Rainy Days, Lost Luggage, and Tangled Christmas Tree Lights

It's been a rough morning here, but nothing that can't be fixed. Isn't that how a lot of bad days go? Initially, pretty awful, but then things settle out. If you're having a bad day, I hope yours gets better soon.

My iPhone has been having issues, shutting down at random times, and not holding a charge like a new phone should, but before I could schedule a Genius Bar appointment with an Apple technician, it was recommended that I back my phone up to the Cloud, and restore my phone to the original factory settings, and then restore my phone's data with the Cloud. In a perfect world, that sounds like it would be a good idea. 

When technology and I collide,though, it is rarely a perfect world. Somehow, in following the step-by-step instructions from Apple support, I must have missed an important step. I don't know what step I missed, but it was a biggie. 

The moment I realized that nothing from my iPhone had been stored on the Cloud was a dark moment indeed. Gone are the texts. The apps. The pictures. Oh. My. Word. THE PICTURES.

Chuck tried to make light of it. 

"All of your pictures are gone? Does that mean you are going to need me to re-create all of those selfies with you again?" I tried my best to defrost my icy gaze quickly before I looked up from my phone. Chuck really hates selfies. And I really love them. I smiled weakly, returning to the task of trying to restore all of my lost apps manually to my phone. He was just trying to make me laugh. Laughter will come later. 

During Chuck's commute to work, we tried to recreate our grocery list on the Grocery IQ app. We spent 40 minutes or so, when I discovered the sync option on the app. Apparently, my previous lists had been saved on the world wide web, so we kind of wasted 40 minutes of our sweet morning's time. Not that I had anything else to do today. <insert sarcastic smirk here>

Some days are so infuriatingly frustrating. 

Maya Angelou says "You can tell a lot about a person by the way s/he handles rainy days, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights." Might I add, "and lost data on a cell phone."

Chuck has seen how much I love rainy days, and he witnessed firsthand my experience with lost luggage when I met him for the very first time in the Smokies, and I think he's thankful I take care of the Christmas tree lights so they aren't tangled. I'm hoping that my disappointment today seemed like the temporary setback it is. I was so, so sad initially. And then I was a little grumpy. 

In assessing the damage, I realized most of the good pics from my phone had been saved on Facebook, or I had shared them with loved ones. And somehow, for some unexplained reason, my phone does have the photos from the last 30 days on it, so there's that little silver lining. My contact information was saved, and several of my apps, like my Outlook account, have things saved online, so all was not lost, after all. 

Our selfie from Saturday was one that was salvaged. Chuck is so relieved; I'm sure.

Yes, I lost thousands of pictures. And yes, I have to re-download all of my favorite apps, and try to remember my passwords for all of them. My old brain struggles with passwords, but in the big scheme of things, I probably only lost a couple hours of my time, and a few moments to sadness. The reality is, of the thousands of photos I lost, I'm pretty sure none of them were photo-of-the-year contenders. What's done is done. 

What can you tell about me when I am faced with a challenge? Initially, I may be very sad. It will take me a few minutes to process my thoughts, and assess the damage. My sense of humor may not be as spontaneous during the assessment phase. Okay, my sense of humor may be absent for awhile. Once I can get my perspective in place, I can usually admit that whatever situation I'm in, it's not the end of the world. I might even be able to laugh about it later. Not right this minute, perhaps, but eventually. I'll let you know when I reach that phase.

If you need me, I'll have my face buried in my phone, trying to restore my phone the way the Cloud would have done for me, if I had only done things the right way. Make the best of things, I say. Let's just make the best of things today.