And that is not right either!!

 I finally got signed in so I can write my blog, but sadly this will not last long!  I am locked out of every bank account,  facebook, etsy, paypal,  my mail, and anything else I ever hoped to do!  My internet went south on me for a few days and when I got it back up and running everything else was new to me!  

I  had something I wanted to tell you, but I forgot what it was.  I do have a new dog.  Her name is Minerva. .  She is a black and white Heeler and she actually likes me.  Sadly she tries to hug my legs when I am walking, which makes me a little nervous since I have brittle bones and stuff!  Not sure I can pay for a broken hip on my budget.

So hopefully, the Internet will stay up for a while and I can get in a few of my accounts and life will be good again.  Sure missed writing the last month or so.

Right now I am very sleepy so I am going to bed.  Hope to be in touch again tomorrow with lots of catching up to do!

Peace!

New hydrant, old friend, blossoms on the tree

OK, I have been trying to get this out there for 3 days and can not seem to get my pictures to load.  You are just going to have to use your imagination and when I figure out where I am screwed up at I will post the pictures.  This is supposed to be a picture of a hole in the ground with water in the bottom of it.  Sad looking sight.  Well, there it is, but it is really big.  Need to fix that.
So several days before I had started draining the stock tank and started water running in which is how I keep it fresh for the geese.  When I noticed a problem with the filling process I pulled the hose out and no water.  That is always a bad sign!  And in keeping with my string of bad luck I watched the dollar signs flash before my eyes.  Or I could dig it out myself.  All it entails is digging down about 7 feet, crawling down in the hole, unscrewing the old hydrant, buying the new one, screwing it on, and refilling the hole.  Made my back hurt to think about it.  So I scraped together a small pile of money and called my friends, Clifford and Frank who own an excavation company and have access to power equipment and actually still like me.  And within the hour Clifford was here looking the situation over and arriving at a solution.  He had a worker who would dig it out by hand and I smiled.

And the next morning Cliff arrived early with Wayne in tow. I had already told him to bring his own shovels because mine were either lost or had no handles due to being left in the dirt and ran over several time. Same with the rakes, hoes and every thing I touch.

So here are the tool of the trade.  After much digging, a little cussing, a couple trips into town, the deed was done!  Of course Cliff thought this should be a good deed and I thought it should not be.  After much haggling we agreed on a price we could both live with and he toodled off into the noon day sun.

So I ventured up to the house and found my Apricot tree full of blossoms which I can not post on here because I have once more jacked with the programs and the photo's won't upload.  Has something to do with my pop up blocker or my default browser or the fact that my fingers poke before my brain is through thinking!  

Now yesterday I went to the dentist to have a tiny fragment of what appeared to be a piece of bone from when I had a tooth pulled over 2 years ago.  X-ray revealed that the root from said tooth was still firmly in place.  20 minutes of digging and several x-rays later she finally got all the root out!  That woman was good! Luckily I was numb from the neck up because I could hear cracking and other sounds in there.  She called me in a pain pill perscription because we were both pretty sure that was going to be sore and aching last night.  I woke up this morning feeling like a million dollars!  I love that woman.  Going to put her over on my Been There blog later this next month when I get the computer back to functionallity!

So let' just recap my luck of the last 6 weeks.:

Sewer routed out.

Hot water heater replaced.

Sump pump rewired.

Furnace fixed.

Tire on car replaced.

Hydrant replaced.

Jaw bone routed out.

As near as I can tell, I should be setting pretty good right now, but far be it from me to think I may be about to lose my black cloud.  Do still need to have this computer back functioning!  In the meantime I shall hold this in my thoughts:  

Look for the silver lining behind every cloud you see!

I am getting behind here!

Well, I was just checking my stats and happened to notice that I have not been on here for over a week!  That will never do.  Do not think that these little hands have been idle, because they have not!  My floors are laid and the contents are slowly making their way back into their respective positions.   They do not do this alone, you know!  And the little cold snap we have endured for God only knows how long has the goose tank frozen completely solid.  To the untrained goose herder, it sounds simple, but to the geese it is a crucial matter.  They need water to survive and when the temperature continues to hover below 32 degrees, any water I carry out there freezes.  This means I have to do it several times a day.  This is starting to take a toll on the back that was already headed out the door.
And eBay continues to be a thriving place in my world.  Granted I do not sell as much as Eric or other friends, but I do manage to send out a package or two every day.  That sounds simple, huh?  The package usually contains a seed catcher, lotion, or something that I have made or will need to make to order before it can get into the package.  Right now I am finishing up a big order for my new friend in Alabama. 
Well, that is not quite true.  Right now I am trying to figure out how I sent this post off into cyber world and got it back mostly gone.  If you ever run into anyone who thinks they are smarter than a computer and have Windows 8 all figured out, you just let me know, because I want to meet that person.  No one is smarter than this computer!
And there is that book I am working on.  Well, two of them actually.  I have put Chapter One...The Antlions Den on hold while I do the fantasy novel of what life would have been had I met Sherman earlier in life.  That is entitled Long ago and Not Very Far Away.  It can be found at http://delilahsdatingdilemma.blogspot.com/ .
Also life creeps in and maybe a grand kid comes by, or a step daughter, or the loom calls me to weave, or meet the kids for lunch, or Daisy wants to go to the vet, or Elvira needs groomed, and also three is that Weavers Guild meeting, lunch with a friend, grocery shopping or a myriad of other things that need my attention.
The next post will be the luncheon I had with the Catholic Sisters and the ministers from Colorado Springs.  I will have to do that on the downstairs computer, because I have not found a slot on this computer to put my camera card in so I can have pictures.  Always something here in the real world, isn't it?
Off to sew.

Sorry, I got side tracked!

Well, right in the middle of the mess came World AIDS Day and now that is over and for some ungodly reason known to no one in the whole world, I decided that the garage has got to be emptied.  See, my dear husband passed to his heavenly reward 10 years ago and left all his tools, truck parts, peg board, wood working equipment, nails, grease and dust behind.  Now in all fairness, I did sell what ever anyone was interested in at the time, or gave it away.  That was long ago.
Now PFLAG is storing stuff in my garage for the scholarship yard sale in the spring.  Bear in mind that this garage is large enough to park a semi with a long dump trailer attached and still have room for 4 full sized cars.  Getting the picture?  So a friend of mine moved from Vineland to Pueblo West and needed temporary storage.  The a son-in-law came dragging in a great big bunch of racks.  And lord only knows who stuck that pool table in the corner!  Are you getting the picture?  Forgot to tell you that this thing also has a loft!
So they been hauling stuff in and putting it in the garage and the center is now full!  And it is creeping towards oblivion. Along the south wall are steel shelves 3 deep and about 2' x6'.  On the said shelves were broken chains. lug nuts, valuable stuff and total crappola all mixed together.  Since my back has gone south long ago, I got my friend Dan over here and pointed and he carried.  I began to find stuff that I knew was good, but I had no use for it so I called my friends, Frank and Cliff.  These guys have been my friends forever and when I need something they are always there to help.  I knew they were still out and kicking because I had lunch with them last spring.  We had all started Colorado Dirt many years ago and they are frustrated "pickers".  And here they came in their car.  We checked the garage and the next day they returned with a truck and trailer.  Yesterday the returned with a truck, trailer and a bobcat!  Today will be the third day of actual loading and I can see bare floors popping out everywhere!  This is wonderful. 
Today they are on their own because I have to take the dog to the groomer and I just happened to notice that my drivers license expired 3 months ago, so I will be setting in that little room with the hoards waiting my turn.  The dog takes about 3 hours so this should all work out well.  At least it would in a perfect world.  Then it is off to lunch with my friend Linda at SCAP.  Then home to see if I can install Microsoft Office on this computer from Hell!!  And I have satin sashes to finish sewing for the rodeo club.  And listings are running out on ebay so I need to take care of that!  And I want to get a warp measured out for a set of towels.  Wish there was two of me.
In the meantime, I am neglecting the story on the Chapter One Blog and the desk is piling up again.  Good news though!  I did get the cookie bags ready for the SCAP clients and Sherman left me a new pair of jeans and I have those marked and ready to hem.  And did I tell you I have the old computer set up down stairs and the printer is working and God is Good!

Well, my eyes were open very wide!

You know I sell on eBay, right?  And you know I run a lot of junk through there, right?  Earlier in the week I had listed a Minolta 35 mm camera on the auction with a starting price of $4.99.  Well imagine my surprise when I popped over there to check on my auctions and found I had not listed a Minolta at $4.99, but rather a Leica digital 16 mega pixel and the starting price was $4,000.00.  

Now my little mind alternates between forgetfulness and  worrying about forgetfulness.  What in the world had I been thinking.  I quickly clicked on the item thinking perhaps some one else's items were inadvertently thrown in my store.  No.  There it was and the Seller was loumercer3, power seller, 1080 feedback, bronze star.  I went back to the list and discovered that a cheap bauble for $1.99 was now a set of something for a drum set.  Dead panic.  I immediately called eBay security and learned that this was an account takeover.  Needless to say, I was on the phone with them until I thought my ear would fall off my head.  But they immediately suspended action on my account, removed the items, refunded my listing fees, and then we went through my store item by item to be sure that all the listings in there were mine.  After that I then had the pleasure of changing passwords and security questions.  I did thank my lucky stars that no damage was done and that I caught it very early.  (And people wonder why I hang out on this computer!)

Now, this brings up the rest of the scenario.  Say I had not caught that.  First I would have paid a very high insertion fee for this $4,000.00 camera.  Then say it sold, I would have $4000.00 deposited in my account.  Of course, when I did not mail the camera to the fellow who just gifted me with $4000.00,  I would be out of compliance and in big doodoo with big Mama eBay.  No doubt they would jerk the money back, sue me for the fees and there would go my stellar career as an eBay top seller.  Which leads me up to my big question here;

No doubt this is what is called a hacker, but why?  What did he/she get out of this little intrusion into my life.  Apparently they have more time on their hands then I do.  I squeeze time out to do my listings.  Course the Minolta that they altered is gone now and that one will need to be completely rewritten.  May be able to work that in Monday.  The thing is I will be busy the rest of the morning changing passwords on everything that has a password.  Damn jerk!

I love my computer and I love the ease with which I can dance around the Internet, buy stuff, talk to people in other lands far away, look up information, and just all the good things, but don't I hope that someone invents a program that the next time someone tries to access my information, it just fries their computer.  Oh, that would be ideal!  Especially if there were a camera to record their face as it happened.  If someone is smart enough and determined enough to go to all the work of getting into my account they should be clever enough to do that.

Ok, done for the day.  I am off to alter pin numbers, passwords, and whatever else.  Have a good one and be safe out there!

Got to weigh in on this one!

Texting while driving?  Are you guilty of that!  Oh, I got to tell you, most of the people in this town are not capable of driving when they focus full attention on the road!  The sure are not able to carry on a conversation with someone in the car let alone on the phone and drive with any responsibility.  So now lets give them a teeny tiny typewriter and turn them loose on the public.  I am very happy to see that finally the National News is picking this up and running with it.  Why is eveyone so far behind me and I am not that bright?
Now under no conditions do I think the American public that is doing the yapping and texting while driving are responsible for this!  No!  I blame Obama!  Well, not really, but the poor guy gets it for everything else, so just wanted to throw that out as an option.
I do blame Technology.  We can put a man on the moon.  We can put a computer in a device that is 3 inches by 5 inches and an eighth of an inch thick and capable of flashing a missive around the world in 2 seconds, but we can not stop an idiot from using it while driving down the road and 75 miles an hour.  That is almost faster than the speed of light!  It has been stated that it takes 10 to 20 seconds of having your eyes focused on the screen to send a short message.  And then read the return.  Lot can happen in just a few seconds.  Hell, I have conceived in less time then that!
In my usual haphazard way of watching the news I did see that a national something or other has a campaign going showing the last message on the cell phone before hitting a brick wall.  Real important stuff like YEAH, lol, yes, no. And that could not have waited?  I am with them on the ban of these devices while driving.  I am also in favor of enforcing that law.  I would go further and say I am in favor of us drivers who do not do this being able to enforce it also.  If I see someone texting while driving, I should be able to pull out my gun and shoot them.  Or ram them and knock them off the road.  Oh, do I sound a bit radical?  Well, I hate that, but I also hate coming on a twisted mess of metal that was once a car and seeing the body bag being carried off to the ambulance.  See the sad part about this whole selfish mess is it is not always the guy with his finger on the phone that is in the bag.  Sometimes it is the little old lady setting at the stop sign thinking about church on Sunday.  Or the silly boy who thought just cause he was in the cross walk that he was protected. 
I have got to get a sticker for my car that says. HANG UP AND DRIVE.  I doubt that will work though.  I been giving them the one fingered Hawaiian good luck sign and they don't see that.  So for today, this is just my humble opinion.  Don't text and drive and don't talk and drive should be as simple to remember as don't drink and drive. 
Laters!

Hey look I got that widget!

Now I realize this widget is not where it belongs, but it is here. By the time I get to the AIDS Walk on October 9, I may actually have it where it is supposed to go.  Or not.  For the moment I can bask in the glory of success! Which brings me to another point, but you could see this one coming couldn't you?

I can remember way back when one of my teachers, Mrs. Howe to be exact, told us about computers. I am torn at this moment because I so want to tell you about Mrs. Howe and our mutual disrespect for each other and how I learned about computers. So here is what I will do, I will mark it down in my little black book to write about Mrs. Howe and I will now tell you of the computer learning experience.

At that time I was but a wee little girl in the 4th grade and Mrs. Howe was our teacher.  Also at that time an adding machine was about as good as you could get for use in your mathematical equations which consisted of plus and minus. They were very heavy and awkward and had a handle on the side which you pulled down each time you made an entry.  So Mrs. Howe started telling us about new things that were being made and they would add, subtract, multiply and divide. She said they were very big and could fill a whole room and put off a lot of heat.  Little did I realize that this was the precursor to this thing I now type on.

I had a nephew, not the stoned one, who told me how often knowledge doubles and it amazed me to see that he was correct in his figures.  Just think back to 50 years ago, which a lot of you can remember very well.  1960 probably the 10 key was in everyday usage.  Typewriter was a big awkward thing that set on top of the desk or electric ones were probably coming into being.  When Sam brought home his first Word Processor, about 1984,  I was dumb founded..  That was way to complicated for me. Fast forward to today.

I can set here on this thing in the comfort of my home and type this blog, hit a button and in 3 seconds or less some guy in Germany has it translated and on his screen reading every word in German and you know I did not do that! Knowledge is indeed doubling, but rather than every five years now it is about the speed of sound..

I remember when I was getting my accounting degree 30-35 years ago we still did the columns with a pencil and added them in our head.  Ok, I had a calculator I used to double check, but we are talking 30 years ago, people. Now we enter it all on the computer which puts it in the proper accounts, issues a profit and loss and figures how much tax you owe.

I was very near the top of my class and the Dean knew me on a first name basis, but when I got tangled up with these computers I figured I was done for. Almost was, but I figured this is how it is, so I better figure it out.  Now  I have 2 kids that look at me with glazed eyes when I start talking html, bytes, and things like that. My oldest son works with them as a vocation. Bret uses them to download music and Debbie is knowledgeable. Other daughter plays games on hers.

So the world moves on and I shudder to think what new things I am going to have to learn before I can poke the toes skyward and fly away.