a soldier in the family again ...

Not a new one actually ... the same one, just signed up again.

Congratulations to my brother, who's leaving in a month for officer training.

We're all a little blown away by how FAST this is happening, and he and his wife probably the MOST blown away.

But I'm quite proud of him for serving our country, though a little sad at the thought of him having to miss some time with his family to do so.

As the machinery in my life continues to deteriorate rapidly ... the power steering went out on my car yesterday. GOODNESS but that thing felt like a lumber wagon! The Saturn dealer seems to think it was caused by a buildup of ice under the car, and after running it through a car wash, it does seem to be doing fine. But it was a VERY weird experience.

My laptop is due to be home again today, and so blogging should resume more faithfully.

I started a word study Sunday afternoon on anxiety that I'm anxious :) to write about, but there just isn't time when I'm using work's computer!

Mac was just dirty ...

Once the screen was cleaned up, it works a LOT better.

Give it a try! :)

thoughts on dead computers

I just got an email from Carbonite today, warning me that my home computer hadn't connected to the internet for a backup in a week.

That would be the computer that's dead, and currently en route to somewhere for repair.

That online backup is SUCH a comfort. It's a hassle to be without a computer for two weeks, but I can't imagine what I would have done if I'd lost all the banking & tax information that's stored on that thing.

I just subscribed in December, and needless to say, I'm very glad I did. Consider this a product recommendation. (If you decide to give it a try, say that I recommended you, and I think we both get free months.)

And ... even if you aren't interested ... remember to back up this week. You've got a LOT of stuff on that critter that you wouldn't want to lose.

The Mac at work and I continue to try & hammer out a working relationship. Programs seem to hang up a lot on it, which isn't winning my affection, but I'm hoping it's a matter of getting things working smoothly with the server, and improvement will be following.

Adorable Niece #1

My sister-in-law pointed out this interesting video from yesterday's Today show about selective mutism. My four-year-old niece appears to have this challenge.



Update on the Mac situation.

We're learning to get along with each other, but I'm still finding everything taking considerably longer than it ought to! Part of that is that I'm so dependent on keyboard shortcuts, and I'm needing to re-learn them.

feeling lost ...

My home computer died Friday night, and so I've spent the weekend realizing how much I depend on the thing!

It's under warrantee, so I'll be able to have it fixed for free, but it will take two weeks. I might have to take up some real-world hobbies -- being without it for that amount of time!

Macinotsh is sitting on my desk

Yep ... set it up yesterday.

I'm still installing windows updates, and need to install my Office software to be able to get any work done today.

Woke up at 4:30 this morning thinking this ... and wanted to come in to work, but I have a house-guest who needed to be awoken at 6:30, so I couldn't.

However, I did use my time productively in meditating on Luke 12 -- all those wonderful reminders that the Lord will look after me, and being anxious and worrying will not do me a bit of good.

I needed that - as I sit here at work typing ON MY PERSONAL PC LAPTOP because the Mac won't connect to the email server ... looking ahead to my busiest day of the week ... not knowing how I'm going to make it all happen ... with needing to leave at 2:45 today for a doctor's appointment.

What was that Scripture again? Oh yes ... God will look after it. I need to remember that today ... and get to work!

thirsty?

Tonight, I showed up at church thirsty.

I'd like to say that by "thirsty" I mean I was longing to meet with God. But ... to be honest, by "thirsty," I mean that I was just wishing I'd had a glass of water before I left the house.

We had an excellent guest speaker today, and tonight he was talking about encouraging young people in your church who you see as gifted towards missions.

And while he was preaching, he had a glass of ice water available to him.

Right in my line of vision when I looked at him.

As I sat in the meeting, "a little thirsty" increased to "terribly thirsty," and the glass of ice water continued to sit there - not 15 feet away from me. The beads of condensation glistened on the side, and I could see the ice beginning to melt.

The speaker never took a sip.

I had a hard time tearing my eyes away from the glass, and he never touched it.

I was thinking tonight about the Lord Jesus' calling Himself the Living Water.

I WISH I had arrived at church with that kind of thirst for God, with a fixation on Him that nagged at my mind, no matter what else was happening.

But you know what, in Luke 9, the Lord says that we are to "ask and it shall be given, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you."

And, obviously, we're to ask for things that will be in line with His plan for us.

But I'm fairly sure that if I ask for spiritual thirst, that is in line with His plan for me! And more than that, not only is the thirst something He desires for me, He also desires to satisfy it. I don't have to look at the water from 15 feet away!

orchids everywhere

I drove over to Meijer Gardens for a walk this afternoon, and discovered they had an orchid show going on. It was just lovely. The variety in the flowers was amazing!

why not have a piece of fruit?

Our office is switching over to Apple computers.

My love for all things geek-ish is at war with my hatred for change.

Pros:

I'll be running something called "Parallels" which will allow me to keep using the Access database in which I've invested more than a decade of effort. Said database ties into every nook & cranny of my job, and trying to replace it quickly and without a good bit of research would be an enormous obstacle.

Apparently the Apples will allow for easier calendar sharing and ... well ... I'm not sure what else yet. But "good things." Many "good things" will happen.

Cons:

Computer in my office breaks down, I can no longer set up my personal laptop and carry on. This has been a life-saver so often in the past.

Finding substitutes for when I go away is going to become far more difficult. I've created a fairly comprehensive procedure manual that almost anyone who's computer literate and comfortable with M.S. Office could use to do my job.

But, finding people comfortable with a PC and Office ... compared to finding people comfortable with a MAC ... quite a different proposition. I hope there exists some kind of Macintosh version of Snagit that I can use to re-do the procedure manual ... but haven't done that research yet.

Losing all my tech support. I have several friends, and when faced with a computer question, we go back & forth to try & help one another. Mac-using friends? Ummm ... maybe I should put an ad on Craig's List?


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The Apples are pretty ... I'll give them that. They're cute and small, and white. The icons jump up and down apparently eager to do one's bidding. But when it comes down to having to produce something, I'm anxious to be convinced that it will be do-able.

I was using one of them the other day, for some VERY basic data entry, and was surprised at how cumbersome the interface was. There was a lot of reaching for the mouse, when a key combination would have kept things moving much more quickly. If a key combination was available, it was certainly not advertised by the traditional underlined letter on the button. While I tried to force myself to do everything with the mouse, I still, at least twice, hit ctrl+s to save my work, and apparently started some involved process that locked me out for the remainder of the day.

One thing for sure, I need to hit the library and try to find myself a "Dummies" book that will show me how to do all the basic OS-related stuff that is SO second-nature on a PC!