The other morning was a classic. Earlier that day, I had discovered the stomach-lurching loss of two documents I'd been working on for OVER TWO WEEKS. In a fit of organization over the previous weekend, I had re-organized everything on my computer. We actually have a server that all computers and laptops can save material to, so I was re-organizing all my stuff on the server. Very simple task - create a couple of catch-all folders like "All Writing" and then sub-folders like "Blog" etc. (This is making it sound like I had thousands of documents just floating around on their own. Not quite).
I carefully clicked and dragged my writing stuff into this shiny new folder and was very chuffed*. About two days later I attempted to make some edits to a particular document, only to find it didn't exist. What the what? A peek into the new "All writing" folder showed three documents and two folders - none of which related to writing. Argh! Ever had that feeling? - first you go all cold, then your mouth drops open, then you walk around saying "Oh my God, oh my God". That one.
And of course, the backup service we use had expired last month but we missed that because it sends notifications to an e-mail we no longer use. Isn't that typical? We pay for the service for about 9 years and the ONE TIME we need it, we screw up. Anyway, I did a quick search of "restoring Word documents" and managed to restore everything to the week before my stupid massive file re-org.
And breathe...................
Except for some reason, the documents I'd been working on had reverted even further back and two week's worth of brain-knackering work were wiped off the planet. I'm not even sure I can do it all over again. I've had my computer guy search everywhere for the most recent versions and they are nowhere. Furthermore, none of us can figure out what happened during my re-org, since I had the presence of mind to check the contents of "All writing" before closing down, and yes, everything was where it should be.
So I had the inevitable dream that night, but not before watching a Graham Norton show with Denzel Washington and Keannu Reeves as guests. (By the way, Keannu looks amazing for 52!)
In the dream, I had actually created a folder on the hard drive (not the server) called - "Keannu" of course - and there were my missing files. Oh what a joyous dream! I can't tell you the relief!
Until I woke up. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out which bits of my dreams are absolute rubbish, but not this time.
What a bloody let down.
* chuffed - very pleased (often with oneself)