So, my super-fantastic-weekend-of-fun was…exactly that.  I flew to New Jersey to spend a few days with my sister and her family.  Colin (my nephew) is FOUR today, and the weekend was partly consumed by his birthday party, plus my sister and I got to spend Sunday afternoon visiting the City, seeing Wicked and getting makeovers at Sephora.  I also had some quality time with 21-month old Hannah (oh, and Colin, Debra, and Matthew, too).

But, yeah.  Back to reality.  A house that is in dire need of straightening and cleaning (mostly because I’m hosting Thanksgiving, yikes), a backlog of quilts, and dang it, it’s time to decorate for the holidays.

And speaking of reality, after I walked in the house Monday night and said hello, I noticed the pile of mail.  I should have ignored it as the piece I chose to open was the bill for my trip to the Emergency Room.

I just about needed ANOTHER trip to the ER thanks to the heart attack I got when I saw the total.

The billed amount?  $1226

Thanks to the insurance adjustment, I “only” have to pay $536.

I was using my rotary cutter this evening and you had better believe I was excruciatingly careful with every single cut I made.

Wow.

The crisis has been averted.

Here’s what happened, the long story:

For the past (mumble 2 years) little while, I’ve been “almost” done with a self-published book on freehand feathers for machine quilters.  The class I’m currently teaching at MQResource is based on that book, and all of the handouts come straight out of what is in the book.

Each handout is just a part of the book, though, and to make the handouts, I’ve been opening the original document, SAVING IT AS something else, then deleting out what I don’t need for that particular handout.

Only, Tuesday night, I apparently forgot the SAVE AS part, and saved the one page handout right over top of the original book.

This was the FIRST STUPID thing I was referring to in my previous post.  But not insurmountably stupid, because, I’m smart enough to have a backup of my book, right?

Yes, well.  That backup is on a USB drive, and…when I posted this morning, I couldn’t FIND the USB drive.  The last I could remember, I had scooped it up to take it home.  For all I knew, I had dropped it outside and it was gone, gone, gone…

I just happened, a few moments ago, to crouch down to pick something up, and just happened to look right at the damned thing, where it had apparently fallen at some point yesterday.  I guess I didn’t actually scoop it up to take it with me.  Thankfully.

The moral of the story:

1.  Don’t be so cavalier with the original copy of your book manuscript.

2.  Don’t rely on a USB drive, that could be easily lost or stolen as your only backup.

A copy of the book now resides on the computer here at the shop, and I may even burn another copy to a CD and go stick THAT in the bank deposit vault.

Phew.

It is vacation time.

I’ll yak at y’all when I get back.