Sunday, February 28, 2010

Where Did February Go?!

The battle to get a decent internet connection into our house continues. We had a week, this month, where we couldn't stay connected for longer than 5 minutes! Tech support remotely tested our modem and decided a new modem would fix our problem. It did...for 2 days. We are no longer losing connection, but our speed is rarely above dial-up speed. Every time we call tech support, the DSL speeds up. This is just like having your car quit making that funny noise the minute you pull it into your mechanic's garage.

Sooo, what have I been doing with the time that I normally spend blogging?

We've made 5 trips to the dentist, 2 for Z and 3 for me. I've been without my bottom partial since November, when the tooth that the partial connects to broke in half. This meant that I could only chew with my front teeth....all through the holiday season. We finally got in with a new dentist, after our dentist retired, but it took 2 months to get an appointment.

I made 2 trips to the doctor. One visit to our GP, and one visit to a bone specialist. My shoulders have really been bothering me this winter. I feared rotator cuff damage. I was diagnosed with bursitis, and got a regimen of exercises to strengthen my shoulder muscles. The specialist said that I will probably need shoulder surgery in the distant future. That ain't gonna happen! I can't afford to take 6 months off from work.

I've been playing with my new camera, trying to learn all the settings. No new photos worth posting though. I really want to get a decent hummingbird shot this summer!

I've been puttering with all the electronic gadgets we have, that I haven't quite mastered yet. I finally figured out the slide scanner that L got me for Christmas several years ago! I'll post more on that activity later. I still want to convert more of my vinyl to CDs, so I can rip some more music to my MP3 player. I like to listen to my music while I'm working on our outdoor projects. I also need to finish reading the manual for the new phone we bought 10 months ago! I still don't know how to clear missed calls, or retrieve the caller-ID information.

Re-establishing communications with my husband. We've spent so many years working opposing shifts, that we've become strangers. We forget to take time to have fun with each other. The past few years, we've spent all of our limited together time discussing chores, home-improvement projects, and family problems. We didn't realize what a drag that has been...time for some FUN!

My favorite cousin, J, came up with her son and his family for a vintage snowmobile event.
A friend, who now lives in CO, came home for a visit. We spent a whole afternoon catching up and viewing all the pictures she's taken in the past 2 years. She also shared her infant grandson with me. What FUN it was to play with a baby again!

Facebook; what a mixed blessing! I found that my high-school friends had FINALLY advanced to the social networking age. Not one of them was connected when I got my first FB page a couple of years ago. I'm now re-connected with my bestest friends for the first time in 5 years! We've spent a lot of time emailing to catch up with each other's lives. I found that I can keep up with most of my friends through my FB homepage. This means I only have to load one page with our slow connection. The downside is that I'll have to wait until our connection gets fixed before I can view any of their pictures. Pictures and videos take FOREVER to load!

Well, that's what I've been up to in February. I hope to get my sewing machine out in March, so I can sew the new kitchen curtains...and catch up on the mending. I'll try to catch up with all of your blogs during our short bursts of decent internet speed.