Observations
I had to call customer support because the postage printing program would not load. The tech person listened to my description and started on his list of “customer’s firewall is blocking our program” trouble shooting steps. Except that every step showed that I’d already unblocked and allowed. He decided that there must be something wrong with my router and that I should consult with my “IT department” to get it fixed. Except I’d already told him twice that I am the IT department. By then I was tired and half convinced that computers did not work they way I thought they did. After I got off the phone I made some additional notes on the problem, like the fact that I was perfectly able to use their program and reach their servers to install an update, but not to log in. This was not a firewall problem. And in fact, the next morning my “firewall problem” had magically vanished. I was brutally honest on the survey they sent me a day later. No their tech was not helpful. It was their problem and he was either clueless or not willing to admit it.
The kids had an argument in the backyard. This time it was Patch in the center of the conflict instead of Gleek who is usually the one who buts heads with this particular neighbor child. In fact Patch has been more volatile lately, almost certainly because of the randomness of our summer schedule. It is time for me to step back up and put more structure into our days. I will primarily accomplish this by serving meals on a regular schedule.
My computer has been freezing and crashing lately. I trip to our local computer store shows that all the components pass diagnostic tests with flying colors. They were not able to replicate the crashes. So I brought it home and it worked without error for several days. Then it began crashing again. I’ve been taking notes, what programs were running, what I was doing. What I changed. All of these things go into the crash log. So far the only consistent element is that the computer was on while it crashed. I’ll have a full day running InDesign, firefox, photoshop, and USB drives without trouble. Then it crashes when only firefox is running. Sometimes it crashes when nothing is running. I’ll just return to my desk and it will have crashed while I was gone. Once it crashed while trying to restart. I keep making notes and hoping that a fix will become apparent. In between I try to get work done and hope that this will be one of the days when it works as it should. I watch and I try not to flinch any time a program pauses for a moment.
Many of my online and in person friends are writers. Lately I’ve been watching what they post about word counts. I don’t care to compare the numbers, but I’m definitely seeing a pattern. My friends who complete books are the ones who write or think about writing every day. That is not the kind of person I’ve been during the last years. I’ve written a book’s worth of blog entries each year. One year I also wrote/revised an essay book in addition to the ongoing blog entries. This week it hit home to me that if I want Amelia (my book in progress) to be complete, I need to put in the time. I haven’t been. Not for a long time. I’m not going to make any sort of vow or promise. I don’t intend to create a goal or resolution. But I worked on the outline yesterday and again today. I need that outline so that when I have days where I can’t see very far, I have some instructions to follow.
My house is cleaner than it was a month ago. When life is less full of things I find the time to do things like rallying the children to organize the garage. It was a cluttered accumulation of garbage and misplaced items. We sorted and swept. It looks worlds better. Now I can see where to begin with the major reorganization that it needs. We should finally admit that we are not camping people and let go some of the odds and ends that have been taking up space in our lives for years. I love quiet open spaces and I create them when I have enough space in my head to realize that I want them.
It is strange to have a car that I really love. I’ve always driven a vehicle which was chosen to meet our family needs rather than according to my preferences. This new car, which is still seeking a name, keeps making me happy.
It is late, I should probably start making good on my intention to get to bed earlier as part of resetting the family schedule.