Break Time

I’m not sure if I’m referring to taking a break, or breaking down. Either one could be true.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I wrote much here. There’s a reason for that. Have you ever noticed there are only 24 hours in a day? And sad to say, but you lose some of those hours because gosh, eventually you have to sleep a little!

Seems like to me 24 hours just isn’t long enough. After sleep, only 18 hours left, and that definitely isn’t long enough. Maybe it would be if a person could focus on one thing, feel good all the time, and didn’t mind working every waking minute. Unfortunately, I can only do that sort of thing for so long, then it’s… break time.

This morning I took a little break time after doing critter chores and wandered along the paths Jess keeps mowed in the bottom pasture. It was a beautiful morning – still a little cool, still some dew on the grass, and lovely light. Oh, what a difference light makes when you’re taking pictures! You can make adjustments to compensate, but there really isn’t a substitute for interesting light.

I took several pictures, then deleted most of them once I got a good look at them on the computer. The push button for taking pictures came off my camera. Jess glued it back on and it works… but it takes a little more pushing which causes a little more wobbling which equals more blurry pictures. I shake enough without that problem.

Automatic cameras can be a pain when focusing anyway. They want to focus on the biggest object, and it’s not always what you’re trying to focus on. I wanted to focus on a spider on a web, the camera wanted to focus on the plant behind it. Blurry spider, sharp plant. Nooooo! My older camera is easier to focus in such cases, but it has a 1” screen, and my vision won’t handle such a small screen anymore, so I rarely use it.

Such is life.

There’s always potholes on the road of life. (How’s that for great philosophy?) I’m busily working away on my 90DC. Every time I get good at something, it’s time to move to the next phase and I’ve got to learn something new.

Then there’s computer glitches. For instance, I was working merrily away on my laptop when all of a sudden up pops the dreaded message: “Memory is getting low. Try deleting old programs.”

Okay, I don’t remember if that’s the exact message, but you get the idea. That meant I had to stop work, open “My Computer” and dig around to see what was on there I could delete. Oh, look, a bunch of pictures from Alaska! Go check the desktop computer and make sure copies are there, then delete pictures. I finally cleared enough space to keep the Computer Memory Gods happy for a while (I hope).

I won’t bore you with all the trials and tribulations, but I will say this. It sure helps to grow up your own tech support. I have excellent tech support in Canada, but sometimes it is difficult to figure out problems when you can’t SEE them, and even harder to tell me how to fix it. Fortunately, my in-house tech support (aka Jonathan), has been able to help with most of my recent glitches. Not that I have many, ha! (That was sarcasm, just in case you missed that.) Here’s a couple of the bigger ones:

* Two websites needed Wordpress updated, which I was a little leery of doing after Rural Ramblings got messed up when Go Daddy updated Wordpress for me. Jonathan did one and showed me how to do it, then I did the other, and what do you know? They both worked perfectly! (Knock on wood!)

* Speaking of Rural Ramblings, he’s the one who fixed the mess there, and resurrected most of my old posts from a back-up database he found.

There’s been LOTS more little odds and ends, and I’ve found that if I’m having trouble understanding how to do something, it’s good to holler for tech support. Saves me no end of time since he usually goes, “Oh yeah, here’s what you need to do”, and zip, zam, zowie! Shows me how to do it. Sometimes I go, “Now why didn’t I think of that?” and other times I think, “How in the world was I supposed to know THAT?”

I know this is getting long, but hang in there, just a few other updates:

Jess is still working. Some days he actually has work, other days he has to employ “time users.” (Randy, you know what I mean!)

Jonathan had a root canal earlier this week. He was there from 2pm until 4:30pm. Ouch. He'll get a permanent crown in place in a couple of weeks.

I went to my doctor for an annual check-up. She wants me to get some fasting blood work, mammogram, and have a couple of pre-cancerous patches burned off. Are we having fun yet?

Couldn’t get a mammogram scheduled until Nov. 17th (okay, that’s a lie…. they had a opening earlier in November, but it was during the time the Canadian Contingent is supposed to visit, so forget that!). And also forget this going to Huntsville 3 separate days to have all that done; I called and rescheduled the first two for Nov. 17th also. Works better for me. Instead of wasting 3 days, only waste one, and it’s after the 90DC is over.

And I’m still boxing up wool. I think I’ve got about half gone. One quick story there, and I’ll close…

I’m sure you’ve noticed my email is tardis@

If you’re a sci-fi fan, you probably understand that. If you’re not, it’s from the Dr. Who series, and it's the name of his time machine, an acronym for "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space". At any rate, one of the ladies wanting wool first called me “such a nerd” when she saw that email, then later asked, “Tennant or Eccleston”?

I sent her a note telling her I was going to give away my age… and she already gave away hers! She has to be a young chick to think there are only TWO Doctors. The boys and I started watching the series on PBS when they were just kids, from the very beginning with the first Doctor. Eccleston and Tennant are Doctors 9 and 10.

And in case you’re wondering, hands down, my favorite Dr. Who was the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker. Gotta love that wild hairdo, long striped neckscarf, and wacky sense of humor!