MS Word...a better idea!

With one keystroke the sentences vaporize. Though I don’t see a wisp of smoke or steam, the blank page stares back at me. Recreating the words just sprayed across the page is impossible. Sentences and paragraphs are never exactly recalled. I’m using Microsoft Word now.

My blog notes will be done on MS Word and copied and pasted to the blog site. Google provides a space for bloggers and I gratefully use their free service so I can’t complain about the glitches that occasionally invade and wreak havoc with my diary.

The Grand Marquis was returned to me today along with a hefty repair bill. I could shop for a new car but I choose not to. I’m perfectly happy with the Marquis and the roadster. All the ball joint and shocks were replaced last month and this week more work was needed. If it doesn’t need anything else for a few more years, I’ll count this as a good investment. I hate to spend half as much on a car as I did for the house I live in. I’m appalled at how much a vehicle costs now and I prefer to keep what have as long as possible.  The last car I bought was kept for over 20 yrs. The granddaughter has it now.

I’m ready to get the granddaughter into bed and join her shortly. It seems my bedtime comes earlier and earlier especially with daylight savings time in place.

 

I’m going to copy and paste this to blog spot. ..and poof..it was done!

Hammer and Naiil

While early morning voters were roaming the streets headed to their polling places, I packed more hardware, wood and tools into my car. I'm preparing for another day of home repairs. For the past few days we have been installing the trim work, quarter round and chair rail, and the results have been instant. The finish work in carpentry makes the whole job pop. A little more shoe molding should finish off the room we are working on.

 

The daughter and the son were to tear down some drywall in a bedroom last night so we should be able to hang the new sheets today and it will be ready to be painted. A few more days of repair work and the whole home will be ready to enter the decorating stage; the part I enjoy.

 

I can't begin to tell you how grateful  I am that power tools were invented. I remember the hammer/nails days and using a screwdriver that left blisters in my palms and took hours to finish a job. I used a brad nailer to put up some small trim work and a finish head nailer to put up the heavier stuff. This would have taken all day had I had to use muscle on a manual saw and time hammering each nail into place.

 

While I am working and marveling at these wonderful tools, my mind wanders back to the frontier days. The pioneer with his ax clearing a space in the woods and then dragging the trees to the place that will one day be the place where his cabin stands. After chopping down that tree, he would have to spend more time taking the limbs off of it. Soon it would be just a log. The first building block to his protection from the elements. As romantic as it is made to look in the movies, I would never have survived without Pella windows, a forced heat furnace in the winter and a 10 ton A/C unit in the summer. I'm not one of those people that consider this time in our history  as "the good ole days."

 

Not only were there no modern ammenities for heat and a/c but cooking is a whole other story. I'm not the chef type and if I had to go in the kitchen corner of that one room cabin to stoke up that black metal stove, a home cooked meal would never have happened. I would have to live off what the microwave could produce. ...WHAT? No microwave?

Well, hey..I want out of this movie. I've been miscasted. I can't work in these conditions." (I would have been a whiny pioneer anyway).

 

The day after the election and President Obama is not looking for a new residence! I couldn't be happier.

 

I'm anxious to cruise around this town today and watch the reaction to this election. I'm ashamed to say, the first term he won was met with outbreaks of destruction. Sometimes it's just embarrassing to live in a "red" state. I've always said I should live in California among by blue breathern! Oregon might be an option too.

 

It's time to do a tool check to make sure I have everything for today's work. I enjoy seeing the changes being made after a day's work. The ugly duckling is moving to swan status which is a very gratifiying feeling and keeps me motivated to continue this project!

 

I hope everyone has a productive day in whatever you are doing. It matters not how mundane, if it makes a small difference, it should be worth the time spent!

 

Up Tree ...UP!

Stumbling around in the little house, a building used for storing all those things one seldom uses, I pulled the Christmas from the corner of the room.  Dragging it from it's box, the three sections were successfully connected and upright in it's tree stand. Getting the decorations from the little house was a bit more of a challenge.  The crawfish pot has to be moved and along with that huge pot, the burner it sits atop had to be moved. One thing leads to another and now the little house has lost all semblance of organization. This happens any time anyone enters to collect something. I foresee rearranging and reorganizing in my near future.  It's time to pitch and haul.

The tree is up with Carrie's help. She was easily distracted as the decorations were unpacked. Some of the figurines she snatched and headed to the living room to find a spot for them.  Before the tree was finished, she was collecting her paints and brushes and was off  to do another project.  I didn't try to keep her on task. This was supposed to be a fun evening. Soon enough she will be back in her classroom tomorrow following rules.

(Continued on Monday morning)

I collected Carrie from her home and we rode to the bus stop together. She was wearing her new shoes and was not happy about them. I asked her why she didn't like them as she had been the one to select them on our shoe shopping day.  "They are too loose back here" she said as she pointed to the heel.  I adjusted the strings on them, looping them through the eyelets farther back to pull the heel tighter. Now she is complaining of them hurting. She points to a spot near her ankle and  I offered to loosen the laces a bit.  Finally she  explains, it's a mosquito bite that is causing  pain as the shoe rubs against it. I glance up and the bus is making it's first stop. Carrie turns to walk back to her friends waiting in line and I ease out and away. Hopefully being in school will be enough of a distraction and she will forget mosquito bites and "it's Monday".

It's Monday for me too. The garage just called with a long list of ailments on that Mercury and for 1899..00, I should be driving it again some time this week!  I'm waiting to hear from Jeff. He has both my laptop and my desktop computers. The year 2012 has been one of costly repairs. I should be all good for 2013.

I'm done here on this post because I have so much to get done around  the house. It's shower time and time to get dressed and busy. Hobby Lobby is on my list of places to visit today. I'm gone!

Old and Broken

I'm not voicing a complaint. It could be worse. I have my health or most of it., Everything else is going to pot. 

First the roof, then the a/c and more recently the home office desk top computer lost it's ability to translate information from the cpu to the monitor in a fashion that was readable. The video card has went the way of the roof and the a/c. May they meet up in that great repository in the sky.

Yesterday a big electrical surge visited right before we lost all service for the next 4 hours. My laptop refused to function thereafter. Clever deduction on my part reasoned it was fried. I loaded both laptop and desktop up today and made a drive across the swamp to the computer guy in the country. I left him with the information I thought might help him in his journey of discovery and headed home.  I'm now reduced to using only my iPad or the old XP programmed Dell in the office which is much like using dialup to get on the internet.

The trip into the country to get my computers to the tech went as follows: Road construction. Ahead of me large trucks sat straddle of both lanes of this gravel road. They had pulverized the base of this road into a fine powder and I was waved to a stop. One lane was cleared of  equipment and I was waved forward but told to proceed slowly. Slowly was the only way I could proceed. I'm in the roadster and it's low riding; the fine powder was scraping the bottom of my little car. Reaching the pavement, I gunned the engine and shot forward in a cloud of dust. The view in my rear view mirror showed the dust trapped beneath that little car escaping in a solid sheet of dust storm. I was creating my own road hazard. For the next 10 mies the dust filled the air. The little red roadster was no longer a bright red. 

As soon as I found a car wash, she was rinsed off. I'll have to run her through a auto wash to get the under carriage cleaned. 

Along with everything else that seems to have aged to the point of collapse, my Mercury was finally taken to the shop today to have the 02 sensors changed. An hour later the mechanic called to say his shop didn't have the equipment to change those sensors and I told him I would be over promptly to pick it up and deliver it to my regular place that sucks up all my car money.

This morning I braved this Dell computer that has been sitting in a closet for a couple of years and attempted to speed it up a bit. I've defragged, deleted and dumped and it's only a wee bit better. If I could capture the sound of the old "dial up connection" it would be appropriate for the speed this machine conquers. How impatient we have become. I can remember....ah but that was then...and technology has leaped forward  like a high speed monorail.

I'm waiting to hear the verdict on the laptop and the desktop; I might be getting a new something..something under that tree.

And a little update on the roadster. I peered beneath the hood and noted the thick dust covering everything so I dragged out the water hose to rinse it off and peeked beneath the grill to the radiator. All the front of that radiator was packed with that fine dust. Trudging out to the little house, I bought back the power washer and cranked it up and spent the next thirty minutes blasting that crud out of the radiator and beneath the car. The lawn was flooded with water and a large grey gooey spot. Whatever was pulverized and spread on that road, may have been being prepared to be solidified with water from the water truck standing close by. I'm wondering how many more vehicles drove through that mess not realizing what it was and the damage that might result from it to their cars.

I won't be taking the scenic route again to get to the computer tech in the country!

I'm off to try the Christmas decorating thing again. I failed to launch on that project so I'll try it again today.