Lazy Sundays

I love lazy Sundays. You know the kind. You get up and go to church and when you get home, don't do much of anything else. Love em.

SSCB (my beloved DH) took over with Junior Burger, which was nice and a much needed break for Mama. He is 3 months old now, and loves attention. Too much, it is only Mama that will comply. Sisters lose interest fast and Daddy is too often out of town. Anyway, SSCB and Junior Burger watched a little football and took a nap.

And I played in Photoshop and created a scrapbook page about JOY, my One Little Word. I also did some other pages in an attempt to get all caught up after my laptop took a week long hiatus.

I was musing during Bible Study, after talking to a dear homeschooling friend of mine, about what a JOB teaching my kids really is. Lately, Tater Tot (age 5 and a HALF) has taken to dragging her feet during reading. I haven't yet decided what she is trying to accomplish. I think it could be a misguided ploy to get more undivided attention, a lack of quality sleep (for her, I haven't had a good nights sleep since January 2000), or a failed attempt to make me give up on teaching her how to read. It is exhausting. It is WORK. But, I love it. I love that my kids really do enjoy learning. Even when it is hard. Sure they test me, they always will, but mostly we have a lot of fun.

Ah, lazy Sunday. Can you linger a little longer?

My Extended Absence

Last week was a full-on, all-out, direct assault on my One Little Word, my JOY.

Last Saturday, as DD8 was playing Webkinz my laptop, my beloved connection to the outside world while SSCB is out of town, popped a little script error. I didn't think anything of it and cancelled the script. My LT immediately became horrifically slow. Uh-oh.

My first thought was that I had been attacked by malware or a spybot. I started the programs to detect that and went about my business. Over the course of the evening, though, the LT performance got worse and worse, so I called my first line of tech support, my IT expert DAD!

Dad had me do some things to try and give him an idea of what might be going on. We tried what seemed like everything, to no avail and finally the LT shut itself down and when I finally coaxed it into turning back on informed me that it had overheated. Oh no.

After coming to the conclusion that this was unlike anything he had ever seen Dad advised me to turn off the LT and he would come by after church to see what he could do.

Fast-forward to Sunday afternoon. My Dad came over with a bunch of his magic IT CDs and starts trying to figure out what happened. The LT gets gradually worse. Finally, we make the call. Dell Support!

They try to figure out what is going on. Their just as confused as my Dad, but between them and Dad they decide that it must be a hardware problem and decide to replace some parts. The repair guy will be out on Wednesday.

Wednesday comes and the repair guy comes out. He replaces everything inside the LT except the hard-drive and video card. Drum-roll please......... press the power button and NOTHING! I think I am going to cry. He calls Dell support and between them decide to try again, this time also replacing the video card.

Long story short? My computer's insides are brand new except for the hard drive.

The video card burned itself out.

Moral of the Story? Always buy the extended warranty!

So here I am, back to business. The good news is that we got LOTS of school done. LOTS of ironing too. Thankfully the dinosaur server in the office allowed me to check my email, but not much else.

But my beloved laptop is back in business and just as good as it ever was.

My faith in humanity has been restored.... :)

Christmas Has Left the Building

Yes folks, the tree is down, the wreath is packed up and the nativity is put back in the box. Usually, I dread this day. I hate putting the Christmas decorations away. I must be getting old, because this year was the complete opposite. I dreaded putting the decorations up, and enjoyed taking them down.

Or maybe I'm not old, maybe we're just outgrowing our home. That's probably more like it. The house is just getting too small. Decorating (and the subsequent furniture moving and adjustment) is just a chore and I don't enjoy it. It makes the already cramped house feel even more cramped, I guess. I feel out of sorts with all the decorations about. We need a bigger house.

Unfortunately, that is not in the cards for a few more years. It makes me a little sad, in a way. I used to love this house. I don't hate it now. Me and the house have developed an understanding of sorts. He (the house) won't shrink anymore if I agree not to drag anymore junk home.

I think what added to the Christmas bah-humbugs this year was the baby as well. Okay, not the actual baby, he's too cute to be a bah-humbug. It's all of his .......stuff. More clutter, no matter how necessary to the proper care and feeding of Junior Burger.

So, I found joy in taking down the decorations this year. And a twinge of sadness at the bleak winter month that approaches. Yeah, I said it. Month. Singular. Things start to warm up around February around these parts. Don't hate me, okay?

Today's Assignment

So, SSCB (that's Super-Sonic Cheeseburger) decided last night that we should just get a new dryer. I added that to my list of chores for today.

1. Grocery store. The bane of my existence. Also the reason for my existence, as the provider of nourishment. We have a love-hate relationship.

2. Tax Office. Truck needs new tags. Joy. I will find joy in renewing the tags. I will find joy in the long lines and screaming kids. I will. Just you watch.

3. Dry Cleaners. We're buds. They love me there. Almost as much as SSCB loves to wear dry-clean only clothes.

4. Bank. I will find joy at the bank. I actually have money to deposit. Usually I am draining the account...see next chore.

5. Appliance shopping. This will be the fun stuff. We have a Sears outlet store here, which rocks. We love dinged appliances here. Almost as much as we love dented cans at the grocery store!

Choosing Joy

So far, so good. No funk yet. No self-loathing. I have gotten into the habit of taking each situation that would normally drag me down and turning it over in my mind to find the joy in it. One little word, people. It's already making a difference.

Fresh Starts

Such is my life. Here I am making a New Year's post two days too late... One of my resolutions was that I would be journaling more often, though. I like to type. I love my computer. So it made sense to do the journaling here....right?

This is my digital happy place. I do almost everything digital now. Digital journaling. Digital scrapbooking. Digital communication. I am all about my computer.

Don't worry though, I also do a lot not digital. I sew. I have a family (a real one even...not digital). I read....although Amazon's new digital books are looking cool.... So, this will cover all of that. A little of everything, if you will.

But, probably mostly digital. Mostly.

Looking Forward

So, for 2008, I have taken on some new challenges.

1. I am participating in Big Picture Scrapbooking's FREE January class, Get a LOAD of this! (LOAD = LayOut A Day). During the month of January I will be completing a layout each day...digitally, of course. I worried that my speed working in digital gives me an unfair advantage, but I have seen the work of other participants working with paper and they are amazing. Some of their LOs would have taken me weeks on paper... It's really amazing. If you are interested, the class is still open (til January 15).

2. I have chosen One Little Word for 2008. This is in thanks to Ali Edwards. My one little word is JOY. I am focusing on JOY and being JOYful in 2008. Already being challenged in this. The dryer quit on me this morning. More on that later...

3. I am in the 365 challenge. I will be taking at LEAST one picture per day with my super cool digital camera. I like the idea of having a chronicle of what has been going on around here this year. I missed so much in 2007. Camera wise. Well, and life wise. I was pregnant the majority of the year and slept through alot, but I digress. I really want to have more pictures of the day to day stuff.

And that's it. These aren't my resolutions, those are another beast. These are just the digital challenges that I have embarked upon.

Maybe you'd like to join me?

The Death of the Dryer

Our wedding anniversary was yesterday. This is relevant, how? You may be asking yourself. Well, the dryer was a wedding gift. We received it nine years ago TODAY. To the day. It died on it's birthday. How sad is that? Even worse? I had to call my husband, my Super Sonic Cheeseburger (yes, I have an un-natural obsession with all things Sonic), and tell him. This. Less than a month after I fried the oven with cheese dip. Which required a full kitchen upgrade. Oy. I'll save that story for another day, okaythanks.

He took it well, though. AFTER I promised that I had NOT been near the dryer with cheese dip. Heck, I try to stay away from the dryer as much as humanly possible.

But, the motor burnt out in the night, I guess. It went quietly. It would cost $250 to fix. So, we are also looking at buying a new one. If for no other reason than this one is an el cheap-o model and burns more energy than I do what with all my digital stuff. And that's a lot of energy.

I would rather have a clothesline, but those are prohibited by our Home Owner's Association (darn them...) and our yard is really too small anyway. So a dryer is my only option. Which is really important to me at this juncture. Witness...the cloth diapers currently NOT drying in my bathroom.

I NEED a dryer. Badly. For now it is all disposable diapers. Which are quite costly, by the way. It pains me to throw each 20 cent diaper away. Pains me. Especially since Junior Burger is kind of a pooping machine. We use a LOT of diapers.

So you can see how my choice of the word JOY is a little bit of a challenge? On the other hand, new appliances do bring me Joy. Doing less laundry will bring me joy. The laundry mounting up to stage a revolt while we are dryer-less will not bring me joy. But, maybe I can lock it in the closet and focus on my digital happy place. That will bring me joy. But, if you come over, don't go in the closet. Okay?