My Wife Zapped My Blog

Last night after putting my daughter to sleep, I spent a long time writing a blog for today. Actually, it was too long. I'd spent over 45 minutes on it and knew it needed to be trimmed down or converted into a two-part piece, something like that.

See, I want to start adding in a little more about how I, as an author, write. The process of authoring a book, the ins-n-outs, the behind the scenes, from idea to page to literary agent to sale to publisher to bookstores. Looking behind the curtain at this process feels like it might have relevance to teaching ELA and I suspect there might be much to be mined in terms of making connections from the toils of a professional author to those of the student author -- as they are really more closely related than most kids probably imagine.

It was a goodie, too. Really meaty.

Then my wife zapped it.

45 minutes worth of work gone-zo. I went to go score some jellybeans from the kitchen cabinet (the ones she's been hiding from me cause I've been eating too many as of late... in her opinion) and she wanted to take a look at something on Web MD since everyone in our house right now has a bit of a tickle in their throat. So she opened a new tab and read a few pieces of info while I covertly munched some orange little droplets of love in the other room. Then, when she was done, she closed out ALL tabs on the computer.

Not just Web MD but all the tabs... and a heck of a lot of thoughtful work of mine went bye-bye.

So for today, it's kinda like the dog ate my digital homework. I am frustrated that I have to do it again -- and it will almost assuredly be different -- but the thing is, stuff happens, right? At first I was steamed, aggravated and so on but the fact is, it was my fault, not hers. I could have "saved it as a draft". I could have backed it up somehow. I could have taken steps to make sure I didn't lose the material before I got up from my seat to go satisfy my sweet tooth.

But I didn't. But what I did do right after that was make sure I backed up every file on my computer to an external hard drive because losing 45 minutes worth of work is one thing -- but losing an entire computer's worth of work is something else entirely.

After all, who doesn't have scores of irreplaceable pictures, lesson plans, writing and so forth on their computer? So in my small pain let their be a great lesson to all who have read this today: BACK YOUR STUFF UP!

Remember, the time to fix your roof is when the sun is shining.

And now, if you'll forgive me, I have to go apologize to my wife for my outburst. There are two reasons for this. 1) I flew off the handle a bit and 2) cause if I don't she's gonna hide the damn jellybeans where I'll never, ever find them again.