Long Time Passing

Good morning! It is a lovely day out at the moment. I could say that it is actually a bit warm for the time of day (68° at 6:31) and that the humidity is quite high (78%) and that our projected high (90°) is too high. All of those are, in my opinion, true. However, there is a bit of a breeze out and there is a lack of bugs so it is quite lovely in spite of everything else.

I have had quite a hiatus from this. I have an excellent excuse, too. The hard drive on my laptop fried. Again. That was the 4^th time in as many years. Interestingly, Laura got her Lenovo laptop the same time I did and her only problem has been that she smashed the screen when she left it on top of a car and then forgot it there so it fell off. Sigh.

In the past month much has happened. I had to get a new phone because although I loved my MiniDroid and almost everything worked perfectly, there was one small problem. I could call people, and people could call me, but while I could hear the person on the other end, that person could not hear me. That’s a bit of a problem when it is your only way of communicating with people via phone. So I got a Droid Turbo and for the most part, I love it. Being connected to the internet does use the battery up pretty fast but now that I have a working laptop again, I won’t be using it as much for that. On the flip side of that coin, if I use the charger that came with the phone, it charges super-fast. I think that’s why it’s called a Turbo. I also haven’t figured out how to download music to it so that I can listen offline. That is very important, you know. I have got to get my daily dose of Billy Idol, you know.

Last week I was able to order a new laptop and it arrived earlier this week. I’ve spent the entire time figuring everything out so I could have Microsoft Office on it. I have an installation disc; it is the one that came with my old computer. However, it is for Office 2010 and while that works just fine, there seemed to be some error with the disc. I don’t know if it happened because there really is a problem with either the disc or the laptop or that Microsoft just wants people to buy a newer version, or what. All I know is that when I inserted the disc, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to work and I was prepared to deal with that. I purchased a version of Office but discovered that it was only an online version which is not what I want so I upgraded to the version I could download. Now I’ve just got to figure out how everything works. So far, I’ve got Word under control more or less.

I am also getting used to my new keyboard. I wanted a larger screen so I could have two documents open side by side and they wouldn’t be teeny tiny for editing purposes. I also wanted a number key pad even though I don’t use it all that often. When I do use it it’s much more convenient that using the numbers at the top of the keyboard. On my old HP, there was a definite separation between the regular keyboard and the number keypad. On this one (which is a Lenovo), they are separated only by the same amount of space as any other keys. It makes using the shift bar on the right a bit of a challenge because it’s smaller than I’m used to so I often end up hitting the up arrow instead which causes some interesting things to happen. Or, in an attempt to not hit the up arrow, I get the “/” key instead. That can be equally interesting. I just noticed I also have a tendency to hit the “Num Lock” key instead of “Backspace” upon occasion. I figure as I get used to using this, these problems will resolve.

Last night I had fun figuring out how to open the chapters that Diane Brickell sent me that she’d looked at so that her corrections and suggestions would show. I have to admit that I was getting a bit annoyed until I thought to save them as PDFs. That works and so all is well. Now I just need more time.

Time? Why would I need more of that?

Well, mainly because there are only twenty-four hours in a day and I could use forty-eight. Why?

Well, because Joanna had a perfect, beautiful baby girl one week ago today at 9:06 pm and there is absolutely nothing better than sitting and holding and watching her. Nothing. More about that when I have time to delve into it. I think it is safe to say that most of us are in love with her and some are quite smitten beyond ordinary love.

Also, because I’ve been given the amazing opportunity to work with Katie O’Day. She is a midwife in New Hampshire and I am her newest apprentice. I honestly wondered if I would think of going to prenatal visits as a chore as I did going to work for an eight-to-five job. It has been about five weeks now and it is absolutely fantastic. This means that I have much work to do in getting the book-learning part done as well as learning the practical skills. More about both of those another time.

And finally because I still have everything else to do. There is still school for Seth and Joseph. There is still scouts. There is still writing, a garden, a house, etc., etc., etc. And I’m going to Utah in two and a half weeks to be with Laura and Blaine when their baby is born. Hoping, of course, that he waits until I get there to make his entrance.

And there is so much more that I could write about right now. However, there is a goat to milk shortly and a shower to take so I’d best be getting this finished up for today.

Have a wonderful day!