Our bags are packed, the house is completely clean, the washing is done, the lawn is mown...etc. It's been quite a preparation, but I think we're ready! What a day we had yesterday. John has been working madly every waking hour the last week or so to get all of his jobs and work to a point where they can be handed over. Yesterday afternoon, he was just finishing everything off, when our hard-drive malfunctioned. We keep EVERYTHING on an external hard-drive, and we network all of our computers to the hard-drive. We have nothing on our actual computers. The hard-drive itself consists of two separate drives - one as the original, one as the back-up. We then back that up again. Well, when our hard-drive malfunctioned, both of the drives died. And we haven't backed up since February. So everything John has done since February is g.o.n.e. On a day when time was going to be tight to get everything done in the first place, we didn't need that.
We ventured down to Harvey Norman to see what they could do. Without going into detail, if we got a replacement hard-drive, we should have been able to copy things onto it using the right cables....etc. The guys at Harvey Norman were GREAT - they really couldn't have done more to help us. Despite their 'Tech Team' being closed on Sundays, our guy took in our drives, tested them on his special machine so that we knew whether or not buying some new parts would help us. It wouldn't. The drives were gone.
Luckily, our guy said that the information could definitely be recovered, but it would take quite a number of hours to recover 300GB worth of stuff. At 3.00 in the afternoon, we didn't have that sort of time. So, we've left it with them for them to fix and do whatever has to be done, and we'll have to leave it up to John's business partner to pick it up while we're away. At least he will then have the files that we were intending to copy to give to him in the first place!
So, needless to say, despite my super-organisational skills to date, we lost over 2 hours of valuable 'doing' time yesterday, and added a whole heap more stress on top of that! It also means that there are a couple of things John wanted to do which now can't be done. There's nothing we can do about that, and it's now out of our hands. But boy, was it tense for a while there yesterday afternoon!!
Have we learnt our lessonn? Despite reading so many stories about information and files being lost from peoples' harddrives, we thought we had it covered. We'll now be considering an on-line back-up and restoration service, and we'll definitely be more vigilant with doing our second back-up, that's for sure. The stupid thing is, it was only Saturday that we were going to do a full back-up, but we decided we'd leave it until Sunday after John had finished everything. How annoying.
Well, on to some more fun stuff - the final installment of the 'Things Caitie has made to go on this trip with, despite probably not really needing to, but enjoying it just the same"...
A cover for my passport, so that it doesn't get torn up and tatty while we're travelling. It's reversible, but I like this side the best!
A travel wallet. I've already made one of these - it was the first thing I made. But I wasn't happy with it, and it was too floppy. So I made it again using different fabrics. I used SUPER interfacing, that has made it soooo stiff. The only thing I would do do differently would be to cut it smaller than the seam allowance, so that it wasn't included in all the seams. When I've turned it the right way in and handstitched the opening shut, it was an absolute mammoth effort to get the needle through the now 4 layers of this SUPER interfacing - it's thicker than cereal box cardboard! The front has a strip of pink corduroy (the same as in the picture below), but of course I forgot to take a photo of that...
Because I still wasn't happy with my last attempt at a camera strap, I decided to re-do it. I did some gathering, as I just loved it on one of the zipper pouches I'd made, and I'm so happy with how it turned out. I backed it with corduroy. It's a little bit wide this time (all the other times it's been too narrow), but it's still really comfy and looks better than the ugly black-and-yellow Nikon strap.
One last zipper pouch (well, if I was being completely honest, it wasn't the last...) that I'm really happy with the size and the proportion of the 'boxed bottom'. I love this fabric line so much! I was running out, and Spotlight had none left. I just couldn't stand never making anything with it again (I have visions of using some of the larger and less garish prints to cover a canvas for my craft room wall). I found some at an on-line site that was a really good price (even cheaper than Spotlight in the first place) so I stocked up on it. Now I'm too scared to cut into it!
Quite a while back it was John's brother Jamie, and his wife Ally's birthdays (one day apart). As they're both from the land (I'm not allowed to say 'from a farm') and still live on the land, I decided it would be funny to make them these:
For those of you not 'in the know' like I am on all things 'landy', that is fabric with John Deere tractors on it. And it's even in pink for the girls. While they're a little silly, and I doubt either of them will ever be seen in public (unlike my awesome zipper pouches!) hopefully they'll at least be useful for something.
Finally, I managed to finish something I've been meaning to do for a while. An 'armchair' caddy, or some such thing. I've been doing a bit of embroidery (which I haven't yet taken photos of - that will have to wait until we get back) and the armchair and coffee table were looking a bit of a mess. So, I found this tutorial by the lady who writes Oh Fransson! at Sew Mama Sew Seriously, if you're interested in making stuff, go here - so many things to see and make! I love this site.
Anyway, I made this:
and boy has it been handy! Not only do I now finally have a pin cushion (despite having had plans to make one for quite a while), but it's heavy and doesn't move, plus it keeps my scissors and quick-unpick (which I need often) close by!
There's still quite a bit to post - I haven't even shown you the page I had done for me by Nicole Southworth or the little bits I made for her and her girls in return. That will have to wait, but you can go to her blog and go to this post and see it if you want. It's one of my favourite photos.
That's about it for me. I've just successfully passed about an hour of time, which means there's less time I have to wait until we leave! Yay. Can't wait to see Mum and Dad, John's parents, and my two sisters for lunch today.
I'm hoping to post some photos on here while we're away - no promises though.
See you all soon,
Caitie (and John, of course)
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