Almost Christmas

I would like to say that I am ready for the big day; or at least some percentage done, but the truth is that I have yet to buy the first present, and no idea what I will get when I finally shop.  Last year I did everything on-line, but I don't have a clue for that either.  Hopefully the children (now in their 30s) will give us a list soon.  They both say they don't want anything.

The main distraction from Christmas tasks is that we have been feeling less than festive, what with the funerals these last 10 weeks.  I haven't even managed to update my new Mac Air, and I had planned to take it to my uncle's house the next time we visited, (to look through the genealogy file) too late now.  The only thing I did right is that the last time we visited I took (candid) photos of both of them, almost the only pictures of my uncle, who had an aversion to being photographed.  I love them both, there is a hollow space in my heart from their loss.

We rented a storage site, to help with sorting our possessions into "keep"  ("donate" and "pitch").  The pitch ones are in the garage right now, they will go into the truck for a trip (or trips) to the landfill.  I feel bad, but there is so much that is far outdated.  All the computers and peripherals will go to a reclamation site for recycling, but the rest will just be pitched.  When we stripped out the old barn when the new barn was finished, we rented a dumpster for a month.  When they came to pick it up, the contents were above the top and had to be-positioned before they would take it away.  Where does this all come from??!!  Of course, we buy it, and then don't throw out the earlier version.

Thought for the day :  "I can't be over the hill, I'm too tired to climb up."

Nancy

This morning, early, my Aunt Nancy passed.  It was not unexpected, she has been very ill for several months, still, it is a grief time again.

This has been a lousy month.

Thought for the day:  "Win, lose or draw, we'll always be your number one fan."

A tweak here, assorted changes, bet you can't tell...

I changed the font here, from gray to black, and from 14 to 12 in size.  I have been finding it difficult to read what I write, and this should help.  I wanted a certain font that I saw on Word, but it wasn't on the roster of fonts, so no go there.  Hope this all makes it easier to read for all of you visitors too.

When I got my new computer (HP) it came with a keyboard, but I continued to use the old one.  BUT, the old one had a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't for the space bar (why not for the "Q" key?) so I switched out for the new keyboard.  It is much shorter than the one it replaced, which gives me more space on my desktop.

I have been struggling with my MacBook Air, and although I called Small Dog Electronics (where I bought the Mac from, last week!), they apparently don't do gratis troubleshooting over the phone; they charge $50 for every half hour.  No thank you.  I got in a terrible mess for passwords on iCloud and start-up passwords, I changed my password dozens of times, apparently successfully, and yet each time I tried to log on, it wanted me to "confirm my identity" over and over.  I ran out of passwords after about 12 changes, because it wouldn't allow any password that has been used in the last year -- sheesh!  Finally in desperation I re-formatted the flash drive, and carefully selected a total of 3 passwords for all the various steps in the software.  Even if I mess up again, there are only 3; I know one of three will be the right one.  And yes, I wrote them down.  Does anyone really attempt to remember all the passwords at all the sites?

We finally heard from Cousin Airhead, who referred to himself as a knucklehead, so I wasn't far off.  My aunt (his mother) is in fact at home, and we will go to see her next weekend, before winter makes problems somewhere along the trip.  I'm not sure if she will remember us, but this visit is more for us, I'm not sure she will last through the winter, and I want to say goodbye.  A little morbid.  It will be rough, the first time since my uncle passed that he won't be at the door to welcome us.  I doubt if we continue bringing flowers (silk) to the graves of my parents, aunt, and sister, it is a long way to go just to change the arrangements.  Maybe once a year?

 It is 4:30 here and I am back to bed.  Goodnight to all.

Thought for the day:  "Young at heart; slightly older in other places."

Better late than never

I did a big splurge and bought a MacBook Air, looking to replace the 10-year-old macbook Pro.  I got a refurbished one, to hold the price down.  When I bought the macbook 10 years ago I did the same, and the only reason for replacing it now is that new releases of software refuse to work with such an old OS.  I have fiddled with this long enough that I can safely say it isn't a do-it-yourself project.  Maybe the next blogpost will be from there.  Whoa!  Crisis!  Back here in bit.