I will be the first to say that I’m not sad to see the month of June pass into the realm of history. It was not the most pleasant thirty days I’ve had in a while. Not because of any one thing in particular, but mainly a series of small things. Annoying things… shake-up-your-life things. Some of which were completely unexpected.
It all started with the end of another school year. Hm, okay, with five children in the house, we’ve been through this before. We’ll do this again. Only this time around, we had one graduating high school. Good, right? Yes and no. Graduation means the end of one stage of life and the beginning of another: adulthood. (shudder) No one is ever truly ready to become an ‘adult’, are they?
By the way, who’s lame idea was it that human beings should decide the course of their entire adult lives by the age of seventeen? Eighteen? No pressure there, right? 
Then sad events began to follow our milestone. Friends moved away, not unexpectedly, but still… we were hoping it wouldn’t happen. It’s tough to see people you care about leave. Another friend of our dds’ also announced her family will likely be moving to another state this summer. THAT was not expected. Cue some heart-rending strife, denial, bargaining and, finally, acceptance.
Follow all this up with the natural day-to-day heartaches of life, topped off with a complete hard-drive failure of my barely-year-old laptop and some supremely stupid personal mistakes… Yes. A month from the depths of the underworld.
Dramatic? Probably, but I’m allowed. I’m a writer, after all. 
Two weeks later — after agonizing over whether or not my on-line backup actually worked — my laptop has been replaced. Upgraded, even. Next, I recovered my latest work in progress. Intact. Every single one of the 49k+ words saved.
Jubilation! Celebration! A reprieve from the governor, if you will.
Suddenly, July looks to be a much better month. Big sigh of relief. It’s amazing how good the little things can make you feel once you’ve flirted with the bottom.
No, June wasn’t a complete disaster. We did celebrate two wonderful birthdays in our family. One daughter got her very first real-paycheck job. We’ve also shared some laughs and have grown a bit stronger together as a family. So I suppose I can’t dismiss an entire month of my life as wasted. It wasn’t.
Lessons learned in those thirty days: count your blessings; expect the unexpected; laugh when you want to cry; hold on tight to those you love; and always, ALWAYS backup those files!
You have my deepest sympathies over your computer woes. I had the same thing happen to me twice. The first time I lost an entire novel never to be retrieved sniff the second time (this May) I lost the first 5 chapters, but those were thankfully saved. Mine was a brand new computer too…was yours Toshiba? Mine was…maybe it’s a conspiracy! The computer world is trying to bring down the romance world…one crashed computer at a time! Those high brow compu-geeks think they’re so much better than us romance junkies! Well, they wont stop us, we’ll show ‘em.
As for the personal woes…I feel you there as well. My one and only child is now a high schooler. sniff I’ve had zero luck finding a cure for growing up, she keeps doing that no matter what I try! if you have any ideas let me know…I’m open.
Lainey, sorry to hear about your computer crashes, too. No, mine is a Dell Inspiron. Which I have loved…until recently. LOL! But luckily I had a two-year warranty and the on-line backup included. WHEW!
As far as kids growing up… nope. No cure. No ideas, either. And we have four to go. :\