Hi, My name’s Kate and I have a computer problem…

Ok so did anyone notice that I was gone for three whole days????

Yep THREE days without a computer… and yes it nearly killed me!

Monday night my computer died. I think the motherboard was sensing some of my ‘mother resentment’ as I put Izzy back to bed for the hundredth time in a row and it simply couldn’t hack it any longer and karked it.

I yes, I admit it, I had a little tantie myself… tears and all! How sad is that??

But it’s just that I had soooooo many plans for this little silver box this week. This week I was supposed to finish the kit I have been working on and start a million other things. I was supposed to get my chicken comp up and running (which will hopefully happen tomorrow now). I was supposed to be getting a brand new scanner and a graphics tablet. I was supposed to finish backing up all the photos and my scrapping stuff on DVD…. and oh boy did my heart sink when I thought I had lost all that work and all those memories!

So off to the nice little computer shop in town where they decide it is simple a matter of a new motherboard and powersource and everything else (including all my unbacked up files) would be fine. Just a matter of waiting a few days for the parts to arrive… A FEW DAYS!!!!!!!!!! No No NO!

I am almost embarrassed to tell you how badly this affected me. I really am beginning to wonder if I am not really and truly addicted. I mean we always joke that we are addicted to the net or to digi scrapping or AB or email or whatever, but heck I really think I might be! The thought of an unknown period without any computer access made me almost instantly depressed. I was narky with the world and wanted to go to bed and not get up until the computer was back. I was ansty and frustrated and BORED! I was HELL to live with.

I decided Tuesday morning, after a horrible night full of nightmares (going cold turkey you see!) that I should just think positively. You know work on the Sif’s idea that this is the year for positive thinking.. what I put out I’ll get back. So I lay in bed trying to convince myself to get up, that everything would be fine, that the computer would be back before Friday and that I would enjoy a few days break doing OTHER things. But even as I talked to myself (first sign of madness?) I had that sinking feeling and I don’t think I even half believed me. But still I got out of bed and thank goodness for the playgroupers… though I almost didn’t go, in the end I was soooooooooo glad I did. Atleast that was a few hours filled with something positive!

By Wednesday I was even worse… I was being grumpy with everyone and what’s worse I knew I was and I knew why. I had even broken out in some whopper pimples!!!!!! I tried to fill Wednesday with ‘stuff’ tried to act like nothing was different. The girls and I went into Water Gardens to go to Harvey Normans to see if they had my graphics tablet (which they don’t… yet) and then to look at beds for the girls and eat sushi and generally fill in time. But I got tempted and bought a three pack of past scrapping mags on the cheap… Which I devoured in about three minutes when we got home and only made things worse when I started sketching and doodling new ideas.

The nights are the worst, when everyone was asleep and I’d usually spend my ‘me time’ right where I am now, doing what I am doing now… instead of that there was just crappy TV. I couldn’t bare to think how I’d cope if the computer wasn’t back by Friday – Friday, Saturday and Sunday night alone with no computer… I’d surely go insane. But I still tried to talk myself into believing that everything would be fine…. I was tempted to go to my parents today but made myself stick to the prearranged plans and Mum came over here and we went to the Gardens and shop at St Erths… the whole time I told myself that I’d get home and there’d be a message on the machine to say the computer was fixed…

Thank goodness that when I got home that was exactly what I found! Yay for positive talk, even if I didn’t believe it! I couldn’t get the girls back in the car quick enough and I can’t even begin to explain what a relief I felt! Si walked in the door tonight (after his first day back at work since before his Dad died which made for a pretty tough day I think) and the first thing he asked was “why are you in such a good mood?”

Why do you think? The computer is back and my Mum had made us pasties for tea.. so I’d put the computer back together while the girls played tea parties and dinner was already cooked…can life get any better???

OK so I have a problem… I really do. But I have learnt something from all this…. my new goal for the year… one night a month when I don’t turn the computer on AT ALL after the girls go to sleep. One night a month for Si and I… I think it will do us both good… I just hope I can manage it!