Donna's Journey

I needed space. God knew me too well. I work hard. I have been ill and had deadlines. The deadlines just went away… There is nothing I can do for at least a week. It makes no sense to work on either if the informations is salvageable. If it is not, I won’t know for at least a week. They said 72 hours after they receive it. If it is, it will be about two weeks from now before I have my information back.

I did ask in my post yesterday “Stay tuned and watch as as the cleaning moves forward. What will stay? What will go? What will be transformed?” Perhaps the flash drive incident was providential. I need time to heal and renew. I will take advantage of this.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a new website area: Jesus Christ: The Son of God Check it out!

There is the potential of joy, in hope, and this morning I have hope. I called Scan Disk, they gave me the number of an information recovery company out of Florida. I called my son and he mentored me in the world of maximizing the utility of flash drives and minimizing the risks. Then I called the company in Florida. They have a 90% success rate. No guarantees. They will be able to let me know in 72 hours whether they can retrieve information and save it to a disk. Then, Scan Disk will replace my 2 Gig Micro Flash.

Now I know how to protect my 9, 050 Family History File from a similar fate. So, joy cometh in the morning.

There is hope and 90% in my favor. This is good.

I am beginning to experience, what Mortimer Adler calls, “the pain of learning,” but I am getting these lessons through the school of hard knocks, and through life experience. Truly, I was mentored this morning on how to avoid this in the future. Mentoring, by my techie son a month ago could have saved me this hard experience. However, I did not seek mentoring, because in my naïveté did not think I needed it.

Murphy was working overtime, in my case. “If anything can go wrong, it probably will.” I was an accident waiting to happen. Are there really any accidents? or are there just stupid people?

What a blow! For Crying Out Loud! Story, stories, stories. Here is my tale…

My hard drive has my thesis, as of October 2007 and my Primer as of January 3, 2008. I had sent a couple of chapters to Julia. However, the most important things may be gone. So much refinement has happened since then! I had all the updates on my new thumb drive. Last night I worked late to finish a booklet Creating a Princess Academy Circle in Your Home for woman from all over the world who have contacted me about starting a group in their area. I had my thumb drive on a ribbon, so I could carry it around my neck. The drive was connected to my computer. I was sitting on the floor using my laptop and my foot snagged my thumb drive. It yanked the thumb drive, out of my computer and pulled the device apart. Not thinking I grabbed the internal parts and may have touched important parts with my fingers. I snapped it back together. Luckily, I had Wordperfect open and was able to save the document I was working on, to my hard drive. I put the thumb drive into my computer and it would not start. I have lost this semester’s work on my thesis and the Primer. I believe it was my best work and IMHO it was good stuff! I do not know if anything is retrievable. I may get to start over….Argh!!!

Is this really a catastrophe, or is it an opportunity?

The timing amazes me. I was supposed to have the Primer ready Friday, printed and ready for people at the Forum. That is not a possibility. I hope I did not damage my computer in the the process, as well. I am no fool though. No way will I put my family history thumb drive in the port to find out.

The good news is I have at least the booklet for the Forum. The bad news is that I do not know how long it will take me to get back to the point I was last night. Between recovering from illness and anticipating my move, I do not know what is doable at this point.

I may have answered the questions I began yesterday with in my blog, “Stay tuned and watch as as the cleaning moves forward. What will stay? What will go? What will be transformed?”

Spring will not be here until 20 March, yet that has not tempered my nesting instinct. The sun is up and warming the earth, this mother bird is nesting. I am an expectant mother, but not of the kind you are thinking. I have a Divine vision of my family and am nesting to bring that forth.

Nothing like a long illness, huge projects, and a daughter marrying to cause one to take pause. Dusting, tidying, letting go of the extraneous. Far more than spring cleaning, it is life cleaning. Emerging from winter and wanting to bear the sweet blossoms of spring, and envision the harvest. It has been a long winter for me. Far too long.

Stay tuned and watch as as the cleaning moves forward. What will stay? What will go? What will be transformed?

Whine, whine, I think I’ll lose my mind. I just reviewed my blog. I already had a relapse of my bronchitis on the 12th, then I went out of town with steady progress. A week at fast pace has sent me back in the cycle, for a second relapse. My cough sounds horrible. Worse than it has been this month. I need rest, fluids, ACE, moist heat, and to hold on, until my home teacher arrives tonight, for a blessing, which is the most valuable thing I can do. So, in the meantime…I take care of myself.

I am grateful for Sabbath rest and no demands.

So, I opted for a tidy house instead of an immaculate one. My coughing grew worse and my energy slipped. I took some Omega 3 and the coughs decreased and now i am tired. I did get a lot of laundry done.

I sent the girls to the movie without me, so I could just slow down. Rest today and tomorrow, then I will be able to, with wisdom work on the primer this next week, and a booklet for starting a Princess Academy.

After 1 March, I can slow down further, and just work on my thesis until my husband puts the house on the market. The house in Monticello is still an option. However, when we looked at factory built and modular homes while in Cedar City Wednesday, we found one that would meet our lifestyle needs. I wanted main floor living and this one had it.
It had:
* a large kitchen, larger than mine now
* a large dinning room, larger than mine now.
* a main floor laundry, much larger than we have now.
* a master suite, with more closet space and larger bath than we presently have. We only have a master shower, it has a oversized jetted tub and shower, and a walk in closet.
* a kitchen pantry.
* a main floor food storage room.
* main floor family room with fireplace!!! Our present family room is downstairs and has a wood burning stove.
* three other bedrooms and another bath.
* the house had lots of windows, flooding light into the rooms.
That gives me space for a guest room, plenty of storage space, and workshop space. Our present home is 2250 divided on two floors. The factory built was 2250 on one floor. With a full basement it is 4500 square feet. We will look and see if we can find a lot in Monticello, price out the cost of a 2250 sq ft basement, and utility hookup fees. Then we can make the choices. Refurbishing is something that we have done and have always found creative and rewarding. However, having new also sounds wonderful. So, we are off on an adventure.

On Ground Hog day my grandson fractured his skull. When we received the call from my son at the emergency room saying they had to flight to life my grandson to Primary’s I suffered a stress attack of acid reflux. My grandson is fine. I on the other hand have had bronchitis as a result.

The next day my daughter met her match. Love grew. The engagement happened. The wedding was last evening. Yes, I slept in until after 10 this morning. My bronchitis relapsed.

Today I catch up on housework, and I will even go to a movie with my daughter and her old roommate. Then for another intense week while I try to prepare my primer for next Saturday. I have at least most of the month of February gone, due to illness, a retreat, and wedding prep. I am not complaining. I am so happy for them. I am just acknowledging where I am. So, next week will be quite intense in my preparations for the Expo next Saturday…

Today was the wedding.

As we dressed and prepared for the temple, Alan was so elated that he began to sing. It was precious to be in their presence. They radiated joy.

I have been to several sealings in the past, this was a beautiful sealing. I do not ever remember seeing a groom so deeply moved. They were precious together. After the sealing I helped my daughter in the Bride’s dressing room. What a sweet experience as she was the only bride there today.

After the sealing, they chose to wear what they were wearing when he proposed. It was snowing like it was when I got married and Adam got married. Then off to Alan’s maternal great uncle’s for a family potluck. I love his extended family. His grand parents are dears, and his parents are wonderful. We ended the evening with Jennifer playing her piano composition and then family gathering around and singing hymns.

I am exhausted. I think I will sleep in….

After the family party in Salt Lake on Monday, my oldest son dropped Jennifer and Alan off at temple square. They needed time to think and decide a date for the wedding. They prayerfully considered things and felt the strong impression to be sealed this Friday!

Tuesday they set the Temple date for Jennifer’s endowment on Thursday and the sealing on Friday. Arrangements were made for Alan’s grandfather to fly in from Nauvoo to seal them. We went to his other grandfathers, and saw his museum. He brought out his selection of rings and let Jennifer select an engagement ring and wedding ring. I drove them to Provo so they could get their license. Tuesday night we drove to Cedar City so Jennifer could pack for the next few weeks and they could get their temple recommends. We drove through fog and white out snow conditions where our seed dropped to 20 miles an hour. We finally arrived home.

This week will be intense, and then I will have a break for a few weeks.