Miracles Do Happen

By Allison Berman
March 10, 2009

A few of months ago while some of you were getting ready to celebrate Christmas (the miracle birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary) and right in the middle of my celebration of Chanukah (when oil that should have only burned in a menorah (candelabra) for one day, burned brightly for eight) I experienced my own miracle. My assistant revived my laptop. While my miracle doesn't rank as high as the aforementioned miracles, I assure you it was a miracle for me none-the-less.

I was devastated when my computer crashed. I obviously need it to write these columns but I also need it for my business. That might sound funny considering I'm an artist, but most orders are placed on my website, and if I don't receive the notification of a sale, I don't know I have an order. So, first thing the morning after the crash I drove straight to the computer professionals. They first tried fixing my laptop but eventually aborted their repair efforts and switched to a reconnaissance mission trying to recover my files.

While they were freezing the hard drive I told my assistant about my computer debacle. He started telling me a Microsoft Update I accepted could have crashed my operating system - to be honest a lot of it went over my head. The part I "got" was even if he couldn't fix it he was confident he could recover my files. There was hope.

Eventually I got the call from the computer doctors. They had done everything they could... so I picked up my dearly departed laptop. I was consumed with grief as I tried to figure out where to begin recreating what I had lost, and how to move on.

I knew I was dependant on my computer as a business woman, but I hadn't realized just how dependant I much I used my computer to "run my family" and I am pretty sure I'm not alone. Losing so much information left me scrambling in both "worlds." And it wasn't like I could put my work or home responsibilities on hold while I played catch up. Instead my life just became that much more insane. And the piece de resistance, I was left sharing a computer with my 5 year old!

One particularly desperate day when my daughter and I were negotiating computer time, I took my assistant up on his offer to work on my laptop. It really was the season of miracles! He recovered all of my files AND he fixed my computer.

I merged and purged the files I had "recreated" on my daughter's desktop with the originals. It was incredibly labor intensive, time consuming, and frustrating, and I couldn't have been happier to do it.

I have been backing up "religiously" since then. Who knows when my next miracle is coming?

Allison Berman, an artist and mother of two, handpaints custom home accessories for interior designers and private customers. She works out of her home studio in Warwick, NY. See her collection at www.withlovealib.com. She can be reached at ali@withlovealib.com. Her column appears Tuesdays.