Mother's Day

I grew up with parents who didn't believe in celebrating Mother's Day or Father's Day. My parents called them Hallmark Holidays. They contended that to be honored on a day because a greeting card company decided you needed to wasn't really an honor. My husband, on the other hand, was raised in a family that embraced all holidays, including Mother's Day and Father's Day and even birthdays came with streamers and balloons no matter how old you got.
When you marry you blend families and traditions. So, now I celebrate Mother's Day. We don't make a big deal out of it. I sometimes get breakfast in bed...which is a nice gesture but I don't really get. Sure, it's nice to be waited on, but it's just a little weird to be sitting alone in the bedroom eating eggs while my husband and daughter were giggling at the breakfast table. So, I put an end to that tradition. We do flowers from the yard - our iris are in bloom and are a lovely shade of lavendar. We do cards, usually amusing rather than heartfelt. And we do dinner - usually something on the grill. We try to get out and do something as a family. Today it was church and a little kayaking. All in all it's a nice day. I figure if celebrating a Hallmark Holiday gets me a free meal and a night off from doing dishes, then it's worth it.
Happy Mother's day to all of you who got the dishes washed for you tonight, too.

Sun Break

When we lived in Seattle there were some interesting phrases used by the weather folk on TV one of which was sun break. Considering the Seattle-like weather we've had over the past ten days I figured it would be appropriate to use a Seattle weather phrase. We had enough of a sun break that I was able to get the grass mowed. Yay. I'm not normally this anal about short grass, but when it's so high you can hide small children in it, it's way beyond time. Besides, the longer the grass the more likely the dog is to bring ticks and other such nasties into the house. So, we are freshly shorn and it should only be about 5 more days before it needs it again. I also got to inventory the plants. All the flowering trees have lost their blooms and are thick with green leaves. The azaleas are starting to fade, but the peonies and iris are growing like mad. We have one bed of purple iris in full bloom and other beds in various stages of blooming. We should have some nice color for another month or so.

Also went and bought some veggies to plant in the garden. Will try to get those in later today or tomorrow. Got a yellow cherry tomato, a big red tomato, a green and a red pepper, yellow squash and cucumbers to plant. Picked up some herb seeds last week, so will attempt some oregano, chives, basil and such. I think I just planted gazpacho...I'm not a real big fan of that dish, but I can think of lots of other things to do with fresh veggies. Now if I can just manage to keep the deer and the bunnies out of the garden...

Final Exam-check!

Took my final exam in the computer class tonight. Got a 98. Should've been 100! Am keeping my fingers crossed that I pull an A. Enjoyed learning more basics about computers and learning to work the MS 2007 apps. One of our projects was to create a web page. Let me see if I can post the link. Don't know how long it will be active, but let's give it a try. http://pvstudent01.pvcc.edu/~lwsp9301/
Now, for a little relaxation. Looking at taking another class in the fall, but will take the summer off. Have to pace myself.

It's Alive....

Me, not my desk top. I got a friend to look at it. He uninstalled McAfee which was hanging everything up and cleaned things up. I picked it up and got it all plugged in. Had to load Norton on it which I did immediately. Things looked like they were working just fine. Then I hit the download button for some updates and that's when the trouble started. It now doesn't recognize the monitor and so is rendered (once again) a useless black box. I don't have the time right now to fiddle with it, so it's sitting in the spare room collecting dust while I use my laptop.

I'm not a big fan of laptop keyboards. They're too flat for me and I don't like not having the number pad off to the side. So, I'm debating the merits of ditching the desk top and getting a docking station (and keyboard) for the laptop OR getting the desktop working again and having both. The latter is convenient because sometimes dear husband likes to use the laptop and then I have something with which to fulfill my online addiction.

So, that's my lame excuse for not posting for a looooooooong, long time. I also have been taking a computer class at the local community college and that has kept me busy. Now why did I take it for a grade and not just audit the course for funsies? Someone please remind me. I have a degree...It's not like I need the credits. Anyhow, in spite of being the opposite of a Type A (?Type Z?) personality I am still competitive enough to want an A. So, last post again for a couple of days until I get the final behind me.

'Til we meet again.

Something evil this way comes...

Oh, they've got me again. Some 12 year old in China or Russia or maybe even Dubuque has gotten his jollies by sending me some nasty malware/adware/CRAP that has infected the desktop. How do I know you ask? Well, my screen scrolls...of its own accord. It also takes close to an ice age for the computer to load. These are the steps I have to take in order to use said computer a minimal amount of time. Step one: Run Disc Cleanup from the system tools folder. Step two: follow that up with a run of Spybot. (Remembering to update the tools once a week.) THEN you can run the computer, but remember that the screen scrolling is not cured by any of that, it just means a page will load in under an epoch. The screen scrolling all by its lonesome is getting very, very annoying. Scrolling how you ask? Try typing an email with the screen bobbing up and down like a dinghy in a gale force wind. I may develop vertigo if I don't get this fixed. Oh, and I talked with a local computer pro and his speculation is that it's embedded in the registry. I have no idea what that means fo' real, but it doesn't sound good. So, if I disappear for an inordinate period of time I'm probabaly getting rebuilt. Hmmmm....as long as I'm getting things rebuilt I wonder what they can do about my butt.

Happy Birthday to me

Another Ides of March and another year older. I like to fool myself into thinking that I am a Spring baby, but today's weather reminds me that I am really and truly an end-of-winter gal. Oh, well. In some years my birthday is warm with lovely yellow jonquils in the yard, but this year with the late snow and the lack of sunshine I'm afraid that all the jonquils and daffodils I've seen have been in the florist's section of the local grocery. Had a lovely birthday anyway with just-what-I-wanted gifts from husband and daughter (thanks in part to a wish list which was demanded of me) - with a lagniappe or two along the way. Went to our friends' house for brunch and cards and whiled away the afternoon. Cake was yummy, but I must resist any more after today. Time for the old WW routine again.

March Snow

Happy March 1st. We had our latest snow of the season last night and are expecting more today.

What I want to know is, who shifted the seasons? We are normally done and I mean DONE with snows by the third week of February. March is supposed to be the season for more sunshine, daffodils, crocuses (which also may have appeared in February bless their little cold-tolerating pistils and stamens), and a brighter outlook. Oh, did I mention the forsythia? The forsythia...central Virginia's first harbinger of Spring...should be brightening up the gray landscape with hillocks full of all its yellow showiness about now. But noooo. We have snow. With more expected. I don't know if it's global warming or not, but someone is messing with my seasons and I won't have it. I don't want snow, I want show.

Come on Spring. Let's have a lot less of that and a lot more of this.