Woe is me....

As if life in the South Western desert isn't hard enough during monsoon season where it is NOT a "dry heat" but a very muggy, thunderstormy and allergy-inducing type heat.... my computer thought it would give me troubles and died. For about a week now I've been patiently using my oldest son's computer to check email from time to time. I didn't have any of my favorite websites bookmarked, nor my email addresses saved.... but I was able to download AIM and chat with two people. We found out that our hard-drive died so we bought a larger one and took it to the "computer hospital". The people said that they were able to retrieve all the information from the hard drive. FOR JOY! But this evening when Karl brought our baby home and started her up.... most of the information that I was hoping to find is actually GONE. It seems as though anything that was saved in word doc form is lost. Other things are gone too... I have tons of shortcuts that were copied from the old hard drive but they don't go anywhere. I have done searches to find specific files or documents and they come up with just empty shortcuts. I will call the company tomorrow and find out what is going on but so much stuff is just.... GONE.

saved emails: GONE
email addresses: GONE
favorite websites: GONE
saved files for CM business: GONE
saved passwords: GONE

Photos: as far as I can tell... SAVED!!!!!!!!!! Of course these would be the only things that I had recently backed up. haha!

Moral of the story: If you want it... back it up.
If you back it up then when your computer crashes, they will be able to save it from your old puter. If you didn't back it up then of course those will be the files that will be forever lost.

Back to the weather... we have had more rain here than usual.... in fact, we have moss growing in our yard. MOSS!!! Very weird here in the desert! The ground is so saturated that when it rains the water just runs. We have flash flood watches daily

I don't mind the rain... but apparently my body does. My allergies have really been giving me problems and then to top it off, my fibromyalgia is really flaring up. I hurt so bad, am so swollen and am exhausted. I went to my doctor last week and he put me on prednisone for the allergies (extreme itching and rashes). I was to take the steroids for 5 days so I did. I had the typical side effects: feeling jittery, not able to sleep, excessive sweating (but with this weather, who can tell?!) irritability... Today is the 2nd day after stopping the meds and I'm already starting to itch again. I'm so exhausted from not sleeping well during the predsnisone days that I'm overly tired and to top it off.... every muscle in my body hurts. I've never felt like this before... it's as though every muscle is inflamed and in pain. For instance, my arms are achy but when I leaned against a wall, pain shot through the area that touched the wall. I need to call my doc tomorrow. I wonder if this could be a side effect from the prednisone or if the fibromyalgia is really getting bad right now? Every muscle is tender to the touch and feels inflamed.... (puffy?) even in my neck... hands, arms, body, hips, legs, face.... EVERY SINGLE one.

Please pray that I can get to feeling better. My kids need me to be able to care for them and school is starting up again in just 2 weeks. I can live without all my computer stuff even though it may make paying bills a bit harder, (and I'm so relieved that my photos are saved)... I am more worried about my health and being able to care for my family.