After two days of being too involved with Blogshares - which I just joined yesterday - I've decided I need to study time management. I want to keep playing the game without obsessing about it... checking on my shares quickly, once every eight hours or so. I made a weekly schedule chart to keep track of my goals and activities. I hope this helps.

Bears Destroy Hotel Doors, Eat Floor

I'm glad the bears around here aren't that hungry and aggressive! (I hope.) When we first moved into the forest 3+ years ago a bear attacked our garbage outside the back door. Since then I haven't seen a trace of them. Of course, we don't leave our trash out there anymore! My neighbor down the hill at Bear Cove said they had one on the property a few weeks ago.

Since I've lived here, I haven't even seen a bear. Not one. Keith and the kids saw one crossing the road near the landfill. My neighbors at Indian Creek Café say they've seen them across the river from the Sluice Box River Access near Seiad Valley. But I've been there and seen nothing.

Once we had 'something' on our front porch but it was just heard... not seen. It made ominous noises but by the time I turned on the light and ran into the bathroom to look out the window, whatever it was ... was gone.

PromoGuy's Monday Mission 3.17

1. Postmodernism (a popular philosophy of the current day) indicates that there are as many "truths" as there are people; nothing is absolute (however, by its very nature, even the word 'Postmodernism" resists definition). For yourself, what truths are absolute? Are there any absolute truths in the Universe?

I absolutely know there's a God... whatever you choose to call Him. I call Him the Universal One.

2. Do you believe that you are still "teachable?"

Yes, defintely. I'm still learning all the time.

3. To do something well, in most situations, requires study and practice. What's the most recent thing that you have done well as a result of study and practice.

I learned to make webpages using tableless CSS.

4. If you had the time/money, what do you want to lean how to do more than anything?

How to travel cross-country in an RV sightseeing and doing whatever else I want. (Sounds good to me - I think I could handle it.)

5. Those around us may often try to intervene, but ultimately each individual is responsible for the choices they make in life. Tell me about a recent situation where you had a decision to make, and those around you tried to influence or direct you. Were they successful? Was that "help" welcomed?

I earn money and want to keep it in a business account, but Keith says we need it for groceries. I keep telling him, if I save the money in my account I can grow my business with it. Then he asks me why I don't advertise in the newspaper. Well, unfortunately I don't have money - we spent it on food!

6. Things are much easier to accept when they are given by invitation rather than being forced upon us. When was the last time you rejected something because it was forced on you? How did it happen? Did you hold a grudge about it? Was it ever resolved?

I decline to state!

7. Are you the sort of person who questions everything, or are you able to accept things without someone providing you tangible proof?

I am skeptical... about most things... unless proven to me. For example... God. I would not believe so strongly but His existence was proven to me by personal experience. I believe He will be obvious and apparent to anyone who seeks Him with a humble heart and pure spirit.

BONUS: Ooo baby, do you know what that's worth?

Well, on Blogshares all the links to your site from the participants in your meme are worth a lot!

This week I've been studying CSS and practicing on some of my other blogs: 1 2 3. I'm planning to redesign this one too. The goal is tableless CSS... eventually to be done easily without looking at any reference sites or books.

I've been trying to learn what RSS News Feeds are but I admit I find it mind-boggling. If anyone wants to email me to explain RSS in plain English I'd appreciate it! Maybe I could use this for Happy Camp News.

This is my new blogchalk:
United States, California, Happy Camp, English, Spanish, Linda, Female, 46-50, webdesign, writing. :)

I've done 12,541 keystrokes on the computer today, not counting the ones I'm doing right now. I know that for a fact because I've joined Project Orca. There's 4861 people using the system to log keystrokes right now. I rate as number 3072. My new goal... to rate in the 2000's. LOL...

You might be wondering why someone would want to count their keystrokes. Well, this is a motivating force for writers, mainly... people who get a charge out of having a lot of keystrokes, you know? I'm on the Forward Motion team... number 4 on the list with 79 writers and 88,396,481 collective keystrokes. Go team!

My current total: 314,785 keystrokes since I joined a few weeks back.

I've found the freebie version of this password keeper to be very helpful. Maybe you'll like it too.

I just added this link to



- at the bottom of this page, and here. It's an online game for bloggers....

Unconscious Mutterings

1. Slob:: messy
   
2. 60:: minutes
   
3. Personals:: boring
   
4. Famous:: people
   
5. Cancer:: life-threatening
   
6. Internet:: publicity
   
7. Previously:: said
   
8. Moonshine:: liquor
   
9. Ants:: crawlers
   
10. Check:: my work

Over an hour later... the snow continues to fall, heavier than ever. Aaron is trying to save the little bridge he built over the seasonal stream out back. He's been working for weeks to clear that area of berry bushes to make a shady retreat for me during summer heat. I wonder how long this snow storm will last. We've still got only an inch of snow. If it starts to rain, that will melt away quickly.

The picture is of my neighbor's mobile home. That's my truck in their driveway.

We woke up to a dusting of snow on everything - up to about an inch - and it continues to come down. Well. Spring started over a month ago. Good thing I don't have seedlings freezing in the garden. This makes me happy I didn't plant anything yet.

This is the scene outside my window this morning. My neighbor's roof is now covered with white. The tree is a madrone.

Compliments

Compliment #1: (to my 14-yr-old daughter)... "I think that's really neat how you sat down and did your homework this morning right away when you got it. Its great that you love learning so much." Reaction: She shrugged, lifted an eyebrow or two, and then shrugged again. Didn't know what to make of it. lol

Compliment #2: (to my 12-yr-old son)... "Wow, you're cleaning the livingroom again? How nice! I just love the way you move the furniture around and make everything look fresh and beautiful in here." Reaction: Enthusiastic, he grabbed the broom saying, "I just moved the couch out like this so I could sweep behind it!" (Big smile.)

Compliment #3: (to my boyfriend)... "I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you getting all that wood for us and working so hard to make sure we'll be warm tonight. That was really thoughtful of you and we appreciate it." Reaction: He gave me more advice on how to build the fire.

Compliment #4: (to Mairi)... "Good doggie!" Reaction: She wagged her tail and looked at me with luminous, love-filled, brown adoring eyes.

From the Friday Five:

1. What was the last TV show you watched?

Its been a long time. I don't watch much TV. At the end of January I watched a 2-program exposé about CPS on the PBS show, Frontline. The first week was about the tragic death of a five-year-old foster child, Logan Marr - a child unjustly abducted into state fosterincarceration. A social worker became the fosterer who murdered her. The second week was a look inside the department, following caseworkers as they harassed, persecuted, and traumatized parents and children, plus an in-studio group discussion with people directly involved with child welfare. Rose Garland, a former foster child, had this to say about abuse in foster "care": "...every foster kid that I have ever talked to, including myself, have been abused in foster homes. And I'm talking physically, emotionally and sexually. That may not be the case for every child, but it was the case for me."

2. What was the last thing you complained about?

Keith's cigarette smoke. When we got together just over three years ago, he didn't smoke at all. He relapsed a year ago. We have a family agreement that he'll smoke only outside or in our bedroom, away from the kids. So I went into our bedroom to chat with him and the window wasn't open. Its a rainy day and earlier was snowing so its very cold here, but we usually keep our bedroom window open because I can't tolerate the smoke. Anyhow, that's the only thing I can recall complaining about today, and it was easily resolved - I opened the window and stood next to it breathing in fresh air.

3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?

? Judging by the difficulty I'm having coming up with an answer, I must not compliment people quite enough. I remember complimenting one of the Happy Camp News columnists on a good piece of writing, "Compliance"... but that was Wednesday night, and this is Friday. I hereby resolve to find something to compliment each of my family members on within the next 24 hours.

4. What was the last thing you threw away?

An empty Crystal Geyser spring water bottle. Check out the link and take a tour of the bottling plant! Mt. Shasta water tastes sooooo good.

5. What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited?

Jenn's weblog - where I found the link to the Friday Five!

Now its SNOWING outside and has been for several hours. Keith had to go outside and chop wood in the snow to keep us warm. I had to drive over to my daughter's school to pick up her school books and paperwork. She's already avidly going at it... she loves learning. The picture was taken this morning from the parking lot of our local market, looking at the intersection of Indian Creek Road and Davis St.

Aaron opened the window this morning to find a deer grazing in the meadow just south of our home.

Thursday - my daughter was sick all day... and will be staying home tomorrow again. She asked me to contact her school to get books and assignments to do at home. She really cares about getting her schoolwork done.

I just found out my 12-year-old son has been lucid dreaming. I am so shocked. He was telling his sister that when he wakes up in his dreams he can do whatever he wants. He told me he doesn't have to worry about getting hurt because he knows its just a dream so he beats people up, jumps off buildings and walks on the ceiling - things like that. Apparently he has the gift to do this a lot. Lucky kid! He had a deja vu experience during his sister's birthday party. He'd seen it before-hand, in a dream!

I've only lucid dreamed twice that I know of and both times woke up right away so I didn't get to do anything I wanted.

Its raining outside but I have a nice fire going in the woodstove. I've got my online timer set to remind me every fifteen minutes to go put another log on the fire... or at least check to see if it needs one.

Wednesday - nice quiet day though my daughter stayed home from school, claiming to have a sore throat. She did manage to sleep last night thank goodness. Keith says sore throats are "going around".

I woke up at five this morning and made a fire... Keith was surprised that I managed to do that without any fire starter (which he guards, God knows where). Hmmm... I just used newspaper, a cereal box, a lot of kindling... and that's all. Either I have good luck or am more patient than he is. Then we ran out of wood but Keith and three other guys went into the forest to get wood today so we're in business again.

I just went into my daughter's room to give her the regular medication she takes and a bottle of cold Arrowhead spring water. She does have a slight fever. Now I wonder if 'coming down' with a cold contributed to her inability to stay awake in class yesterday.... she slept last night but is sleepy again today.

Keith and Bear (one of our dogs) are sitting here next to me. Bear adores Keith... a faithful and loyal companion. Yesterday Keith was visiting with our neighbor and Bear kept going into our bedroom and getting on the bed so he could look out the window and see Keith. I chased him off the bed several times but he kept going back. Bear cares about nothing but Keith... and food.

Tuesday - Well, as expected, my daughter fell asleep at school. A therapist I have looking in on her on Tuesdays called me. "It was kind of hard to talk to her today, she kept falling asleep!" As expected. I hope she'll have her sleeping schedule back on track in a day or two. This is what happens to some kids on Spring break. ::sigh::

I'm also back to working on my webdesign business and spent a lot of time today updating Happy Camp News. I was correcting the page footers and adding our new advertising policy and page with pricing. We have to get some money flowing through the project or it will fail soon. One member of our writing club already spent over 300 dollars on printing costs in the last few months, and I've been paying for the website hosting and domain name. Other club members have put money into this too. Besides setting advertising prices, we decided to put a donation link on the website. So if you're reading this and in a generous mood... check out Happy Camp News! ((Hey, it doesn't hurt to ask!)) Our writer's club will be ever-grateful...

I've had a headache all day. Aspirin isn't helping. Time for something stronger.... I'll try Ibuprofen...

My daughter also got a gift certificate from her *uncle* for her birthday (Thanks, Kyle!)... she just bought some CD's and a teenager magazine.

I just heard from my friend, Katrina, through Call Wave. I haven't heard from her in a couple of years... I was doing my filing a few days ago and found a paper with her other last name on it... and decided to google it. Amazing - it came up with a website she'd recently been added to so I was able to email her employer. What a wonderful invention this internet is!

:: Later :: I called Katrina back and got good news - she's doing just fine! I'm so happy because last time I saw her she was homeless living in El Cerrito/Richmond at that same bay-side park where Laci Peterson's body was just found. Well, three years ago I walked through that park looking for Katrina and couldn't find her. I looked for her all day and finally just before sunset found her walking down the street with her two kids near where they were living with their grandmother. Then she stayed overnight at my motel room.. that was in late 1999. We've been friends since about '94... met at a parent-participation preschool in Berkeley. Anyhow, the good news is that now she's working full time and living in an apartment in El Cerrito not far from where her two oldest kids are. She got her two youngest kids back (when I last talked to her one was with CPS and one was with her sister) and as we talked all four of the kids were in the apartment there with her. I was so happy about that. I've always thought she was the best of moms from the time I met her - its a real shame so many people wanted to take her kids away.... anyhow, I love hearing good news and am so glad my friend is doing well. Her next goal is to buy a house.

Monday, April 21 - I fell asleep at about 10 last night, listening to Barbara Simpson on Coast To Coast AM. When I woke up Keith had tuned the radio to Ray Taliaferro on KGO and he was going on and on about his anti-war views... it was kinda annoying. Maybe I was unimpressed because I'd just watched this flash about 911 earlier in the evening. Anyhow, I woke up and it was around 2 am... and both kids were still awake. Good thing my daughter doesn't have to go to school until Tuesday, but I think she's going to have a hard time adjusting to getting up at 6 am again.

Sunday, April 20 - Today was my daughter's 14th birthday. Hard to believe she's that old! We had a great day... yeah, I know it was Easter too... but other than the traditional egg hunt we didn't do anything special to celebrate. Nothing against Jesus - I respect Him - but I don't like to go to Easter sunrise services (or any other church services) and I don't cook big meaty traditional holiday feasts, so that didn't happen. We had pizza, sodas, chips and dip, and the two cakes my kids made yesterday... and the ice cream of course. My daughter got some interesting books in the mail from her aunt and will be getting (from us) a new tv and satellite setup for her room, plus $150 to spend on clothes at the mall. That, of course, is her favorite kind of gift... no matter what, she loves to get money and new clothes.

In other good news... my oldest son, Joshua, just wrote to me so I now know where he is and that he and his new wife, Rosa, are surviving the first year of marriage. She's from Peru and they speak only Spanish at home. I think that would be so challenging... but Joshua has self-taught himself several languages, Spanish being one of them. I speak Spanish too... but I have a hard time understanding it when someone else speaks to me. I say, "no puedo comprender" a lot... but not to Rosa as I haven't had the opportunity to meet her yet. (I don't travel much these days, and last I heard Josh has no car.)

I decided this was the night to go into my daughter's room and fix the computer. She was still having trouble with the musicsearch virus. I researched it and realized it doesn't register as a virus except on AVG and none of the virus sites are talking about it... so I downloaded Ad Aware and ran that... when I saw that she had about 250 spyware-type files on her computer I literally started choking. She was laughing. As I recall the first time I ran Ad Aware on my computer it came up with about 50 files, maybe less... and I was not expecting my daughter to have such a large number.

Besides the musicsearch virus problem and massive spyware, she'd downloaded a program that came up at a mp3 website she'd been to... very annoying!... it put an unwanted toolbar on the top and bottom of her browser and hijacked the browser screen forcing her to lop.com where she got an unwanted search engine and a lot of ads. She couldn't get rid of it by de-activating the unwanted toolbar. I took care of that by downloading a "fix" from the lop.com site. It seemed to do nothing. I deleted it... then went to the install/uninstall link on the settings menu and saw that "lop-uninstall" was there. I was put through a lot of steps to get that uninstalled but the end result of all the work I did:

No more musicsearch virus when she runs AVG.
No more unwanted annoying toolbars and screen-hijacks.
No more spyware.

It took several hours but was well worth the work... I felt like I was giving her something really great for her birthday too. We're also getting her a small tv and satellite link for her bedroom and she'll be getting 150 dollars to spend on clothes at the mall in Medford. She's going to have to buy her graduation dress out of that money.

And.. she had a great time at her friend's house this evening.

Aaron helped bake two birthday cakes. For some reason I thought I was going to get to eat one today but no... they want to save both of them until tomorrow. Don't ask why two... I still haven't figured that out myself.

Tomorrow is my daughter's birthday. She got a great gift today when her friend's mom phoned to invite her over for dinner. This is the best gift because she's been moping around the house being friendless for weeks now... feeling lonely. I'm glad she's going back over there today.

Aaron wants to bake a pre-birthday cake... I was going to do my daughter's cake tomorrow!

I've been looking around the house for my three Course In Miracles books for two days. Today I finally found the teacher's manual. Now Keith has run off with it and when last seen was about seven pages into it. I wonder what he's thinking. He told me he already learned something from it. This I've gotta see (what he'll say)...

Friday..... I've spent hours today doing my filing. I still have boxes of unfiled papers I brought with me from the Bay Area when I moved north over three years ago. In my dreams... I will someday get all these boxes emptied, or at the very least, organized. Today I asked Keith to bring in some large storage boxes from the shed... we're talking about the 20-gal. plastic rubbermaid containers... I bought about thirty of them before I moved. Anyhow, I have six of them in the hallway now and plan to work on emptying them during the next week.

Today I found my friend, Katrina, listed on a website in the Bay Area. I haven't heard from her in a couple of years so I hope she'll phone me. I sent a message to her employer... asking that she phone me.

Writing of the boxes reminded me of a site I saw a few days ago. The columns page editor for Happy Camp News wrote a new advice column with his wife called Angelic Advice... and mentioned this site: Intenders of the Highest Good. I would like to try intending something now... I intend that all my filing be done soon.

Wouldn't that be a miracle!?

Basketball and Community Meetings

Wednesday - Today I went to my daughter's basketball game... last game of the season. Normally I have no interest in sports but when my daughter's one of the players it really keeps me interested. Her team won: 29-20 and we were especially thrilled that she made two baskets for her team. The other team was challenging... maybe if they'd had more than four players show up they could have won. My daughter's team had seven girls show so two were sidelined (they took turns).

Monday was memorable too because I got Keith to go with me to a Happy Camp News staff meeting. He usually declines to go anywhere where my co-workers or friends are meeting. I know a lot of people around here are like that. Anyhow, its great that he went and met a few of the people I hang out with and I don't know about the rest of them, but I appreciated Keith's company.

Guess I've had enough of blogging for now...

Sunday - my observations on life. We have a very good life here in the Klamath River Valley even though we're barely making it financially. Money isn't everything. We have a lot of love in our family. It took me 49 years to meet this kind man who lives with me now. He's not perfect but the bottom line is we get along with each other and love each other a lot! What else is important? I've found someone I rarely argue with and whose company I adore. He's a musician and I'm a writer and web artist. When he starts playing his guitar, I put on my headphones and play soothing subliminal-message recordings. Right now I'm using one for self-esteem. He built a fire for me (in the fireplace) and I made dinner for him tonight. We're happy together, in case you wanted to know.

I'm glad to report the kids are getting along with each other this evening... watching TV together instead of arguing over it. They were working, cleaning the yard outside earlier, and appreciated coming in to find dinner ready and waiting in the microwave. Aaron really did a great job cleaning the livingroom last night. It sure is nice for them. I never use the livingroom unless there's some show I just have to see (usually a segment exposing CPS injustices)... otherwise I stay at my desk in the dining room or in my kitchen.. or I'm sleeping. Speaking of sleeping - I'm almost ready for my evening nap, so I'll be going. I always take a nap before I start my night-time webdesign jobs so that my mind will be wide awake and ready for action.

Saturday. Not a bad day. Aaron is still cleaning up the dining room and living room and doing such a good job of it... I won't say a word to discourage him. I cleaned the kitchen and made dinner. My daughter wants me to work on her website and I'm trying to get her to download the programs to learn to work on it herself. Mairi (our dog) just came in from barking at raccoons. Very annoying. I wish she'd leave the cute little critters alone. I spent a lot of time today working on my Klamath Design business plan and updating Happy Camp News and the Chamber of Commerce's River Run page.

Murder trial halted as 'victim' is found alive

Teenagers! The girl in this article let her parents believe she was dead for five years, but finally confessed to being alive during the trial of her accused murderer. I don't know if her re-appearance was voluntary. If so it would appear she cared more about the accused man (who confessed to her murder and three others) than she did about her parents (who were grief-stricken for years and already had a memorial service for her).

As a parent, I know very well how it is to have my daughters turn their backs on me and appear not to care about me. It really hurts. I wonder how they'll deal with having their teenage daughters turn against them, should they ever be lucky enough to have any. My older son didn't turn away from me like my daughters did. I don't expect my younger son will either. I wonder if that's a common difference between girls and boys. I don't know - I've only got five examples (my own kids).

Friday - First thing in the morning I went to my daughter's school for an award ceremony. She got an award for making Honor Roll. We were happy; this was the first time for her this school year and for the past five years she was homeschooled.

Later in the day we drove to Yreka for a doctor's appointment (for my daughter). Everything went well. The doctor looked a little more frazzled .. more than last time we saw him. I guess they're keeping him busy there.

We didn't do much - just a few errands and a short tour of Walmart. This is typically what we do in that town. Though Yreka is two hours from where we live, its the closest Walmart (or any other kind of discount store) so we take advantage of the low prices while there. Also the fast food... gotta have it. We have no fast food here in the forest other than what we can warm up at the liquor store.

Today I concentrated on buying what I needed for the accounting aspect of my new business. I wish me luck in setting up these books. I took a bookkeeping class about 30 years ago but I'm no expert when it comes to money matters.

I've decided to keep office hours at Klamath Design - Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 1pm to 8pm. I'm also using a calendar now to plan my time better and it seems to help a lot. At least now I know where my time went rather than wondering what I did with all my time. It also helps me keep on track with the jobs I'm doing. I need Monday and Wednesday off. On Mondays I've got the Happy Camp News staff meeting. On Wednesdays I've got Chamber of Commerce meetings... and both those meetings take place in mid-afternoon.

Next week is Spring break... I'll have my daughter home all week. Now, that's something to look forward to! I'd like to take the kids someplace but now I've got to stay and work.

Tuesday - what a nice quiet day. The kids had one brief argument over the TV but it blew over soon. Keith made dinner. Aaron is taking responsibility for cleaning the livingroom and building the fire tonight. He did a good job with the firebuilding last night too. I spent the day doing housework... mainly the kitchen, laundry and cleaning off my computer desk.

I'd better go start work - I have some webdesign to do, a news site to update, and then some writing to revise.

Not much happening here on Monday. I mainly did housework and laundry. I worked on Parent News for a while... realized I hadn't touched it since the day before the war began. I guess I've been distracted!

I washed my new purple sheets today and put them back on the bed. I left for a while and when I walked back into the bedroom my dog was lying there on my bed. I might not have been so irate except that I don't have a dryer and it was sunset by the time this happened. No, I don't like to sleep with my dog. In fact, he's Keith's dog. He was supposed to be my daughter's dog but he follows Keith everywhere. He sleeps on the floor right beside my side of the bed, under the sewing machine table that used to be my mom's.

Keith was out in the woods getting firewood all morning with friends. We decided to cut corners by not buying fuel oil this month, then it suddenly got cold again. Now we're back to using the wood stove for heating. I kind of like it but its a lot more work for Keith.

Speaking of Sunday, April 6: Today was a wonderful day. I stayed home with the kids all day and everyone was happy. The kids played video games together and I wrote another 5000 words on my new story and reached my goal of 10K words for the monthly writing marathon. Aaron's feeling better already. Not much else happening! I could use more quiet, peaceful days like this one!

This has been a good day so far. I joined a writing marathon for the weekend, and so far wrote 4200+ words. My goal is 10,000 words. I'm writing a new children's story... so far seven chapters.

Last night I got to talk to my sister. She was going to visit us this week but unfortunately can't due to medical proceedures. We had a nice phone conversation anyway. At least she hasn't encountered SARS yet. We discussed that and she's got plenty of plans on how to handle it. I'm glad she's planning ahead. For those reading this it might help to know she's a nurse-practitioner... that's why I'm concerned about her. Many of the SARS victims are health care workers.

Aaron is sick. Maybe he caught something in Yreka while we were there this week. The kids are getting along good tonight, watching a movie together.

Today was busy! My son and I made the trip to Yreka again to exchange the Play Station 2 at Walmart. They were so nice about it! They just checked the warranty by phoning in the serial number on the back of our broken Play Station. We bought it on Feb. 11, 2003 so the warranty allowed us to get an exchange. Now Aaron is back home happily playing his new game again.

My daughter had a virus on her computer! It was called "MusicSearch". She ran the AVG virus scanner as always and got a message saying the virus couldn't be removed... so I went in there (her bedroom) to fix it. I was shocked to discover she'd actually had 29 viruses in the last month! On one day alone it was 14 virus files! Compare that to my ONE virus that was healed by AVG without me even knowing about it. Anyhow, I did the research and discovered that MusicSearch is a trojan horse virus that can be difficult to remove. From DOS I could see the file but couldn't delete it. AVG couldn't delete it either. Finally I discovered a fix for it. The fix is to get a program called Anti-Trojan - you can download a trial version to use for 14 days. After finding out the virus file name from AVG, you can go to options on Anti-Trojan, click on 'process viewer' and then on 'start plugin'. Scroll to the bottom of the list, find the virus file name, and 'terminate'. I tried it thanks to Lauryn at The-Protagonist.Com... and it worked for me! Now my daughter's computer is virus-free again. ((I wonder how long that will last. I suggested she change her internet habits!))

I'm so happy to be home after that long drive. Once again I had to stop and sleep on the way home. Aaron didn't have much patience for this, but I did get enough rest to get us home safely. Now I'm listening to George Noory on Coast to Coast AM, my favorite talk radio show as anyone who reads my blog by the same name surely knows.

Well, back to work. I have a job to do tonight before I sleep.

I got up early to make sure my daughter got to her blood test. She's 13, so we tried something new. I let her walk there by herself from school (which is next-door to the clinic). The premise was that my daughter might take the experience better if she was trying to be mature and doing it on her own. So about 9:45 the nurse practitioner phoned me to say it wasn't working perfectly... but I talked to my daughter on the phone and encouraged her to just look the other way and relax and she'd be through it in no time. It worked! Later she said it didn't hurt so much after all.

After that I got back into my nice purple bed and went back to sleep. I didn't want to get out of those new sheets today!

My son's playstation two is already toasted. We got it less than 2 months ago so its still under warranty and we can get it replaced. As you can imagine this vital equipment failure caused a big stir in the house. He was playing a new game and suddenly it just quit working. Very annoying. I can identify - when my computers fail I go berserk and have to force myself to be calm and patient as I take the steps to repair them. Hmmm.. playstation 2 - 2 hundred bucks - 2 months. Hmmm.

Speaking of vital equipment failure, I sure feel sorry for the people in Baghdad whose electricity is out. We had a three day electricity failure last winter. It was awful. I'll bet those people are in major distress right now. I hope and pray the torment of the Iraqui people will be over soon.

My daughter says she had a great day despite the blood testing. She got third prize on her science fair project, and tonight at the open house got her report card with three A's - and she made honor roll for the first time. Her three A's were in reading, social studies and science. Plus she was happy that she'd done so well at getting along with people. I'm glad she considered that one of the best parts of her day. Tonight she attended the spaghetti dinner at her school and a basketball game, on her own. I'm glad to see her moving into the teenage years and getting more independent.

We just got home from a drive to Yreka. Aaron was with me this time. I paid for my business license for Klamath Design and got some other errands done, plus did some shopping at Walmart.

Finally I got a nice sheet/comforter set. It may not seem like a lot to many of you, but this is the kind of thing I make myself do without until the situation is desperate. I've been using a heavy sleeping bag that I bought 3 years ago (while I was between homes) for a bed spread all this time....However it has shredded and at this time is in such bad condition I was questioning the wisdom of ever washing it again as all the filling will come out. So it was time. I got a nice purple comforter and matching sheet set. Now I feel so much better whenever I look inside my bedroom.

I cannot believe I did this stupid thing. A message board I use has a webdesign forum where one of the regulars recommended a webhosting service that charges only two dollars each month. On a lark I decided I'd sign up for one of their hosting packages to see how it was. Well... after I signed up I got a nice welcome letter saying they're in Istanbul, Turkey! I started getting a queasy feeling about that. Now, I love Middle Eastern people but I happen to know we Americans are really unpopular in that area of the world right now (with good reason).

I went back to the site and checked it out more and saw that the order form wasn't even secure. That's when I was starting to panic. Plus when I uploaded my site the SSI didn't work... anyhow, it was all bad even though the people who own the service may be very sincere and good (I don't know). I decided to cancel the hosting service. They did get their first and only 2 dollar payment - but that's all. I feel sad that I don't feel comfortable doing business out of the country right now, but the lack of a secure server for the credit card processing was the final straw. So now I have no credit card number because I put a hold on it to protect my money - it was my only one... but I'll get a new number in a week or two. All my other site hosting contacts who I owe money to were very nice about it and don't mind me waiting to pay or paying by mail.

I guess I'll put that site at RTS Hosting instead. The lady who runs that has a super-cheap option... and she's very responsive to my emails which is really a good sign. Of course, the guy in Turkey was nice about that too. ::sigh::