Dumb Mistake

I have goofed or @ least I hope it can be recovered!  I am HORRIBLE at never having any of the 1,000,000s of pictures I take printed.  I never can pick which ones to print and I decided pretty early on in Lyndon's life that it was getting pricey for me to print them all at home.  I KNOW I should upload them & order them online, but even that seems pricey and my internet is not the fastest thing.  It seems that when I have tried only about 1/2 actually upload.  I also struggle with where would I store the 100s of photo albums I would already have?  So I have resorted to saving them all on my computer in folders for each year with subfolders for the months and then the activities.  I then store them on a flashdrive and usually make a yearly CD for 'just in case'.  I am not the BEST at all... in fact I am probably the WORST at backing things up.  I always think, "I will do that next time, I'm in a hurry."  Before I know it months and months have gone by.  Yesterday morning I was trying to back up all of my 2009 pictures (months behind-I know!) when of course all of them wouldn't fit.  I have three flash drives and they were all full.  I wrote 'flash drive' on my WF list and went back to my computer work.  My computer was acting a little weird so I decided to run 'Clean Up'.  I then had to print some checks I had entered the day before and I couldn't get the program to load without giving me an error message.  Earlier I had tried to get online and that didn't work either.  I messed with the computer forever trying everything I could think of.  It happened that Momma was going to WF today so I sent my computer with her.  Geek Squad is trying to transfer my files to the external harddrive I purchased over the phone and then it is recommended I purchase a new computer.  The external hardware idea is fabulous and I have 'thought' of doing that several times.  I hate it when trying to save a penny cost you more than money can buy-like the past year of pictures of Lyndon!!!!  A few $100 bucks seems cheap now!  Hopefully they can transfer everything successfully.  Mr. Geek Squad thinks I have a virus on my computer, but of course they have to check a few other things first... all costing fees.  Basically I can put the several hundred $ toward a new computer or one that is 5 years old and still may not work.
QUESTION #1: How do you store your pictures?
I am now very glad that I usually post all of my pictures on my blog-one way for back up I guess.

I received a MAC PROBOOK through work which I am allowed to use for personal business as well.  I LOVE it and have said that the next computer I buy will be a MAC; however, I was planning on passing my old laptop on to Lyndon.  I do use my MAC for everything except storing my family pictures, paying bills, & managing my bookkeeping which I use Quickbooks for.  I struggle with the iphoto on my MAC I always seem to want it to do PC things and never can figure it out.
QUESTION #2: Do I go MAC?

For tax purposes I have always been able to give my accountant my Quickbooks backup which saves me a lot of time.
QUESTION #3: Have you ever used Quickbooks MAC version?

The few reviews I have Googled aren't very favorable to the MAC version of Quickbooks.
QUESTION #4: Do you know of a better MAC program instead of Quickbooks?

After all of my Quickbooks questions....you guessed it I am pretty sure the last time I backed up QBs was in March.....aaaaagggggghhhhhhhh!  Hopefully everything can be recovered and believe me I have learned my lesson!!!!

Please "Say a Little Prayer for Me......."  that I haven't lost all of my pictures of Mr. Lyndon!