Billy…..I’m ADDICTED!
The new computer has a game called “Spider Solitare.” You know, I just hate it when we get a new computer. Each time they send more games. Each time I spend an inordinate amount of time playing games on the new computer, until I manage to get it out of my system.
My niece was here last night, and she saw the new computer. I blushed and said I was playing games, and her eyes lit up. “Spider Solitare, right??” She already knew about it. She has a new computer, too. “Wait until you start playing with more than one suit.” That sent a shudder through me.
This all reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation. Do you remember the “Parisi Squares”? I figure the writers of that episode must have seen the office workers sitting around playing games, and saw how insidious it was.
If you don’t see me for the next month or so, I’ll just be over here playing Spider Solitare….

Okay, Billy has given me good advice. He says to install a firewall BEFORE we hook up to the Internet. So that brings me to several questions.
I’m using Norton Antivirus 2004. Can anyone suggest a firewall that is compatible with that?
If I download a firewall on my present computer, can I copy the software to a CD and then install it on the new computer before we hook up to the cable modem?
I’m going to look into Mozilla as a browser for the new computer. Does Mozilla come with a firewall? I know…I know….I can go look this one up. I was just hoping someone would save me the time. *G*
Is there any other advice I need from you more experienced computer people before we go LIVE!?

Normally I like my weather a little on the cooler side. But this is ridiculous! It’s an absolutely gorgeous Spring day. The sun is beautiful, and has been all day long. There’s almost no breeze. Everything is lushly green after last week’s rain.
The problem is, it’s only 47 degrees outside!
My winter hardy perennials are all doing well. They don’t seem to mind the cold. But it’s clear we won’t be rushing planting season with weather like this.
Tomorrow at this time it should be 75 degrees and windy. Jumps like that are hard on the plants, and hard on me. Whatever happened to those wonderful Springs I remember where the weather GRADUALLY warmed up?
Today I’m wearing a fairly heavy ribbed turtleneck top. Tomorrow I’ll be looking for short sleeves, but most mornings it’s a crap shoot as to what to wear and I end up changing clothes partway through the day. I’m ready for more even temps!

Yep, we went and did it. We made Dell happy! We bought a new personal computer. We mulled over it for weeks. The original plan was that we would get the computer as our gift to each other for Christmas. DH was pleased because he didn’t have to worry about what to get me and he was FINALLY going to be able to compute when he pleased rather than the few piddly minutes I allow him. I was pleased because I would be getting a computer that could handle all my surfing, that was minus AOL and plus a cable modem.
Well, the computer came yesterday. YES!!!

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When you get a new appliance or piece of electronic equipment, do you sit down and read the owner’s manual? Do you try out all the new features so that you are fully conversant with the equipment and ready for every eventuality?
I bet most of you are saying to yourselves “HELL, NO!”
I tend to do some reading when new equipment comes into the house, if only to solve some of the glitches that come my way. I am the first person who gets hit with problems because I am the one who is around the equipment all day long. Of course, I am also NOT the one who is mechanically minded. So a little preparation on my part is wise. At the very least, I have memorized the phone number where I can reach Dear Husband, and I have made note of all the serial numbers and support phone numbers for said equipment.

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I’m blogging this morning, it the hope that I can get some entries made before I have to charge into my life. I’m enjoying a morning where I don’t have any appointments, don’t have to rush out to do errands, and don’t have to take my mother somewhere. This is rare, so of course I’m spending the free time blogging! *G*
While I was in the shower, I was contemplating the fact that I want to assume a simpler life. It seems to me that I am failing, based on the list of THINGS that fill my life. For instance….the number of THINGS I come in contact with from the time I turn on the shower to the point where I am ready to get dressed. Have you ever though about how many products you use in that time span?
Here’s my list of things I use on a morning when I am not expecting to have to see people other than my immediate family:

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Thank you T! I didn’t realize how much I would like blogging. I also didn’t realize how addictive it would become, and how much work it can be!
A year ago today I became a blogger. As I started, I hoped that I would have something to say each day, but I rapidly discovered that my style is to store up ideas for a few days and then type like crazy!
There was a news story at the time that made me decide to blog. A young woman, Andrea Prosse, who was an Air Force cadet was sanctioned (unfairly, it seems) by her peers, eight days prior to graduation. She was ejected from the Academy with no degree to show for four years of work, all on the say-so of a fellow student who wanted to get even, when she rejected his advances. The Chicago Tribune carried the story, and I was incensed about the lack of ethics within our military academies. I still am. I believe that if you wish to be an officer, you need to be firmly grounded in ethical behavior, or you can’t ask men to follow your lead.
I browsed today, to see what, if anything, might have been reported on this story, and I’m disappointed to tell you that the only site I found mentioning her by name was my own blog entry (Air Force Woes, May, 2004.) It seems the entire affair was swept under the rug. I suspect the men who were allowed to graduate after having run this female cadet off, are congratulating themselves on a job well done.
This was one of the more serious subjects I addressed this year. Generally, I’m likely to comment on my life, gardening, quilting, recipes, books or quirky things that catch my ear or eye. Moveable Type tells me that I have 466 pages of entries and 1844 comments. My thanks go out to the school kids who were sitting in the LRC rather than disecting worms, who visited the entry called Ewwwwwww….WORMS! for raising my comment stats. Site meter has been tracking my visitors since mid July, 2003, but since at least a quarter of those visits have to be mine, I won’t share that number.
There’s been an interesting benefit to blogging. It seems that it’s infinitely cheaper than visiting a shrink! I can comment about my woes and rid myself of them in the writing, or I can read the blogs of others and see that I’m not so darned crazy after all!
The best thing about blogging, though, has been all the people I’ve met through the blogs, and the friends I’ve made. I’m delighted that I can read blogs from the entire English speaking world, and I frequently share them with my family. It’s become an addiction; one that I hope lasts for years.
Thanks for sharing this year with me!

If you have been a reader here for any length of time, you’ll know that one of my links is to Bogie’s blog. I’m not sure where I found her blog, perhaps at Da Goddess, but I became a faithful reader soon after I started blogging. I noticed that she had a lot of comments from a reader named “CopCar,” and then it became obvious that CopCar was related to Bogie. Eventually, I twigged to the fact that she is Bogie’s mother.

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Time Magazine was reporting on C-sections in the April 19, 2004 issue. They titled the article “Too Posh To Push” because it seems that wealthy women are choosing Caesarean sections over natural birth.
In Brazil, among the wealthy, the joke is that the only way you are likely to have a natural birth is if your doctor is stuck in traffic. A whopping 90% of the wealthy women in Brazil opt for a C-section!
The World Health Organization recommends that 15% of the births worldwide, and less than 9.5% of the births in the wealthy, Westernized nations should be Caesarean deliveries. In England, 22% of the babies are born by C-section, and in Italy the rate has jumped to 33%.
In the U.S. when they began keeping statistics in 1975, the rate of C-sections was 10.4%. Since then fully one quarter of the births are by C-section. Of the Caesareans performed last year, 22% were by patient choice.
Why? Convenience. Women can schedule when they deliver. Doctors don’t have to miss their golf days. Some women choose them to avoid labor pain, but I suspect they are likely to have more pain recouperating from a C-section.
In Western medicine, C-sections have become a safe surgery, or malpractice would have kept this rate from rising, but there are still risks. Some doctors follow the “Do no Harm” rule and only perform a Caesarean when it’s medically necessary, but you can bet that women like Kate Hudson and Elizabeth Hurley, and Madonna, and Kelly Ripa won’t be going to them.
What absolutely astounds me is that these women have opted to wear a scar for life rather than be inconvenienced. Even more, I can’t believe that they choose to risk their child’s life with an unnecessary procedure.
Personally, I don’t think that satisfying one’s personal whim at the risk of your children’s health is an acceptable choice.

Tuesday evening my niece and her boys joined us for dinner. We had tacos until we burst, and then played several hands of UNO, each of us hoping to have the chance to win.
The kids both had homework, so we cut the game short after I had lost about four hands. As they put on their shoes in the foyer, the storm sirens started up. I herded everyone into the bedroom hallway, and we closed all the doors leading into the hall. I can’t remember the sirens ever going off before. We tried to ease the youngest one’s fears while we waited. Dear Husband roamed about watching out the windows and trying to find a weather report to tell us what was going on.

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