Maybe God was trying to tell me something, but last Friday, as I was checking emails, my computer went 'pop' and then went black. Perhaps I should have been listening to the voices in my head, that for the last week or so, have been telling me that it's really time I did another backup of my hard drive.

The computer has been off to the doctor and the report is not good today. A busted hard drive, and a sadly overworked system. So now, I'm left to crunch numbers and decide whether to fix what was or replace the whole thing.

I'm trying desperately to not think about the things that are lost. Fortunately, I have been diligently uploading most of my most-loved photos to flickr and I somewhat recently dumped most of my photos onto an external hard drive. So, for now, the thing that worries me most is the oodles of lost emails and contacts.

Date recovery isn't cheap, let me tell you. So I'll probably muddle my way through rebuilding my contact list. So if you've emailed me and haven't heard anything in reply, that's probably the reason.

Meanwhile, if you really want to know, the forced break is kind of nice. I'm baking way too many things, giving my kids way too much school work and making way too much progress on my Fall (as in projects I wanted to finish in fall '08) knitting projects.

But I know I'll be ready to come back. Soon. Refreshed. Recharged. And backed up.