The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Today is Wednesday, April 9, 2008. It is too early to know what the sun will do today. It is still dark outside.
When I first started this "project" I planned to write something every day. And that hasn't happened. Things get in the way. Over the last few weeks two things have been a distraction. Well, more than two, really, but two that stand out in my mind. Two that I want to write something about.
The first thing was a visit to my favorite doctor, my chiropractor. My knees were hurting so bad I finally decided to go for an adjustment. He's always been able to ease the pain. "Well," he said to me, "I hate to say this but I think if I were your orthopedic doctor I would say it is time for the knee replacement."
Boy, I did not want to hear that. On his advice I made an appointment with the orthopedic specialist. About three years ago when I last visited him, he said it would probably be about three years before we would talk about a knee replacement. He suggested I get an exercise bike. Which I did and have been using it until just a few days before I went to the chiropractor. That day it hurt too bad to bring my knee up. Oh dear! Right now all I want to do is complain and moan and seek sympathy.
I know life can't be like that. Basically, I think I am a very optomistic person. And I will take my knicks, pull myself up by my bootstraps and get on with life. There are many people way worse off than me.
Back to the appointment process. Naturally the Doctor didn't have any openings for awhile so now I am playing the waiting game on what his advice will be. In the meantime I try to keep going, doing what has to be done and not much else. That was distraction number one.
The second distraction was that our computer crashed. Oh my! Glen and I both found out how much time we spend on the computer. We've had a laptop since 1998 before we went to Pakistan. In computer age that is pretty old. He uses it to write his journal and for some other things. Our main computer is in the family room and we each spend a lot of time on it.
Glen manages our photos on it. He does the monthly newletter for Church on it plus financial records, plus, plus, plus. I mainly use the computer on-line - for many things. I used to use it a lot for writing letters but I don't do much of that anymore. My main time is doing volunteer work with a genealogy program called family indexing. It has become such a hobby of mine. I love to look at the handwriting of people taking census in 1850 and other years. And to read the Irish names on the Irish death indexes. Some of the handwriting is so beautiful and legible. Some of it is very hard to read but it is like being a detective. (Scan the page until I get a sense of how this person wrote and to see if I can recognize names.)
Anyway with the computer out of commission, our pattern of life was changed. And we turned to other activities to fill our time. Fortunately, we were able to a "drive-by" computer repair. The most fortunate thing was that they could come by the day we called. Yeah! That made it a shorter time to be without a computer!
Two techicans came. One took the side off the computer. "Oh, this is dirty," he said. I never thought about taking the side off and cleaning it. Did I miss something in the instructions? Now I know that I am supposed to go to Radio Shack and get some can of air or something and clean it out about every 5 to 7 months. Oh, shoot! I hate to dust. Oh, well! They told us it would be about two weeks. The mother board needed to be replaced.
I forgot to mention that we have been discussing getting a new laptop to replace our "ancient" one. We've looked several times and have been watching ads for months. Two days before our main computer crashed we made the big decision and bought a new laptop with a wireless connection to the internet.
When the main computer crashed, Glen got onto the new laptop to check out solutions and answers. He found out that one problem might be the mother board. And that was it. So, we would be sort of out of commission for two weeks.
We wandered around here with time on our hands with only one computer. We each read a few books, watched a little more TV, and did a little more housework and yardwork. And were so happy when after 5 days the computer repair guy called to say it was ready. Now we are back to our usual routine. Thank goodness! That's it for today.