I Miss You

Yep - I have been absent from my blog a bit in the last week or so. My computer crashed and we had to send it packing - literally to HP so they could replace the motherboard. This happened after Travis and I did much hair-pulling (our own hair, not each other's) trying to troubleshoot the issue with technical support.
Life has been a whirlwind. I have been working about 20-25 hours a week. I still like my job, but I get home late a lot of nights. Travis and I have been spending much more time together - which is excellent - but also means I have less time to blog.
Just wanted you to know, my dear bloggy buddies, that although I may not be posting much - it is because life is offering me many opportunities to live outside the blog for now. I do miss you and hope to catch up with each of you very soon.

New Coolio Internet Stuff

At my husband's request, I am trying out a new internet browser called Flock. As with anything new, there is a learning curve, so the verdict is still out. It looks pretty neat. I know it has all kinds of features that are supposed to help you keep up with your social networks. I am not sure that I can keep up no matter what tools they offer, but one neat perk is that whenever a browser is new, there are less chances for viruses. I evidently got infected recently by a Trojan virus (ie. serious, hideous, scary, frightening, scarred for life porn -not kidding so thank GOD the kids don't use my computer!). The virus was piggybacking a file sent by a company I work with, and believeyoume you don't want that baby. Ick, ew, gross.
Secondly, I had to send a fax to our mortgage company. The last time I had to do that, it cost me $29 buckaroos. I didn't want to do that again being that our finances - (not fiancees- we're already married) are so dang tight. Heck, even if we had money to throw it away - I can think of more fun ways to throw away that amount of money. Anyway - I did a Google search for "send fax via the internet" and located FaxZero. You can go to their site and send a fax that is 3 pages or less for free, of course they put an advertisement on the cover page. Or you can pay $1.99 via PayPal and fax up to 15 pages. I'm waiting to get a notification that my fax was successful, but I'll let you know how it went!
And one last thing. If you are a Blogger blogger, there is a new option to add a blog list! It is really awesome. You can add 5-10-25 blogs to this list via the URL or you can load them from your Google Reader. It will show you a list of a size of your choosing. You also have the option to include a little snippet of their post. What a great way to get your blogger friends noticed by other bloggers. I had eighty-two blogs on my Google Reader. Scary. I don't read them all every day. I go to my "friends" list and work my way out if I have time. Are you comment worthy?

Computer Craziness

I sent my computer to HP a few weeks ago. This is the third time I have had a 9 month old computer serviced. It has already done a "disc check" since I got it back this morning. It is so frustrating. It is likely they will be sending me a new one very soon.
Now - weird situation with my blog - if I use IE to view it - I get a little white square with a red X in the box where the header should be. If I use Firefox, I don't have anything - not even the space where the header goes. Please tell me what you see when you view this blog - it is all so strange!

Instincts and Obligation and an Update

Well, first things first - my husband a/k/a the Fabio version of the computer geek - only without the long hair and without the rest of his body waxed of every hair - managed to get everything (we hope!) off of the hard drive on my computer. Hewlett-Packard is sending me a Fed-Ex box with shipping paid so I can send it to their repair center. I hope that we get this problem eradicated before the 1 year warranty of the darn thing is up. It must be something special about me - I do indeed have the opposite of the Midas Touch when it comes to electronic devices.

Now on to my regularly scheduled thoughts this evening:
Right now it is 10:15 pm, and Kendra decided a short while ago that she wanted to make a Chai cake she found in a recipe book yesterday - the chai flavor being her favorite and all. She asked if she could - and I hate to say it but I really struggled to say yes. You see, I am learning to live free - and accept that my kids need to live in freedom in order to blossom into the individuals that God made them to be. For Kendra, her optimum, peak-performance time is night. It has been since she was a baby. What upsets me is that I have to fight everything in myself so hard to allow them this freedom. I don't want a mess, or the noise, or the questions that will come with baking an unfamiliar recipe. But what my daughter needs to do is create - try her hand at something new. I grew up with an early bedtime, waking up every morning to the demands of an alarm clock or someone else's idea of what I should do and when, making my bed before I left my room, and following "the plan". This is very responsible, and there are likely quite a few of you reading this thinking, "what on earth does she think is wrong with that?" This routine may create an obedient, well-regulated, societally oriented person, but it will never facilitate the extraordinary. When I was in high school my life was school and work. I was a talented writer - but my homework assignments, even in the creative writing class that I loved, were delegated to an item to cross of the never-ending list of things that I was obligated to do. There was no joy, no searching out the world around me with wonder.
I watch television shows like the Gilmore Girls and see the college bound Rory that I adore, however, I find it supremely unrealistic. Rory is involved in about a zillion extra-curricular activities, has breakfast every morning before catching the bus with her mother at the local diner, participates in everything that is going on in the community, has a boyfriend, a best friend and reads constantly - not light reading either - Russian authors, and classics like Shakespeare, all while maintaining a grade point average to keep her at the top of her class. I am sorry but no real human can maintain all of that - but yet most of our society models their lives after what they see on the boob tube. I imagine many families watch the Gilmore Girls and feel inferior because their kids and families aren't doing all of that.
What I want is to create space in our lives for my kids to grow, branch out, try their wings. It is counter to everything I have ever learned. It reminds me of learning to breathe - it should come naturally - but when we are anxious or under pressure - we tend to hold our breath. I have been holding my breath my whole life waiting to learn this lesson - for them and for me. It is what unschooling is about - inhale - exhale - inhale - exhale.

You Know You're Addicted to Blogging When.....

You wake up in the morning with a streaming thread of ideas of blogging topics. It is so bad at this point, that I have started to keep a notebook in my purse where I jot things down because to me it is the ultimate frustration to lose a thought or idea. However, just jotting down the basics of the idea never guarantees that I can recover the flow of thought I had about a topic initially. Usually not. I have always loved to write - and while possibly some things I blog about seem mundane to others, I am having a blast!
I think another sure sign of being a "blog addict" is hosting and attending a "pretend" party. I don't want to in any way make fun of what we do here in blogland - however, when your blog-life attempts to have a voice in your real-life and you say out loud to other people, "Hey I gotta get home, I'm having a party at my blog." you realize it is a little weird what we do here. Doesn't mean I don't love it - hey, I'm all about weirdness. But it is a bit surreal.
And last but not least, when I started blogging almost two years ago now, I was also really into a game on the computer called Tumblebugs. Although unlike my friends who have been addicted to Spider Solitaire or other computer games, it wasn't ever that big of a deal. However, my children made up a little jig about me, and it went something like this, "Tumblebugs, Tumblebugs, BLOG BLOG, Tumblebugs, Tumblebugs, BLOG BLOG!" When they did the "blog" part, they did it with their hands tucked under their arms like chickens and the "blog" sounded a little like the "bok" sound you make when you are calling someone a chicken. No respect.
So there it is - my little secret is out of the closet (like I have secrets and like I would keep anything in the closet -y'all know I'm way too open for that!) I LOVE blogging. I can think of all sorts of slogans for bloggers, like "Help I'm blogging and I can't get up!" I would wear it on a t-shirt proudly - because I blog and am unashamed.

Foto Frustrations

I haven't been able to digitally scrapbook since I got my new computer in December because something called the "file picker" keeps shutting down. Yesterday, I had a bunch of pictures of myself growing up through now - and I was trying to make a slide show but the computer will not let me load pictures - not only to the slideshow - but now I can't even post pictures to my blog. It is NOT blogger - it is totally my computer because nothing that requires using those files will work! Grrrr. If my computer literate hubby will work on it later maybe I'll be back up to speed.

Testing 1-2-3 in Microsoft Word

Okay, this is a new thing! I am using the Microsoft Word 2007 to post to my blog. The 3 of you that frequent my blog may remember my mentioning something about it in this post! Anyway – I thought it would be really neat to use Word to publish to my blog because then I could save the posts not only to Blogger but also to my computer. Ya know, like maybe future generations would want to read what is going on in my nutty brain! Hee hee – Anyway – Just wanted to test it out. Not sure how I’ll use it or not just yet. I am concerned about inserting graphics or pictures – so let’s try that out. I’ll post a picture of my girls together at the Teen Valentine Banquet. A rather random posts all things considered, don’t you think?

Okay the picture posting didn't work - I'll have to figure that out! But I came here to Blogger to post it just so it wouldn't disappoint you. BTW - for those of you who know how "un-crafty" I am - I set up the archway - and put the lights and red hearts on! I only had to go through two sets of lights before it worked! Hee hee.

Geeky Gift

I have never been the kind of woman that provoked men to pen poetry, bring bouquets, or sing love songs. Mine has been more a romantic life full of odd limericks, bundles of weeds that give me hayfever, and love songs like Guns 'n Roses "Welcome to the Jungle" (YES, my husband used to sing it to me - and it is his ringtone on my phone - as it never fails to get my attention!). However, tonight my hubby did give me one fantabulously useful, and extremely exciting gift - he installed Microsoft Windows 2007 - which is going to go with my new Windows Vista - as soon as it arrives. It has tons of cool features. It appears I will have plenty of time to play with it while I am sedentary with the pain in my back from bowling earlier today. (see below post for crrraaaccck reference!)