Taking Stock

Yea, I'm a day late...apologies to my 6½ loyal readers.

It's been a good week, really relaxing. I've been burning PTO, because at my company, it's use-it-or-lose-it on an annual basis. Spent the last 3 days mainly puttering around the house enjoying my new Kindle Fire. Downloaded a pile of free books, a couple of apps and games, and finally figured out the WiFi with Husby's help. Gotta thank Mom J for that sucker several more times; I'm having a blast!!!

There's a delightfully blonde story behind my WiFi woes. I had connected the damn thing last week, but for some reason it wasn't working. I had originally hoped that we could finally move the computer to another part of the apartment, thanks to the WiFi. However, the first discovery was thanks to Lil Sis, the fact that our computer's so old, it doesn't have a WiFi card. OK, no biggie, we can just hook it up for the Kindle. The diagram in the instructions was fairly idiotproof, but I still wasn't getting a working signal...

Sidebar: you know how it is with new electronic toys nowadays.....there's no paper instruction manuals anymore; they just give you a manual that's already loaded into the machine, that you can fetch up whenever you need to. So when I got the Kindle, I gave that a hard skim, but quickly disposed of a more thorough perusal because a) I wanted to play, and b) I'm pretty computer literate, even if this was my first touch-screen mechanism. Ego, thy name is Melanie.

So on Tuesday, after Husby had arrived home from SC and caught up on sleep, he took a look at my setup and deemed that it should be operational. But upon picking up the router, he made discovery #2...the tiny "Wireless" button that was covered up by one of those plastic sheets they put on screens and stuff...yea, wasn't pressed in. When you're looking at the router from a distance, it doesn't look like a button; it looks like a port for something, like earbuds or something. Don't ask me why I took the button to be an earbud outlet....as we all know, routers don't exactly have "play" capability. I was doing a lot of OT last week, and the brain had definitely hit a wall.

OK, so after those discoveries, it should work, right? Wrong, still wasn't bringing anything up when I tried to access the web on the Kindle. So I begrudgingly admitted that it was time to give the User's Manual another perusal. It took maybe 2 minutes to discover that the reason it wasn't working on the Kindle was because I hadn't turned the frickin' Kindle's WiFi on!!! A quick trip into Settings, the clouds parted, my husband shook his head and sighed deeply, and I laughed at my idiocy for approximately 5 minutes...

That one's not even worth blaming on the lack o' lithium...Mom was blonde; it's a gene thing. Still pretty epic for me though, that level of dipshit.....

Outside: bliss...temps dropped last night, should be reasonable this weekend.

Inside: distracting...will be glad when people start leaving around 5 p.m., as I'm staying late tonight.

Wearing: my uniform (blue sweater, jeans, most comfy shoes on the planet)

Reading: Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Plato's Republic, and a pile of other social theory-type books...def going through a phase, want to come up with an idea for a thesis, once I've plowed through a bunch of preliminary texts. Kind of going back to college again, without the college.

Creating: Did a fast knit last week of a Kindle case, and have ideas for a better one that will require the sewing machine. But my main creating this weekend will be holiday prep: pound cake, sugar cookie batters, and lists and crafting ideas to narrow down what needs to be made for whom.

Going: nowhere...really enjoying being at home right now.

Hoping.....
Dad J starts feeling better. He's back in the hospital again. His symptoms flared up and it was time for his 2nd chemo on the new regimen, so they checked him in for pain management and monitoring. Sounds reasonable, but his quality of life ain't terrific right now, and they're talking about adding a pain pump outside the body, so any prayers are welcome...

My holiday spirit is growing slowly...we'll buy holiday lights and decorate a bit this weekend. I'm looking forward to being a bit more crafty this year. Normally I have great expectations and end up doing very little, but I really want to shift a bit away from the material and toward more handmade items for family. Baby steps, I know...and there are some family members that that just will never work on. Some people don't even get that baked goods should be considered part of the gift; they consider it "extra". But a girl can try.

Image from here.