Saturday, April 18, 2009

Thank Goodness For My Husband




The adoption is really wreaking havoc on my brain. For well over two weeks, I've been saving my continuity book on a USB device (I'm sure it is called something else, but I'm not computer savvy enough to know the name). At least that is what I thought I was doing. Until my wonderful laptop CRASHED. As in...completely stopped working. As in....no way to access my file. So, feeling rather smug that I'd done exactly what my-husband-the-computer-guy is always telling me to do and saved my document on a backup disk, I pulled out the USB device, plugged it into my desktop and realized that I HAD NOT BEEN SAVING the document to the device. Suddenly, I was three and a half weeks from deadline and missing the last ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY PAGES of my document.

I did not cry. Although, there were some tears in my eyes. Instead, I swallowed down panic and began rewriting those 120 pages while my husband (the most wonderful real-life hero in the world) went to work on my dead laptop and confirmed that it was, indeed, dead.

I rewrote thirty pages of document that night, the sick feeling in my stomach never quite leaving. I write fast, but not so fast that I could finish in time to meet my deadline. I'm a stickler for getting my stuff in on time, so this was a very big deal. I knew I'd have to call my editor and tell her that I might need an extra couple of weeks. Meanwhile, my husband wrestled the hard drive from my laptop, brought it to work and was able to extract all but ten pages of my work!

Yay, hubby! Yay, me! Yay, Emily who will now not get a panicked, tearful call from a panicked and tearful author who stupidly was not saving to the right file on her computer.

Crisis averted. Lesson learned. Now every time I save, I save to both my USB and my hard drive.

In honor of his hero status, I am posting a photo of my hero hubby signing the adoption papers for Q. And, of course, I couldn't resist also posting pictures of my cheeky (thanks for the word, Brenda) new daughter.

5 comments:

Dani said...

Wow! You poor thing. I'm so glad your hubby was able to retrieve it.

And Q is adorable!

Are you still planning to head this way for the Book Expo?

Shirlee McCoy said...

As long as we don't have travel approval and have to be in China, yes.

This waiting game gets old. Our agency told us we wouldn't travel before June, but now there is the possiblity it will be before then.

Oh well. For now, I am still planning my trip to New York!

Q has an interesting look, doesn't she? I think she's adorable, but can imagine that between her white hair and my three kids with red hair, we'll be getting a lot of comments when we get home.

Dani said...

Wow! How exciting! Isn't it amazing that in a month or two's time, she'll be home with you :)

If you do make it out for BEA and it works out, I'd still love to see you.

Sabrina L. Fox said...

WOWSER, Shirley. I would have died. LOL. So glad it worked out.

And yes, she does seem a little cheeky. :)

We had a huge scary day last week--a pregnant woman drove her car into our office. Bricks, papers, and debri everywhere. So I kind of get that frantic feeling you had. I was looking through all this paperwork thinking, I have no idea what I was working on. :0/

Anyway, I'm thankful you posted the pics. She's a doll. And I have to say, you and hubby seem fit for each other. I bet you make a cute couple. You both seem to have the same coloring. At least in the photos. :)

Shirlee McCoy said...

Wow, Sabrina. Were you there when it happened? Was the woman okay? Was everyone else? How scary!

Actually, I'm a brunette. My husband has red hair (not easy to see in that photo!). We both have blue eyes, though! We are a good team. I couldn't do what I do without him, and I like to think he'd say the same about me. :0)