New Phone, New Comp, and Pictures

I have lots of pictures on my phone, and Mike's phone, that I'd like to share. Problem is getting them from the phone to the computer. See, our new phones did not come with a data cable to connect it to the computer. We can't afford to purchase one. The new computer does not have a multi-drive with a nice little slot for our memory card, either. So we can't dowload direct like we used to (because the data cable takes for-freaking-EVER). So, I attempted to e-mail the pics from my phone. It works, but I can only send 1 at a time, which is just a PITA. The Cyberchaun has figured out that we can take our memory card from the new phone, put it in the old phone, then use the old phone's data cable to download. Takes a while, but it can be left alone while working, where the e-mail method is more hands-on. So, I may try that one of these days. In the meantime, I have some pics of Heathen number 1 from Christmas-time at a youth Scavenger hunt that I saved off of Facebook. (They were taken by one of the youth volunteers.) I'll share those now.












Heathen number 1 would be the beautiful one in black and blue.

I also have this handful of pics that I did get e-mailed from the phone before giving up:




That is Heathen number 3 and The Puppy, and then with the Cyberchaun.




That is Heathen number 2 with his Buddy from Buddy Fun Day at school this year. He's the handsome one in black.

That's it for now! Hopefully more to come later!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Wanted to make chocolate Chip cookies a few days ago. Went into the pantry to grab the bag of chocolate chips I'd purchased about a month ago, and it was feeling a little....light. Sure enough, there was a small cut across one corner. It wasn't that way when I bought it :s I show it to the Cyberchaun - we know exactly which heathen is responsible. Heathen number 1, who was gone to camp at that time and somewhat safe from my wrath. So today, I decide again to make chocolate chip cookies. I haven't forgotten that the bag of chocolate chips is now half empty (I'd like to point out that it was NOT half empty when I first discovered the pilfering deeds of my oldest child - she's been busy since she got home.) No, I just decided that she deserved to eat chocolate chips that were decidedly less chocolate-chippy.

Problem is, that doesn't really work. See, I've used this recipe many times. It's not the one on any package. It's the recipe of my all-time favorite Food Network personality. I know it makes wonderful cookies just the way my family likes them. So today, when the first batch came out decidedly less fluffy, and extremely flat - yet chewy, I knew something was wrong. Did I use the wrong ingredients? No - I remembered to use bread flour instead of All Purpose or Self-Rising. Well, I did use regular salt instead of Kosher - it's just hard to measure that Kosher salt once the container starts getting low....... But really - can the difference between regular iodized and Kosher salt be all that great? No, I firmly believe that the difference - the cause of these blasphemous versions of cookies - is the lack of sufficient numbers of delectable little chocolate chips! Which can be laid firmly at the feet of a VERY un-penitent (is that even a word?) 13-year old! I'm not happy. I'll still eat the cookies. I mean, they're COOKIES. But I will know with every bite what they might have been! And I'll be a little more sad each time..........

My Baby's Back!

Heathen number 1 went to church camp this last week. She was gone from Sunday until last night, and I MISSED HER SO MUCH! Not just because I had to live a week without a babysitter (although that sucked.) I missed her silly nonsequiters. I'm pretty sure I misspelled that - but the spell check doesn't even have the correct word to offer me, so I'm leaving it. I missed her hugs. I missed watching movies with her. I just missed her.

But, on the upside - she didn't call home ONCE during the whole week! It's awesome that she seems to be overcoming her anxiety! But, she's home now - and I'm so glad! So, even though she didn't go to bed until around 2am this morning, I dragged her out of bed for buttermilk pancakes this morning. Then I proceeded to drag her all over Dallas running errands. She at least enjoyed the opportunity to talk non-stop about all the things that happened at camp! And I enjoyed hearing about it all, of course ;) But now she's gone to bed before me - before midnight! That, like, NEVER happens! I guess camp and this morning caught up with her ;) And life has caught up with me. She's not beating me to bed by much.....I'll be there in T-minus 15 minutes and counting.........

And the Ongoing Computer Troubles.......

My sporadic posting may lead one to think I've given up on this blog as quickly as I gave up on my Movie blog. Not so. I simply can't keep a functioning computer for more than a couple months at a time! Which is very frustrating, to say the least. About a year ago there were some pretty serious storms with a lot of rain here in Dallas. Not that we minded - we loved it! But, it resulted in water collecting in the circuit box outside our apartment. The next morning, we were woken up by Heathen #3 in a complete panic. She ran up the stairs to our room "Everything is turning off and on!" Well, the Cyberchaun went to investigate, and sure enough everything plugged into the outside-facing walls was flashing on and off. Had been for who knew how long. We're assuming since around 4am, since Heath #1 DVR'd Inuyasha on Adult Swim every morning at that time, and the recording stopped in the middle of it. Well, this on and off surge to our computer fried our power supply. Or so we thought.

We replaced the power supply, and all was well for about 2 weeks, then it went "ppffffft." Actually it sounded more like a high-pitched buzzing with a loud POP for a finale. Well, that was weird. Maybe it wasn't a powerful enough PS, so we got another one. Plugged it in. In about 2 weeks, guess what? not only did we get a repeat of the buzz-and-pop, it happened when the computer was completely SHUT DOWN. Did say it was weird before? No - NOW it was weird.

Oh - insert here that afore-mentioned circuit box CAUGHT FIRE and BURNED OUR APARTMENT BUILDING the last day of September, and we were moved into a "temporary" apartment that we were forced to remain in for 5 months and sign a lease on. It was a 2 bedroom, and we have 3 kids - you do the math there.

So we started thinking - maybe the PS isn't the problem, only the symptom. Finally decided that the power surges caused a short in the motherboard, and we were screwed - because there was NO money for a new MB.

So, we borrowed a laptop in order to access the internet so that the Cyberchaun could continue his schooling (He's enrolled in an Alternative Certification Program to become a certified teacher.) But it was WAY too slow to do much else, so....still no posting.

Then February rolled around and our income tax return came in. So we bought a new computer. YAY! But I didn't post right away because we re ALSO moving into a new apartment in March so I was packing and stuff.

SO - new apartment, new apartment COMPLEX, actually. Getting settled in, I popped on, made my last post. Guess what? The building we're in had a fire a little bit ago. Our apartment and the one above were undamaged, but the rest of the building is being gutted and remodelled - we okay with that? Well, yeah, seeing as how moving to a temporary apartment AGAIN is just not happening. I can handle the noise and all that. No problem. Except.........they need to turn our power off and on periodically while they fix the wiring in the other apartments. Annoying, but as long as we know when it is happening, we can turn everything off, no problem. They say "Oh, yes. It will be off over this particular weekend and then be back on Monday." Great. Except it went off on Tuesday. While I was working on the computer. Guess what (tired of hearing that yet? - I am)? Next time we boot the computer, it has no hard drive. Oh, the physical HD is there. It's plugged in correctly and all that good stuff. But the computer says "Hard Drive? What Hard Drive? I don't see no Hard Drive." So YAY! Our HD is a GONER!

I spend a couple hours with Tech Support, because the 2-month-old computer is of course still under warranty. They make me jump through the usual hoops so that they can tell me "the Hard Drive is toast. We'll send you a new one just as soon as we get the ticket in order. You'll get a call within 3 business days to finalize." 5 days later, with no call, I contact Tech support again with the ticket number and questions. You know the ones. "Why haven't I received a call? I need my new Hard Drive, like, yesterday!" "Oh, so sorry, it didn't get processed. I've replaced it into the system, you should get that call in the next couple days. BUT - if you don't, call this number."

*SIGH* 5 days later, with no call, I call "that" number. The guy says "we have no record of this ticket - so sorry." He proceeds to ask me to jump through the SAME hoops I'd already jumped through. I said "NO! Been there, done that - I want my Hard Drive NOW!" Well, they said they couldn't send me one without having a record that we attempted to trouble-shoot it. Would I be willing to send the whole thing in to a repair center?" Fine - whatever. NOT happy with HP at this point AT ALL. He says they'll have a box to me 3 business days, place computer tower in ti and send back. 3 days later - no box. We track it online, and the log says WRONG ADDRESS. What? It's the right address! They assumed it was wrong because of the construction and didn't even ATTEMPT to deliver it! So it took another 4 days to actually get the box. Thankfully, once we sent it to them, we got it back within 4 days.

So now we FINALLY have a functioning computer. Hopefully it'll stay that way! And what did they have to do to this one? They who doubted my Dead Hard Drive testimony? They replaced the Hard Drive. :P