Some Things Old, Some Things New, Some Things Up in the Air

Let's start with the new things. So far, there are two. Several weeks ago, the then-new Compaq laptop (my first new, not used or refurbished) I began using in June '07 when we moved into our LONG-awaited home, began acting quite sluggish, despite the relatively fast cable connection we've enjoyed since Sept. '07. I attributed this to needing more memory beyond the 512 MB it came with. But before I had a chance to buy and install additional memory, the toy began acting very strangely. It would stay on for awhile and then turn itself off. I thought, wow, it's REALLY low on memory. Staples happened to have a half-price sale on tech services, so I decided to take it there to be tuned up and get 2 GB memory installed. To my shock, apparently the free AVG anti-virus protection I'd trusted all along was free for a reason. Two viruses had gotten through and damaged my toy. It would have cost $369 to restore it. Rex and I decided that for not a lot more, we could get a nice new one -- and so we did. Staples didn't have the exact one we wanted at the price we could justify but Office Depot, across the road, did. It's a Toshiba Satellite with a whopping 3 GB memory. We've had it a few weeks now and enjoying it thoroughly. It's the first Toshiba we've had (all the others have been Compaq) but I'm sure it won't be the last. (And we have it protected with a heavy-duty trial version of Norton 360, which we'll buy when the trial period is over. I don't want to take any chances with this honey of a machine!)

The second new addition happened just today (or actually yesterday, since it's now after midnight). We're back up to six guinea pigs. I noticed Rex kept looking in the bottom cage where our darling Harry and Joey live (who I call the "glamour boys" since they are both so pretty with their long silky fur) and this concerned me. I kept asking, the boys are OK, aren't they? He assured me they were, and I peeked myself and saw nothing unusual. About 10:30 tonight, he placed a piggy in my lap. I looked at this furball, a shorthaired albino with beige and white fur, and said. "Who are you?" Rex said his name is Connor and he's a year and a half old. He is very sweet and docile; doesn't seem skiddish like our other piggies. I hadn't even noticed him in the cage with Harry and Joey; he was hiding in the igloo. (Rex had first tried putting him with Cinnamon, but Cinnamon wants to continue being Mr. Lone Wolf.) So far things are going fine with Harry and Joey, but we have another cage to put Connor in if it looks like that will work better. We'll see!

There are also, of course, new things that I've crocheted, but that goes without saying. I still have not gotten around to photographing the many new items that I need to photograph and place on a 4th crochet page on my site. I definitely need to do that very soon. Since I posted last, I've completed outfits for three of my four 16" to 18" girl dolls, and they all turned out beautiful, if I do say so. I'm anxious to get the pics taken and posted so others can see them. I then made a baby ghan (for a future gift or charity) using a color combo of Bernat Softee Baby that I fell in love with on my most recent weekend excursion with Dianne. The colors are soft red (more of a deep rose), fresh green (a bright apple green) and summer ombre, a variegated containing these colors as well as light yellow and white. I found it such a refreshing change from the usual pastel baby yarn. The pattern I used is "Gentle Ripple", a ripple variation using puff stitches and mesh rows, which is fun to make and pretty. I'll use this pattern again in the future for both baby and full-size ghans. I then had enough yarn left for a baby layette. I just made a V-stitch jacket and will make the hat and booties next. After that, I'll make a little outfit for my 20" baby boy doll in a light blue. Pics of all this WILL be coming in the near future!

There are also currently two things that are up in the air -- my church and my vacation. As I posted a month ago, I did make the VERY difficult decision to leave a church I loved due to what I realized were irreconcilable differences with its governing body -- something I wish I'd researched further before I got so involved and attached. The last service I attended there was May 31st, Pentecost Sunday. Since then, I've visited 4 churches. I've narrowed things down more and feel I'll know what I'm supposed to do about this situation in 2 or 3 more weeks. That's all I'll say about this for now till I make a decision as to where God would have me attend and serve Him.

I made another difficult decision -- to not visit Vancouver, BC over Labor Day weekend and my birthday, as I originally planned to do. The "enhanced driver's license" which is now required for entry into Canada turned out to be more of a hassle to obtain than I expected. I'm thinking about maybe taking the train to Portland again, even though I've been there, since I love going there and it's been four years. Or maybe I'll just do something local with Dianne. Again, we shall see!

The something old is a lot of things -- my job, which is a good thing even though we are more shorthanded than ever (with the two people who quit unexpectedly last month) and the place mentally exhausts me with all the constant changing gears all day, every day. They just placed an ad for another assistant to help with more of the mundane things I don't have time to do, and Elfi (who's supposed to be semi-retired) offered to train this person, which I was glad to hear, since I sure don't have time to train them! And the other old things remain my bod, my attitude, my insomnia and headaches, my lack of spiritual growth (the right church will hopefully help with that last one) -- all the things I constantly pray for help with and yet they never seem to change. I remain a disgusting 45-ish pounds overweight, I'm sitting here blogging after 1:00 a.m. on a weeknight when I have to get up for work in less than 6 hours, and I know doing these same things will net the same results, yet I keep doing them. Whoever may be reading this, please pray these things begin turning around. I get SO tired of waiting and sometimes I give up hope. I didn't want to end this post on a down note, and part of me DOES have hope that I won't always be a chubby, sluggish insomniac. But I NEED some divine intervention here and a giant kick-start, however that has to be accomplished. HELP, Lord.........