I'm BACKKKKKKKK!!! and finding my voice!

And, I am hoping that this is a condition that continues. Absolutely no guarantees in this world where it took me two computers and twenty minutes to get on-line yesterday.

I have finally made friends with my Inspiron. Yes, I did have to restore it to factory settings twice and am holding my breath the external modem keeps working.

I am slowly making friends with my new eyes too. I should say "lens'" as that is really all that is new, after cataract surgery. My left eye seems better and I am adjusted to reading blurred until I can get a script for reading glasses.

Now, to the fun things in life. I am excited about my book again. I have two great editors now. The new one, who is reading it as a brand new reader of the book, is excited about it and has given me some good input. She's as full of ideas as my first editor is. I like to have a reader who is picking the book up blind, with no idea where it is coming from or even what my writing style is. She has never read anything by me before and is looking at it with a clean eye, so to speak. (Yes, I am obssessing on this eye thing a wee bit.)

Both editors have helped me find my voice and say what I want to say in a new and unique way. I had a pottery teacher like that in Casper, Wyoming. He could see through what I was trying to do, right to what I really wanted and needed to do, and lead me in that way.

I had set myself a deadline of March 1st, to get the book out, but it is so much better now and it needs to be "all it can be." Hmmmm, what made me think of that?

Oh, yeah, my grandson/son is graduating from basic training the first of April and we are going to sunny Oklahoma for the ceremony. He phoned today and told me it was 70 degrees one day and they woke up, on their camping trip, to five below, an ice storm and rain. So, how do you pack for that?

I am not actually all that excited about driving thirteen hours but am anxious to give him a hug. The motel has high speed, so I can let let you know what the weather is.

I also need to thank a very special grandson for the funding for this trip.

Why do I need internet when I can't see to read it?

Wow! I don't write for over a month and I gain three followers. Would you guys consider paying me not to write?

My status is about the same. I am online on my old Sony Vaio desktop and my new Dell Inspiron 1545, with external modem, sits at my writing desk unable to go online. AOL neither can help nor care about the situation. The second tech who helped me was most apologetic about not being able to help. The third tech was totally delusional. They ignored my protests that the machine was still unable to connect to AOL and congratulated themselves on a successful session.

My IT nephew tried to help but, I believe we have now figured out it is neither my external modem nor my AOL dial up. I'm rooting for Windows 7 at this time and ready to kick myself for not just installing Windows XP. Remember good old XP? That's the last Windows OS that actually worked. Oh, how I long for the good old days.

I also long for my old eyes. My cataract surgery is complete. Yes, I have 20/20 in my right eye and I can see forever and to the moon with it. The left eye? Not so much. It's barely 20/80 now and I am wearing +300 (I think it is, since I can't see) reading glasses and must sit 8 1/2" from the computer screen. This is difficult when the Inspiron laptop is like 10" wide. The ophthalmologist tells me that it is caused by my lazy left eye. I also understand that complete recovery can take two to four months. I'm not sure I buy that, the lazy eye excuse, but what's done is done. I had my cry just thinking about not being able to paint again, but have moved on now.

I am currently looking for the silver lining in all this.

External modems and internal vision

I feel guilty being even the slightest unhappy with my world, when I have water, food, a roof over my head, and medical care (at least until March 31st). But, it is the only way to let you know I have not abandoned my blog, it has just been a bit hard to get to lately.

You would think that you could plug in a new computer and be good to go, alas, NO!

My faithful Gateway tablet gave up its ghost. I am obsessive about back ups and also got a few hours advanced warning that things were not right, so i did not lose my book or anything, however, my new Dell Inspiron 1545 came complete with OUT a modem.

Okay, you look through the list of stuff you are getting and you notice what they are giving you but nowhere did it say, at least in noticeable letters, you do NOT get an internal modem. I then ordered one and got online quite fine until I went to my Master's Daughter for Christmas and enjoyed WiFi, came home and my Internet would not work.

Yes, I am still on AOL dial-up. It stinks, but it is all I have, so i checked the setting and I was indeed trying to go on dial-up, with my external modem and then I spent an hour, on the phone with Dell. We did so much changing that I could not possibly write down each step just in case and sure enough, just in case happened the next time I went to the library on DSL. And, it did.

So, I am currently on a very old Windows XP desktop, on dial up. Some days I can get on, some days I cannot. I am working on the laptop again but my eyes are complicating all of it.

This is also not the month to fight anything having to do with reading as I am having cataract surgery and, while I now have 20/20 vision in my right eye (a new one for me) I am really struggling to read. Believe me, had I known and if this was elective surgery, I would not have done it. I would rather wear glasses and be able to read easily. But, since cataracts have to go, I did not have a choice.

I am sincerely hoping that tomorrow, after the left eye is done, that things will eventually even out or whatever, at the very least I will get reading glasses, and life will be back to normal; well, as normal as my life ever gets, once i get my laptop working on line.