The modem's got the ball! It shoots! It ...

flies into the stands.

The saga of the computer continues. Last Wednesday I left my laptop in the hands of Dell certified guru Brandon, who shall in my pantheon of demigods stand tall as the Monitor and Network Restorer (All hail! **genuflect, genuflect**). He found my network card had truly decided to create a language of its own that wasn't communicating with the rest of the computer, so he slapped that boy into shape and in the process succeeded in restoring my monitor from the Andy Warholian 16-bit mush to proper 32-bit. He tested the computer's DSL networking and pronounced it good. Saturday when I went to spin with his wife Tami I received my laptop back. I could have gone skipping back home to test it out but I was there to spin and I had yarn to spin up for Judy. I was a good kid, finished my singles, and started plying.

When I got home, I got everything all set up and was able to talk to the modem. Yay! I did my configuration in the modem. I tried to get on line. Nothing. Tried another configuration. Nothing. By that point it was too complex for me to tackle. I found that I could go on dial-up for an extra ten bucks a month which since this was starting at the beginning of October worked out fine. I wouldn't be able to talk with my ISP until Monday evening but I had something for the weekend.

So Monday evening rolls around and I get on the horn with my ISP. Now one thing I have to say about my ISP is that despite all the mess they have been the nicest and helpful tech guys to work with. Not only that, the techs are local. Like across the river. Love 'em. They want me to be connected and use their product and I hear it in their voices. So this time around I spend nearly an hour with my tech guy trying to get the modem to let my ISP DSL talk to my computer. He can detect my computer and all that but the modem won't let me look at the Internet. So after a bunch of settings testing he thinks the modem is the issue, that it's defective, and I need to get another one.

Argh. Still no picture loading. Now where are all those original packing materials for the modem?.....

Heavy Breathing

There's been a bunch of remodeling going on in the past week in my office so I'm ensconced in a different office on a different air conditioning system to keep from reacting to the dust. However, I still have to go in those areas so I'm running around with a respirator mask on. Yesterday I got some looks that I thought bordered on rude from folks in the hallway. Then again my fellow office workers kid me with Darth Vader jokes. If it means I can breathe freely, all the better. Friday's carpet ripping nearly sent me to the ER, so I'm not taking any chances. it sucks though that with the crappy economy the company couldn't afford to send us to another site to work until it was all done.

Waiting

It's been interesting being without the computer at home. I knew I was attached to it but it took a good week to get used to not having it there. The cats are happy it's not working because they don't have to compete with the keyboard for my lap and the weather's getting chilly. A friend lent me hers but it's not being cooperative with my household set up, so I've decided to just wait until I find out for certain if my old laptop is recoverable. It's in the hands of a friend's husband, who's Dell certified, who will see if he can do anything with the old boy. The thing was built in 2001 and has held up very well. If I can get it to continue to work until next year, hopefully I can work out being able to get a new computer to replace it. I'm just glad I got the huge external hard drive for my backups; otherwise I would have been in a major world of hurt. In the meantime, there's my iPAQ and the library for checking my email. I only wish I could upload my pictures of me and Dolores playing strip parcheesi the beautiful Rubaiyat mittens I'm knitting from MiniMochi and black Cherry Tree Hill.

The move to my new office has worked out well for my allergies. I'm gradually improving. I'm getting over a small head cold that crept up on me Tuesday, hid on Wednesday, and pounced on me today. The coughing is just the cold, not my lungs trying to get air, which considering the week before is much better. The extra distance I have to walk for delivering reports and getting together with the rest of my work group has its benefits too. I'm hoping that by the end of the year I will be greatly improved.

In 4 weeks I'll be heading for Sunriver and the Spin-OFF Autumn Retreat! I looked over my badly battered finances and I'll be able to squeak out my share of the lodging and perhaps indulge in some goodies.

I did some indulgence during OFFF but not a lot: a pound of undyed Merino/ Rambouillet/ Targhee top; a couple of ounces of black silk; a project basket for next to my chair. Judy and I found another bump of the fiber I need for spinning the yarn she needs for completing her shawl at Dicentra Designs. Judy treated me to a couple bumps of fiber from the discount bin. Karen fell in love with some lovely magenta and dark blue mohair locks but she doesn't spin. I told her I would spin it up for her, so she purchased that and I'll be preparing those for spinning it up into fine yarn. I was fascinated with how Barbara was spinning up the silk bell she had brought with her, so was watching how she was working that. I'll have to see what I can find in my stash to stretch out the mohair locks. Silk? Hmmm.....

Closer to connection

I'm closer to getting connected. I found the modem I want at a decent price. Unfortunately it will have to be shipped from out of state as it's not available locally. But I figure if I'm going to fork out for a decent modem I might as well upgrade to adding wireless and network capability. So Friday I'll put in my order and continue going without computer access at home. So far the contingency plan I have in place is working out and I'm not entirely out in the vacuum of weblessness.

News is though that the co op booth that was being planned for OFFF fell through (no room) so the orifice hooks that I made up will be for sale at the upcoming WorldWide Spin In Public Day being held at the Walker Cultural Arts Center this Saturday between 10 and 3. I will have them with me at OFFF as well. They're going for $20 and $25 apiece (price dependent on bead content). Proceeds will help fund my upcoming SOAR trip.

Clearing my throat

A couple of weeks ago I ran out of my anti-depressant medication. At the time cash was a little low, so I held off having it refilled. During that time, I thought "What would happen if I didn't have it refilled? I went on it because of my hormones and stress. My hormones are settled and the stress is not as high." My symptoms are mild: mood swings, mild depression, some anxiety. Stress heightens these to where my interactions with others are affected. When I went on the meds I was going through a very stressful time at the office where I would come home and cry. Monthly I would have days where it took little to turn me into psychobitch. The meds made the emotional roller coaster smoother and for a while it appeared I would have to be on them for the rest of my life. My partial hysterectomy changed things for the better. It was followed a year later with my changing job roles. I stayed on my meds like a good kid.

The ending of the meds was an opportunity to take stock of what my body is able to handle. Going cold turkey is a risky proposition with the potential of creating mental mayhem. That didn't occur to me until I mentioned it in my tweets and got responses with those warnings. By the time I got the warnings, however, I was already a couple of days off the meds and committed to my experiment.

I can say that my experiment did not create any major problems. The most radical change was a manic period where my creative energies exploded into a whole new take on a world I've been writing about since high school. It was during that time that I tackled my kitchen's mess. I was joyful and my senses were sharpened. For a while it was going well. Then one day one of the cats was doing something normal and I snapped at her because it was distracting me from what I was doing. A couple of other incidents happened at work during a stressful time that made me realize that I still needed the meds if I was to be able to act appropriately. With my job I had to be diplomatic and able to manage my time well. If I wasn't able to handle quick changes of priority it would create problems. So I called in my refill. To make the return not so radical, I halved the dosage and so far that is working for me. If that's what it takes, then all the better. I see my doc later this month and will discuss this with him.

Sunriver in October

Some things are serendipitous. One of the things I wanted to do this year was attend the Spin Off Autumn Retreat (SOAR) which was going to be at Sunriver Oregon. I applied for a scholarship but didn't get one, so was not sure if I would be able to go at all. But looking at my finances it worked out that I could go for at least the retreat portion. I worked out my rooming situation and chose my classes. So the last weekend of October I will be off to my first SOAR. With me will be folks that have been to SOAR before so I'm really pumped about this.

New Toys

Another thing fell into place this week. I've been hankering for an updated PDA that would be able to access the Internet via wifi. For a while I'd been eyeing the iPhone, but the prospect of having another bill for a function I would rarely use was not attractive. I could have opted for a BlackBerry but that also involved a monthly charge. Where I live there are many free wifi hotspots I could access so I was more interested in something that could pick up the hotspots. Well, a week and a half ago I spotted a PDA for sale in the company newsletter. It was an HP iPAC Pocket PC h4350, which isn't as popular but as it turned out had everything that I wanted. Even though it was originally built in 2003 it had many functions that work well here for the model was a high end item at the time. My researching found new ones retailing at over $400 and this was for $125. So I leapt at the opportunity and so far have been well rewarded. The wifi connection isn't working properly and I'm waiting for a synchronization cord to arrive so that I can update the software to try to fix that, but I am a happy happy camper. How much joy did this generate? For the first two days I had my iPAQ I didn't knit a stitch. That didn't last long. I couldn't find a case for it, so I made one that will protect it from the bumps of everyday use. The flower pattern's from Selbuvotter glove Annemor #15; the case pattern is my own.

I'm here

I missed my usual weekend posting. Saturday I was intent upon working on my projects to get as much as I could done. Sunday was not so good. The black dog of depression came visiting and hit me hard. By the end of the evening I was a mess, so was glad to finish the day. I rarely get days like that but when I get them it's miserable. I can only attribute it to a combination of frustration with my asthma and whacked hormones. When the week started up again, the blog sat in idle while I worked at resolving the latest setback. Today I'm doing much better moodwise thanks to getting a change of asthma meds and focussing on other things. I've decided to go on leave from the chorus so that I can use the time to get stronger and pursue projects that can give me a little spending money. New filters are on the furnace and things are getting picked up around the house. We're moving on.

I finished the dickeys! They came out very nicely too. I'm hoping the recipient finds them comfortable to wear. Her response will help me decide whether to add more sizes to the pattern write up I did to see if it would be salable. The Christmas stocking is on the needles but is a bit slow going only because I'm not looking forward to doing the intarsia portion.

I was reading an article the other day about photo editing software. There's MS Photo Editor and Photoshop, as well as a bunch of other software out there for people to tweak their photos with. I've used Photoshop in some things and for some editing it works really well. But for the most part my photo editor is MS Paint. Yep. That primitive little software residing in your Accessories file. About 99% of my photos that I post here are edited in MS Paint. It doesn't matter what computer I'm on -- as long as it has a Windows OS it'll have MS Paint.

Case in point is the latest project I've posted in my Ravelry projects. I couldn't wait until summer to start MMario's Queen Anne's Lace shawl. I didn't want to do it in laceweight because I didn't want to work with a super light yarn. I knew I had in my stash a bunch of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool I had picked up a few years ago with the intention of knitting a sweater out of it. It had enough yardage to do the QAL. So I cast on last night.

Now the beginnings of a lace shawl are pretty puny. This thing has over 150 rows. I'm on row 16. So instead of leaving a blank pic on my project page, I figured I needed a placeholder. Buster's an excellent stand in, so I created this:

Ravelry has a habit of loading the pic so that you can't use the entire picture, so I centered the writing so that it's positioned well for making this an avatar. And it was all done in MS Paint.

Tomorrow's a new day. More rows to knit. More fiber to spin. And my fourfoots to love.

Did you look over at the counter? Twenty thousand looksees. And some come back. Thank you for coming over to visit. Mwah! Mwah!