aaaand she's back!

Well I hope I am back.

I am really having a love/hate relationship with this whole computer. We ended up having to take the laptop back to the store. They immediately switched it out for a new one but then told us that the only way it would not happen again was for them to "optimize" it. We were told there was a conflict with the software that Dell has pre-installed and that if we did not want the same thing to happen to the new computer then we needed to pay extra. That there was nothing we could do at home to fix it on our own. I think that's kind of a rip off. I would think that a computer should work correctly right out of the box. So we paid our extra money for them to "optimize" it and we brought it home. So far there is no blue screen but the user they created was corrupted. I took it back yet again today and they only created a new user. If that was all that was needed I could have done it myself but the guy on the phone said that to fix it there was nothing that could be done on my end. I also checked all the stuff they were supposed to do when they "optimize" and it was not done. So who knows what they did.

I am not feeling too confident with the tech support that this company provides. The girl helping us yesterday and today did not even know how to explore windows. She asked me to show her. And yesterday one of the techs yelled out "does anyone know how to change a phone number for a dial up connection? Where do you go to set up the Internet?" Of course it was the old guy of the bunch that knew where to go. Maybe I should have charged them $40 for my service.

So to take my mind off of all this computer stuff I decided it was time to get to scrapping. I really wanted to do the color combo challenge for last week (new one was posted today) but I was finding it really hard to find colors that match the posted colors, but I found some that may work. I am now thinking that maybe I don't understand the directions. I looked at all the pages that were posted and people were using colors that were not the same. Colors like bright orange, bright blue and white instead of the creamy vanilla. Here are the colors that I had to chose from. When I printed them out they weren't very bright and are darker than on screen. If I can use similar colors and not those posted then I think the challenge would be much easier. But then it wouldn't be following the rules would it.

this makes me smile

A friend of mine introduced me to this wonderful gem and I thought I would share the love.





Take a look at her other videos. You won't be disapointed.

Making contact

I have a question for those of you that wear contacts. When you wear contacts are they comfortable? Do they blend into your eye or do you constatnly feel them?

I have worn contacts off and on for many years. Many different kinds from soft to hard. I had stopped wearing them for awhile but a few years ago I decided it was time to wear them again. I bought some soft contacts and they worked okay. My eyes are always dry so I am used to them being even drier when I wear the contacts. But that is something that I have learned to live with. Then one day I had a problem with the contact in my right eye. It hurt. I couldn't see anything wrong with it and it was a fresh pair. I stopped wearing them just in case it was my eye. Well a couple of years passed with me just wearing glasses and forgetting about the contacts.

I have been wanting to wear my contacts again so I decided to start again. I opened up a fresh pair and put them in. The left eye felt just fine but my right eye had that same pain. It feels like the contact is hard or that there is something in my eye. When you look into my eyes you do not even see the left eye contact but the right eye contact looks like it is not fitting snug against my eye. Does that make sense?

My eyes are exhausted but today I am trying them again. I guess I am just a glutton for punishment.

In other news, we are loving the new laptop. We don't like all the errors and weird stuff that is happening with it but everything else is just too cool. The husband never used to use the computer, now I cannot get him to leave it alone. I think we have a problem there. LOL!

genuine article

Yesterday was my birthday. The hubby got me a wonderful surprise. My very own iPod Touch. Thing is...I couldn't get it to work. I couldn't even get past the first step to set it up. That first step being to update to the latest iTunes. I updated but when I tried to synch the iPod the computer wouldn't read it. So I restarted the computer. After that iTunes wouldn't even open and all of a sudden my Windows XP was no longer genuine. The computer was totally messed up. It looks like I will have to reinstall Windows and I don't even know if that will fix the problem. The computer is old and I am embarrassed to tell you just how old it was. The system was top of the line years ago. Back when 40GB hard drives were all the rage and 256MB RAM was considered fast. I knew it was only a matter of time before the system was at its end. I just did not expect it to be last night.

So....after work today we stopped by the store. Yep. I am writing this from my new Dell laptop. It is red and it is fast. The Internet can actually be considered high speed now. Maybe now I will actually enjoy my computer time; get those pictures uploaded and actually be able to save my pictures after editing. Imagine that.

How can it be February already?

It is a good thing I am not one to make resolutions. If so I would have probably made one to blog more and I would have failed. It is now February and I have only posted 4 times this year. So much has changed in the years since I started this blog. I can pretty much tell how much time I spend online by the amount of posts.

This year is speeding right on by. Everything keeps rushing by and I never seem to have time for anything anymore. I am always trying to "catch up." I am still waiting for my life to return to normal but it has been so long that I think this is the new normal.

This past week has been a bit out of the ordinary for me. A friend was stage manager for a show her daughter was in. She asked me to help out backstage. So this past week I was at rehearsals each night and then there were the 2 performances this weekend. On Friday, I actually got to watch the show and then on Saturday I was backstage. It has been so long since I have had anything to do with the theatre. I really felt out of touch. There was a lady working the lights backstage that used to run a theatre here in town. One that had been around for years and that I was familiar with. She and I got to chatting and she told me about how her friend has now taken over and that I should go check it out. I don't know if I would have it in me to audition but maybe I could start off small by helping out behind the scenes. Of course this would have to wait until I am finished with my classes but it is a nice goal that I hope to keep my eye on.

Speaking of goals. I am still taking a picture a day. It just takes me super long to post them. Here is the mosaic I made for my November 2008 pictures. If you would like to see any of the actual photos, just click on the photo to take you the Flickr page that has the links.