Modern times

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My computer crashed this morning, but Windows fixed itself.  Of course, my first panicked thought was, "Did I back up Castaway Dreams and [working title] The Hot Pirate's Secret Baby?" Then I remembered I now have automatic back-up that takes everything safely away to the cloud.  I love living in modern times.  I still back up to an external hard-drive once a week to be safe though, 'cause I'm a belt-and-suspenders kind of writer.

Somewhere in the recesses of my storage closet I have an old tape back-up system, and I have copies of my early books on floppies.  I have no way to run those floppies, but that's tech for you.

There's a downside to all of this wonderful tech.  Tomorrow I'm going out to replace my dishwasher.  A repair that in the old days would have involved replacing a button now means you replace the entire electronic control panel for the machine, and that's not cost effective.  I'm pretty sanguine about it.  While it's an unexpected expense, my son calls this a "first world problem."  If you remind yourself you have clean, safe water coming into your house, indoor plumbing and hot water on demand, it helps to keep things in perspective.  In addition, I buy appliances from a local, family-owned business, so I have the tiny comfort of keeping some of my money in my community.  Since there was no flooding involved when the dishwasher conked out, I'm also feeling that while the bread fell to the ground, at least it fell jelly-side up.

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