This, That and Other Things

Good Monday morning!  Finally the holidays are done and life can move on.  With Christmas and New Year's on Tuesday it kind of mucked up the flow of life around here.  Plus the add on of flu and such my rountine has been turned upside down and until I get Christmas boxed up it still won't be finished.  Today and tomorrow morning I plan on that project then I can get the tax stuff together.  From one project to another. 

I don't know if I had mentioned this but I did apply to a gallery in December, my first attempt.  I was pretty excited but knew that it was a real long shot and I was right.  I received my rejection letter on Friday.  RATS!  Oh well, again it was a long shot and I will try again.  I may even try and have my own show and try to sell some stuff.  Wish me luck!

Now, computer news.  The Hubby insisted I replace my laptop since I was having battery problems and it has become so slow.  It's 5 years old but I was hesitant of giving up my friend, yet that is what I did right after Christmas.  I went to my favorite place, Dell.com and put a package together and it was very shortly on its way.  I received it on Saturday, December 29, unpacked it and got it up and running.  It was going well when I shut the lid and put it down for a bit but when I opened it up again it would not turn on and just beeped.  RATS!!!!!!  So I thought I just did something wrong and put it aside.  Several hours later I opened it up again and tried to turn it on and it responded.  WHEW!  After that I used it probably three or four times and got my pictures and ITunes library loaded on it when Thursday night it did it again.  RATS!!!!!!  Friday morning I fired up this good old friend and contacted Dell online and we figured out the motherboard in my brand new laptop was bad.  The guy or girl politely asked me if I spilled anything on it...NO ABSOLUTELY NOT, I responded.  So now I am waiting for a phone call from a tech person to come and replace the motherboard of my brand new laptop and in the meantime my old friend is still here. 

CRASH! BANG! ERROR!

Good early morning everyone.  I am kind of excited today!  Today is the first doc appointment after the knee thingy.  The stitches will finally come out.  I'm feeling so much better that I was awake at 4 this morning.  Just woke up.  Of course my head hit the pillow last night at 8:30 but I really didn't drift off till about 9:30.  So much is swimming around in my head and this doc thing today is very much on the top of the list.  

I think I forgot to tell you about my Friday at the office last week.  WHEW!  What a day.  Every other Friday is payroll day at our office.  I use the program Quickbooks Pro and have used it since 1996 with updates to the program every few years.  I got to the office fairly early that day with the intention of being done and ready to head to the cabin.  I clicked the icon to open QB and waited.  OOPS!  There was an error message.  WHAT!!!!!  ERROR!!!!!  Click again, same message.  The time was about 8:30 and I was immediately on the phone to tech support.  They have been very helpful before and I knew they would again.  I was connected to a guy in India who I allowed to take over my computer (kind of a scary thing!)  I watched as the cursor whizzed back and forth and after about 45 minutes and him receiving the same error message twice it was finally determined that my program had CRASHED!  Oh my goodness.  I was in a bit of a panic.  I HAD to do payroll for the employees.  He suggested that I go ahead and upgrade to the new version of 2013 and I quickly agreed.  Well, after yet another 45 minutes or so I had a new upgrade and my QB PRO was open and I was processing payroll.  It was very fortunate that the data files were not affected in all this.  My concern with all of this is that I sometimes I wonder that there might possibly be a glitch included in programs that cause them to hiccup every few years, forcing you to HAVE to upgrade.  Do you often question that?  

Confession

I am making a confession here.  I have to admit, hard as it is, that I am an addict and Sunday evening I went cold turkey.  My addiction is known by many, many people and I've tried very hard to hide it but now it is time to confess.  My addiction was playing Farmville!  Yes, I am an addict, or former addict.  I had all the different farms, the Home farm, Winter Wonderland, English Farm, Lighthouse Farm, yes I was addicted to harvesting cows, trees, hatching eggs, harvesting crops.  It was very sad that I was spending more than an hour or two a day playing that stupid game.  I even went so far as to constantly go to my personal profile and delete any kind of posts from my fellow Farmville users that my have appeared on my profile so people wouldn't suspect that I even played the game.  I was sick with the addiction of playing the game.  Sunday evening I just decided I was done and blocked it.  Yes, I blocked that game.  Here it is Tuesday morning and I do miss it but I don't miss the extra time I now have to other things in my life, like painting or crafting.  I've picked up my counted cross-stitch ornaments again and now I'm making pot holders for the show on Saturday.  Hopefully, I won't relapse and activate the thing again, I will be strong.  I confess I am an addict and will always be but for now I'm in remission!  Whew, I feel better!

Oh Woe Is Me

Oh woe is me.  Went into the office this morning to pay a bunch of bills when the Internet hiccuped and lost the connection.  I rebooted, twice but still no connection.  Well, I can deal but HAVE to have it by tomorrow for payroll.  Then I get ready to start typing checks and the keyboard flat does not work, AT ALL!  EGAD!!!!!  Emergency call to the nephew and our computer go to guy.  He gives me tips on what to do but the last resort is to reboot with no keyboard, no passwords.  Finally, our #2 in the office came in, after my frantic call and we figured that the USB port the keyboard was plugged into was not working.  Okay, we now have keyboard but still no Internet.  He proceeds to diagnose and figure out the connection in the wall is wonky.  I left him kicking around with it all, home to have a bit of lunch and paint.  Tomorrow I will have to go in early and work.  A longer day for sure.

Daddy's doctor appointment with hip doctor went fine yesterday.  Actually the doc didn't look at anything but just came in and discussed what we want to do in 6-8 weeks, a bone scan.  He wants to make sure that the infection is not chronic,  If it is that would mean two surgeries.  Definitely don't want to go down that road.  Daddy is getting around so much better now, especially without the cane.  He looks great I think.  Back to the surgeon next week to check the wound progress and it seems to be healing very well.  Keep your fingers crossed. 

Continuing the diet thing and doing well.  Since cleaning up the room I found the little gadget I bought last year to help.  It is a thing called BodyMedia, as seen on Biggest Loser on the left arms of the contestants.  I finally decided that I would try it out. 

Surprisingly, it is pretty cool but you have to wear it 24/7.  I slept in it last night and am not sure that I will continue that practice as my arm has an imprint but it is really not uncomfortable.  It keeps track of my steps, calories (after entering the meals), sleep, etc.  Of course that means I'm entering my meals in two places, Weight Watchers online and here but that's okay.  It gives a different accounting of what I'm eating. 

Till later my friends. 

An Unexpected Day

Yesterday just didn't pan out like it was supposed to.  I went workout as usual then rushed home to shower and head out for my monthly massage and facial.  That is something I really look forward to but it was not to be yesterday.  I headed out the door at 8:30 for the 9 am appointment all fresh and clean when my cell phone rang.  It was the place where I go to be pampered and the office manager told me that my wonderful massage therapist had been rushed to the hospital.  Oh my goodness.  That meant the massage was off and since the facial was for 10 am I decided to not go to that one too.  I instead opted to visit my Daddy. 

Daddy's been going through some stuff with his new hip.  He has gotten an infection on it and has spent two solid days doing bone scan things to see what is really going on.  Really scary because the doctors said that if they can't get it cleared up then the new hip will have to come out for a few months.  That would mean immobility and a stay in a special care hospital.  My Sis, is not up with that.  She is adamant that if he ever needs any kind of "nursing home" care that he would live with her.  Uh, that is NOT going to happen.  Her home is in a bit of chaos right now and he can't deal with it.  Anyway, the visit with him yesterday was nice.  He's good except for the hip.  He has absolutely no health concerns except for arthritis, bad hearing and the hip for a 75 year old guy. 

Back to my day yesterday.  After the visit with Pops I headed to the office to spell B while she had to go teach.  The good thing was that I painted for a couple of hours till the end of the day.  I had to stay for the nephew to come and work on my work computer.  A few days ago I posted about the check disk message and he said that meant the hard drive was getting ready to go.  Yesterday he came by at 4:30 to install a new hard drive, I left at 6 while he was still trying to find the driver with no success.  I came home to wait for The Hubby as we were going to go out to eat, the only time this week.  I waited and waited and waited.  Finally, at 8:30 I knew the out to eat plan was out so I scrounged around and made tuna salad.  I called The Hubby to see how much longer and he said that the nephew was going to have to TAKE my computer but would bring it back today.  Thank goodness payroll was last week!  Scary that my accounting walked out the door! 

While whipping up the tuna salad a mosquito must have gotten inside and was buzzing my face.  I slapped it a bit too hard and my hand, fingers came down on the edge of the cabinet.  I hit the right hand ring finger knuckle so hard that I just knew it was broken.  OHHHHH!!!!!  Oh my goodness, it was so sore but I could move it, thank goodness.  This morning it is swollen, stiff, and a tad blue but I can move it, just not grasp anything.  I thought about having it x-rayed but I think it is just severely bruised.  I was also supposed to work out this morning, cardio day but with all the stuff yesterday I also contended with a tummy ache all day long.  It was really weird and it is still a bit on the edge so I'm opting to take it easy.  Yesterday was not at all what I planned. 

CHKDSK???????!!!

Yesterday when I went to the office I was again greeted with the message on my computer from McAfee to reboot.  Since I had some paperwork to do I finally told it to do that.  I immediately got the CHKDSK message.  I knew this was not good, especially when I saw the delete, obsolete, fix, and error words...EGADS!  That computer has all my accounting and payroll is Friday.  I freaked and called our nephew who is a computer tech.  He validated that it was not good and said the hard drive is probably going out.  Man this computer is only 2 years old and a great computer.  He said to let it finish and then see what happens.  It finished quickly while I was on the phone with him and low and behold I was able to get into my files!  Thank goodness since I had not backed up the accounting for the week yet.  I immediately backed up and started making backup disks of the important stuff on the computer just in case.  I'm a bit scared to go in today and actually didn't even close Quickbooks.  Guess it is time to upgrade it...

Sorry

Sorry I didn't post yesterday.  I'm mad at myself but it was beyond my control.  Thursday night our Internet went down and was down all day.  Finally, The Hubby, after rebooting the router numerous times got it up and running just in time to leave for the cabin.  Then we hit the ground running for a steak cookout at a neighboring ranch.  It was great fun.  I also had to spend a little bit of time yesterday at the minor emergency.  I am having some weird rash thing on my arms and lower part of my legs.  Not sure what is setting me off but it has got to something in the air that I'm breathing in I guess.  I spent most of the night Thursday scratching throughout the restless night of sleep.  I got a steriod shot to help and Benadril to alleviate the itching.  Needless to say I've also been sleeping a bit.  Here's some random pic's from last night!

Computers, Can't Live With 'Em, Can't Live With(out) 'Em

Of course Monday, bright and early the (work) computer was not on when I came in. It's weird that the screen is blank and when you wiggle the mouse, nothing.  It's been doing that for a few weeks now.  Anyway, so I had to reboot the bad way. The tower shows on with lights but it's not on. Very weird. Then the bad thing happened...QuickbooksPro, our accounting that I do EVERYTHING on has apparently crashed. I was able to get online help with the them and they accessed the computer, uninstalled the program and reinstalled and it is now working.  Was a bit freaked as Friday is payroll!!!!

Today, CRIPES!!!! I also have Quicken on the computer to keep my personal stuff and pay bills and so on and so on.  I have always had the two programs on the computer(s) since the early 90's, well, when I opened the Quicken it says there is a problem with the Quicken installation and that I need to uninstall and then reinstall and that my data is not affected.   Good thinig the data is there, somewhere, as I never back up my personal stuff...not smart. 

All this computer stuff this morning got started when I tried to go online to pay the electric bill for the cabin and apparently the electric company website doesn't recognize my email address to pay the bill (which I have done many times) yet they sent me the email to remind me. I tried opened the Quicken program to find the account number so I could call and talk to someone (funny, talk to someone) and pay the bill....EGADS!!!!! Not good for me.

My stomach is in knots every morning wondering if I will be able to do any work on this thing, and the computer is only 2 years old.  Should not have these issues. 

Don't forget to go HERE to enter for the giveaway for my Blog Anniversary...Go HERE, nowhere else to enter....


Sad note....A flies back to California today...will miss her.