pretending to be one of the city's founding residents.

Where but in a small town would you see your very own mayor?

But that isn't all, today the mayor was at our local Library...he's there on a regular basis for folks to just come up and discuss city issues with him. He also works at a newby Border's store.
Darly says "I think the mayor is stalking us!" I giggle and say, no we just keep running into him. Luckily he has no idea who we are...wouldn't that be even weirder if we knew the mayor?