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?


************

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!

40 degree temp drop overnight

Yesterday I went for a walk in the rain. It was 47 degrees, and felt SO good to get outside.

I woke up this morning, and it was 7 degrees; we'd had a TON of snow, and the wind was gusting up to 60 mph.

So all the rain had frozen, topped with snow, and the visibility was nil.

It was NOT a fun drive to work, but I was thankful to get there in one piece. They even told everyone in northern Michigan they weren't allowed out on the roads!

My, but I'm looking forward to spring!

for lack of original ideas ...

I'll borrow this from another blogger:

1. What time did you get up this morning? 5:30 a.m.

2. Diamonds or pearls? I like both ... but if someone wants to spend money on me, electronic gadgets are better than either one. :)

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? "I Am Legend."

4. What is your favorite TV show? "Monk"

5. What do you usually have for breakfast? Oatmeal with walnuts & dried fruit.

6. What is your middle name? Kathleen.

7. What food do you dislike? dried coconut, liver (thankfully I've never run across them in the same dish!)

8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Robin Mark's "Shout to the North"

9. What kind of car do you drive? Saturn Ion (Lil #6)

10. Favorite sandwich? Bacon Lettuce & Tomato with fresh warm-from-the-sun tomatoes

11. What characteristic do you despise? "despise" is too strong a word. Cruelty

12. Favorite item of clothing? anything that came from Goodwill. No guilt!

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Back to Great Britain to see all the things I had to skip the first time

14. What color is your bathroom? cranberry

15. Favorite brand of clothing? LL Bean

16. Where would you retire? Don't envision retirement as an option, unless we get a president who will privatize social security. :)

17. What was your most memorable birthday? A surprise party at Pell's. I'm not overly fond of surprises, but this one was nice, and definitely made the birthday memorable.

18. Favorite sport to watch? does demo derby count?

19. Farthest place you are sending this? to the whole internet! (or at least the 3 people who read my blog)

20. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? Osama bin Laden

21. Person you expect to send it back first? (or in this case ... answer in the "comments" section. Kristen!

22. Favorite saying? "Bitterness is poison you take hoping someone else will die."

23. When is your birthday? too close to Christmas!

24. Are you a morning person or a night person? Morning.

25. What is your shoe size? 8

26. Pets? 5 African violets and 1 orchid

27. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? it got above freezing here today!

28. What did you want to be when you were little? housewife

29. What are you today? office drudge (can you tell the kind of day I had?)

30. What is your favorite candy? chocolate turtles (made with good chocolate)

31. What is your favorite flower? Lilacs, Hyacinths & Lilly of the Valley

32. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? May 28 - going to visit a friend!

33. What church do you attend? the one outside my office door.

34. What are you listening to right now? the news

35. What was the last thing you ate? chocolate with dried pear in it

36. Do you wish on stars? Nope.

37. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Grey

38. How is the weather right now? It was up to the low 40's today! I went for a walk after work, even despite the rain.

39. Last person you spoke to on the phone? L.M.S.

40. Do you like the person who sent this to you? I'm guessing Kristen has sent me this at some point, so I'll say "yes." :)

41. Favorite soft drink? Diet Pepsi, before I gave up soda

42. Favorite restaurant? It was La Shish in Detroit, until I discovered they were closed down for supporting terrorists! Now it's a toss up between Bangkok View and El Burrito Loco

43. Hair color? Brown and rapidly going gray.

44. Siblings? one, and a sister-in-law that I was blessed to gain in recent years

45. Favorite day of the year? New Years' Day - no expectations, and I have the world to myself for the first few hours of the day

46. What was your favorite toy as a child? toy horses

47. Summer or winter? Summer.

48. Hugs or kisses? Hugs

49. Chocolate or Vanilla? Is there more than one possible answer to this question?

50. Do you want your friends to respond back? If they're so inclined.

51. What is under your bed? A cutter for picture matting and a rolled-up rug.

52. Who is the friend you have had the longest? That I'm still in regular contact with, D.M.L. That I still have occasional contact with? L.J.

53. What did you do last night? paid bills ... it was fascinating

54. Favorite smell? Thunderstorms

55. What are you afraid of? medical stuff, if I'm the focus of it

56. Plain, buttered, or salted Popcorn? butter and salt.

57. How many years at your current job? 13 years

58. Favorite day of the week? Sunday.

59. How many towns have you lived in? 11

60. Do you make friends easily? acquaintances yes; friends, no

They play OUTSIDE? In THIS?

I've never been a sports watcher, so it had never dawned on me that professional football teams in the north play outdoors, and this late in the year.

They pay these guys astronomical salaries, and then don't even provide them with a roof in this weather?

And people pas astronomical amounts of money to watch a game, outdoors at below zero temps? I mean ... they sit outside for hours in this? I nearly froze going to buy a newspaper today.

Brrrrr!!!!!

why I loathe home-improvement projects

Because they always. ALWAYS. turn out like this.

I read the instructions. I follow them. I end up with a result that could have been surpassed by my 3 and 4-year-old nieces, and they would have had a MUCH better time producing it!

"Trinka, you COULD hire someone," you say.

True. True.

But my "hire someone to do this" list is quite long already, that I feel guilty if I don't tackle some of the things that at least SEEM to be simple (when reading afore-mentioned directions!)

Grrrrr!

I could see there was mold growing behind my tub's caulking. So I knew something had to be done before I had house-plants growing inside the walls.

However, the result? I'm not at all happy with.

On the other hand, the rest of the day was quite pleasant! I never left the house, and got all kinds of cleaning/organizing/puttering done, as well as enjoyed some good books.

an exceptionally clever little novel

Online somewhere, I saw a discussion about Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.

It looked interesting, and so I picked it up at the library on my way home from work today.

It was so engaging, that I read it straight through!

It's the story of an island-nation that reveres the man who wrote the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." (Uses every letter of the alphabet.)

The country has a monument to this man, with the sentence on the top. When the letters of the sentence begin to drop off due to glue -failure, the citizens take it as a sign that they need to cease using those letters.

And the book, also, stops using them.

It's an excellent story, and obviously very clever. It's quite far into the loss of letters before the writing becomes difficult.

If you want a short book that will grab your attention, I'd recommend it!

ah yes ... it's still winter

Saturday, I was running around without my winter coat, and wearing sandals. It was above freezing (34, in fact!), which to a northerner = "summer."

Today around noon it was 20 degrees. They say that's the warmest it will be for a week. We just started getting heavy snow and a strong wind.

Yep ... stayin' home this weekend. Yes, I am!

thoughts on comfort

I'm for it. Comfort I mean. I'm WAY too much in favor of it!

I've been reading Goforth of China. It's a biography, written by his wife, of a missionary in China during the time of the Boxer rebellion.

They went through so much for God, and were eager to do it. And He blessed them with such a wonderful ministry there. The underground church in China is thriving, and the fact that they've been strong through so many years of persecution is in large part due to missionaries like these, who gave them a solid foundation to grow on.

I was reading last night in 2 Samuel 11. It's the story of David's sin with Bathsheba, and his attempt to cover it up by murdering her husband.

But it starts so innocently ... at the time when kings went forth to battle, David sent Joab.

Instead of going out to war himself, he sent someone else.

So instead of seeing God use him to win a great victory, David had a great personal defeat.

I love my job, and my life, and so it's easy to say that "this is where God wants me."

But am I willing to have the apple-cart upset, if He chooses another path? I'm so fond of my situation, but I want to have my eyes open if becomes "the time when kings go forth to battle." I don't want to miss out on the life God wants for me.

No exercise today - I ended up taking my car to the Saturn dealer after work, and just now got home. An annoying little "thunk" turned out to be a need for sway bars & miscellaneous other stuff I don't understand.

But what I DO understand is that I'm thankful I bought the warrantee. I've had it for about a month, and I've already had $380 worth of work done. I do believe that piece of paper is going to pay for itself.

Which candidate matches your views the most closely

88% Mitt Romney
86% Fred Thompson
81% John McCain
77% Tom Tancredo
71% Mike Huckabee
62% Ron Paul
61% Rudy Giuliani
33% Bill Richardson
29% Joe Biden
26% Hillary Clinton
24% John Edwards
23% Barack Obama
23% Chris Dodd
12% Mike Gravel
10% Dennis Kucinich

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

and the phone calls continue ...

Just discovered a phone message from Philips saying, "your warrantee information is updated, and all is well. We'll be sending you a new unit, and taking yours back!"

Of course, acting on the information they gave me at 4:30 today, "you can't return it to us," I made arrangements to return it where I bought it.

So ... here I am on hold ... again ... to explain to them NOT to send me a replacement unit, or expect me to ship this one back to them.

jousting with customer service

This was the theme of the day today!

I have some eyeball issues that require yearly visits to an eye doctor, rather than the store-front glasses-fitting places preferred by my eyeball-insurance company.

Afore-mentioned eyeball-insurance company supposedly will cover part of the out-of-network costs, although I got a response from them saying I had "already exceeded my yearly benefits." Which seemed odd, as this was my first attempt to USE this particular insurance.

So bureaucracy #1 consumed 15 minutes of my life, ending with William telling me, "it was just a clerical error that caused that message. Your check is coming."

Call me "dubious" about that one. But I'll wait and watch the mail.

Bureaucracy #2 was Philips customer service regarding a defective dvd recorder.

I bought it. It never worked.

I called customer service Saturday, and cheerful-man said, "of course we'll replace it. Fax us the proof of purchase, and we'll call you right away."

Fax sent Saturday.

No call.

Fax sent again Monday.

No call.

I call back after work.

"Oh, we can't support it because you don't have the serial number." (It was a refurbished unit, and the number had been obliterated.)

Hmmm ... do you think it might have been helpful to call me with that information? Or did you think I'd just forget? Cheerful-guy from Saturday told me it wouldn't be a problem when I asked him a question about that very issue.

So ... back to company-it-was-ordered-from, who will take it back, but don't have any more. Though there WAS a cheaper unit by a different company for sale, so I ordered that ... as Philips is now one of my lesser-favored companies! Another 20 minutes of my life to Philips, and 15 more to company-it-was-ordered-from.

AND ... if you think it's boring to read ... imagine how much MORE boring it was to DO. Almost an hour spent with customer service folks today. I believe there should be a trophy of some kind coming to me.

I've been enjoying my friend Deb's new blog. She's writing daily about the Scriptures, and it's been a blessing. If you get a chance, pay her a visit!

She's inspired me that I haven't been blogging hardly at all recently about what I'm reading. I will endeavor to rectify that situation!

Which reminds me of my second accountability point - exercise. It's actually been going well. I was on the elliptical yesterday after work, and lifted weights today.

primaries tomorrow

Michigan's primary election is tomorrow. So I spent the weekend watching debates on youtube, and reading about different candidates.

I'm convinced that Fred Thompson is the guy who thinks closest to what I believe.

Of course, now that I've decided that, I'm a bit discouraged at how little I'm actually hearing about him!

A lot of my research came from youdecide2008.com. There are links to debates, and a lot of good information there.