My laptop is back in my hands. Or my lap, since technically it is a laptop computer. The laptop was completely wiped after filling up an external harddrive with recoverable things that I honestly thought would be lost to the place where bytes and bits go poof. I appreciate all the kind words in the last post, and the suggestions to protect myself in the future. (Here’s my advice: don’t go looking at houses on shady real estate websites. I blame my materialism and want of a 4 bedroom instead of a 3.)

Within hours of its return, the laptop was sitting on the dining room table and I was turned into a work-at-home(-except-its-really-your-in-law’s-house)-mother.

On the day my laptop turned into a brick and I had made my peace with losing the things I actually hadn’t lost, I secured some freelance work that I suddenly couldn’t do. And on the day I got my laptop back, I started working 4, 5, and a few times 8 hours a day trying to get a fast turn around on the project because I wanted to finish before returning to Chattanooga. Which turned out really well because we didn’t go back for a week after I sent the invoice to the client.

Yeah, that’s where the story goes… laptop dead, laptop raised from dead, start working hard, and then get an extra week of lakeside living which was really hard to enjoy knowing my husband was back at home working his butt off to get the house ready for our return.

In the end, we were away from our house and fourth family member for a month. If I had spent my time blogging every day the blog posts would have looked like this:

I love the lake but I wanna go hoooooooooome. I missssss my husband. I want to curl up next to him and help him with this last big project. I was made to be a helper and suddenly I can’t heeeeeelp. Wah. Wah. Wah.

And even though I think the first post like that would have been ok, the internet probably would have gotten sick of the homesick theme after the third post. Heck, I was sick of it before I posted anything.

But the story doesn’t end there. We returned home on Valentine’s Day (kind of romantic, kind of not) and I actually got my wish to be a helper in this project called home renovation. I’ve been taking stuff to storage, I’ve been painting trim (and have a hand cramp to prove it), and there have been more trips to Target and Wal-Mart than I am proud of (and I need to go back to Target to return something. Again).

I haven’t been sharing my story with the internet because I have been busy in a way that doesn’t spin itself into blog posts but exhaustion. And since we currently are sans TV (that’s another story), I have been trying to keep ahead of the exhaustion by going to bed at early to bed times.

And yet the story doesn’t end there because the story is still going… today I have to conquer clutter and possibly take another trip to storage. I have to roomba, steam mop, and whatever else in order to feel ready to meet with a Realtor tomorrow.

See, the story doesn’t end… it just takes a dramatic twist. And I think I just felt my first chest pain.