Valley of death

Today has been a wee bit of a rollercoaster. It started well, with an illustration of the sort that would go in a children’s book:

I then trekked up to campus and spent six hours indexing the book I’m designing for hire (it’s a biography of Lorin Farr). At 6:00 or so I finally finished, with much relief because the book is due Monday, and this would allow me time for the final copyfitting.

Then I saw with horror that my indexing changes had mostly disappeared. Ten minutes later, my horror became abject despair as I realized that I’d accidentally replaced my working files with the backup from two weeks ago. Two weeks’ worth of work, gone in an instant, irrecoverably. Flinging myself off the Kimball Tower started to sound appetizing. :P

Afterwards I went over to the ATM to get cash for tithing. It printed my receipt and spat my card back out, but no money came out. A minute or two later, it said transaction canceled. I switched to another ATM, and it wouldn’t let me withdraw anything.

And then I went to Smith’s because I ran out of groceries a few days ago and have been living off saltines and peanut butter. As I walked there, contemplating the evening’s misfortunes, I realized that my internal state was such that I was attracting calamity the way a black hole attracts matter. And until I went normal again, I’d continue to find disaster as my companion. Let’s just say that at that point I was very careful in crossing the street.

I came out of Smith’s with my food — so far, so good. When I put the cart away and lifted my bags out, however, bam, one of the bags split open instantly and spilled its contents across the asphalt.

But fear not, the day did not end there. (Though I was praying it would.) I came home and started reading Charles Williams’ Descent into Hell, and reading heals almost all wounds for me. (The title of the book rather describes the way I felt earlier, oddly. ;)) I also spent half an hour taping prints of my photographs up on my wall, which was a soothing aesthetic experience. (I detest blank walls.)

Anyway, luckily most days are not like this one. :) But I guess I’m fine with it, since you have to have bitter to know sweet, and I’m already through the vale of sorrow and out into the light again (even though I still have to live with the ramifications of what happened), so all is well, all is well.

Yuck; what a nightmare! The groceries, personally, sound horrible to me because I loathe it when things drop or spill.

Ben I feel for you, and have to say I understand. I had a very simular day a few months ago.

Last Fall for my final writing project at GWC, I chose to write a children’s book. For weeks I wrote, and then with one mistake I lost it all. The book was due just days away, and it had to be publishable quality…(though this was not the only bad thing that happened that day it was the worst) I asked myself, “How was I to do in just 2 days what it had just taken me 3 weeks?” All I could think to do was pray.

I can tell you that the Lord did answere my parayers. Not only was I able to rewrite the whole book in the said time, but the finished work was better then what I had lost.

I’ll say a little brayer for you that God, will help you as He has so often helped me.

Oh, Ben… What a nightmare. I’m so sorry I left that to you. Hope everything turns out okay.

I took work off on Monday to go back and redo everything I’d lost, and I ended up getting it done quite quickly. The book itself is almost done now, and all is going well. :) As for the ATM, it took Wells Fargo a while to process it, but somehow it ended up still taking the $80 out of my account, so I’m going in today to get it back. (Not at gunpoint. :P)

Janssen: Luckily nothing broke. :)

Julia: The power of forced revision is sometimes underestimated, I think. :)

Katherine: No worries, it’s all good now. And soon it will be actually, really, truly done. :)