A to Z Challenge, Part 2

Continuing with Tossing it Out’s A to Z challenge, today I’ll cover E, F, G H.


E is for Emergency Backup.
Recently Jemi over at Just Jemi had a laptop malfunction and she posted about it, reminding everyone to back up their files. So, do you have an emergency backup if your computer decides to be evil and not work or worse your hard drive gets wiped? For documents and files I am currently working on I keep a thumb drive and after learning these can stop working if just pulled out, I always use the “safe uninstall hardware” method now. I also back up my entire computer to an external hard drive weekly. Luckily my computer reminds me to do this every time I boot up. If you haven’t backed up your files lately, what are you waiting for?

F is for Followers.
I have cut back on the blogs I follow because I just don’t have time to read them all, and I believe that I should only advertise I’m following the ones I actually am. Jessica over at The Alliterative Allomorph  recently did a fabulous post about commenters which got a lot of attention and brought up many good points. Why do you follow a certain blog and what if anything makes you stop? I only follow blogs I’m really interested in, simply because I have limited time. I’d love to follow more but just can’t. MY blog is less than a year old and judging from the number of comments I receive I’m guessing many of my “followers” don’t read my post and only started following to either win a prize I was offering or because they wanted me to follow them. I do try to follow my regular commenters and comment when I can on their blogs. Admittedly I’m not as diligent with this as I’d like to be, but I do keep track and get to their blogs eventually because it’s just common courtesy and, hey, I like making new bloggy friends. Keeps blogging fun.

G is for Girlfriends.
I grew up with boys and for most of my life my main friends have been guys. I tend to relate to guys better I guess. But, as I’ve gotten older I have developed more and more really great bonds with women. There is a sisterhood that I think develops the older we get because we struggle with many of the same issues and have similar taste and concerns. And let’s face it, no matter how close we are to the men in our lives, nothing compares to the bond women form with one another.

H is for Hiccups
Not the annoying takes you by surprise at the worst possible moment and only gets louder and more persistent the quieter you try to be and the more you try to get rid of them. They trap us. We can’t focus on anything but figuring out how to make them stop. No I mean metaphorical hiccups. Those moments that shock us and make us pause or spur us into action. Those jolts of realization. My latest hiccup came when I was sitting with a fellow writer and we were talking about a book I have been working on for a long time but just couldn’t make myself finish. She said that I didn’t have to write it. I should move on and work on the writing project I was excited about. That hit like a hiccup does. It was startling. I’m not a quitter. I started out with a goal and I should see it to the end, right? Well, she was right. I didn’t even want to write that book any more and it was taking away from me writing the one I’m passionate about. Like a hiccup it snuck up on and jolted me and like that moment when you finally stop hiccupping, the decision to let it go, move on was very freeing.

I, J, K, L, M coming later this week.