Score! (Part Deux)

I started this post a week ago but was rudely interrupted when I happened to stop to check my e-mailbox. Lo and behold, my mailbox was empty. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Not even mail in the trash. Not.a.single.piece.of.email.

I couldn't imagine where my emails, received and sent, had gone, when they had been there only moments before I'd started this blog post.

I ran frantically to my iPad: no mail; I ran frantically to my iPhone: no mail. I hollered to Ken, who was upstairs at his computer in his study, and asked him if he was having a problem with his mail. Surely, I thought, this must be a temporary glitch at iCloud. It would be over soon, and I'd be able to check my mail. Breathe deeply. Breathe deeply.

Ken said his email was fine. I explained that my email had suddenly, totally disappeared.

There was a bit of silence from Ken. Then he confessed he'd begun the process of emptying my old computer (iMac '08) so he could claim it as his own, replacing his iMac '06. You see, I just got a brand new computer (iMac '14) and he gets my hand-me-down.

It seems Ken had forgotten one teensy detail about emptying out my old computer:  WI-FI WAS ON!

If the computers, my iPad, my iPhone are connected to WiFi simultaneously, what major changes made to one..., are made to ALL. Hence my email was gone because Ken had not only put it into the trash on iMac '08, he'd EMPTIED THE TRASH.

I tried to remain calm and think this through.

Then I remembered: I'd purchased a new external hard drive, a cute little item not much larger than a pack of cigarettes, called "My Passport for Mac," just two days before purchasing my new computer.

I'd never had to retrieve anything from an external hard drive  before, but I figured I'd best learn to do so because this was a golden moment, if ever there was one.

I clicked the Time Machine icon at the top of my computer screen, found "Enter Time Machine," wondered if I dared step through this door into another dimension...but did so, and voila! There was a duplicate of the contents of my computer's internal hard drive. Phew.

I loaded the contents of the external hard drive into iMac '14, including my e-mail posts, and I was back in business. Best $139 I ever spent, that My Passport for Mac.

Moral of story: If you don't have your computer backed up with an external hard drive, you just might be playing with fire. (Or your spouse might be upstairs wiping your computer clean.)

(In fact, I was at the Apple Store just days before this incident, having a guy at the Genius Bar remove some junk from my computer, when the lady sitting next to me with an iMac was told grim news: Her hard drive had crashed and there was no way to retrieve what was on it. She hadn't back up any of it, unfortunately.)

But all of this isn't actually the topic of this post. Guess I got a little side-tracked.

Top photo: A scarf I completed last week. It's the Cat's Paw Scarf, free pattern on Ravelry. Double-click on that photo so you can totally enjoy what I'm about to point out. I didn't notice this until I'd finished the knitting, bound it off, soaked it in Eucalan, and blocked it: There's a major mistake in my knitting! It sticks out like a sore thumb, now that I've noticed it. Do you see it? Of course you do. I purled an entire row that I was supposed to knit.

I toyed with the idea of raveling back to the mistake and redoing it, but then I said, "Naw." I'll call it a  "design feature" and hope the person who receives it as a gift doesn't notice it.

The other two photos are of my great finds at Montsweag Flea Market, along with the table cloth which I wrote about earlier. The pitcher, a Watt Ware, was a mere $10. I collect Watt Ware but seldom find a bargain like this. A price tag of $50 or more, in fact, would not be unusual.

The cast iron Dutch oven, the one on the left, is my other Montsweag treasure. As you can see, I now have two cast iron Dutch ovens. I feel rich, I tell you. I've had my old one at least 40 years, and I absolutely love it.

Soon I plan to write a post about cooking with cast iron, so I won't say any more about this now. Stay tuned, though.