Ahhhh! It's Back!

I got a phone call yesterday at 4:58pm saying that my laptop was ready to be picked up. They close at 5:00pm. There was no way I could get there in time last night so I had to wait until this morning. Luckily I had to be up and moving around by 8 o'clock to sign onto The Clearing's site so I could register for the Women Writers Retreat in September. Which I did. Last year they instituted an online way of registering so that Life Members, of which I am one, don't have to dial and redial hundreds of times to get through. Anyway, as soon as I was done registering I bundled up and went to Cyber Works and retrieved my laptop. I had them take out McAfee because that's who the scammers pretended to be and I signed up for Cyber Works' Peace of Mind plan which is a weekly virus scan and remote troubleshooting for a lot less per year than McAfee. And they're not going to invade my bank account.

 

I bundled up to go on my errand because the weather on my phone said it was 9 degrees this morning. NINE. Two days ago it was 64 degrees. Look at the ice on the birdbath. It's like it was flash frozen.

Yesterday morning here's what the world looked like when I opened the drapes. We had a little over an inch of snow but the wind kicked up and blew like crazy all day which shifted the snow around quite a bit. Not enough that I felt compelled to go out and shovel the stuff, it wasn't that deep. Plus it's been sunny yesterday and today so a lot of it melted. It got up to 34 today and with the sunshine that nearly cleared the driveway.

I went onto Creativebug on Monday and am going through a watercolor class I took last year just for fun. I'm not doing the days that I don't like but here's what I painted today. They're a mix of watercolor, alcohol markers, and watercolor pencils. I like 'em.

Oh, on Monday I spied a Goldfinch on the new finch feeder. I was so excited to see it and to be able to take a decent picture of it.

And a Bluejay stopped by on Monday too. I managed to catch this shot of it as it hopped along the retaining wall. I'm impressed that it's in focus or nearly in focus.

On today's gratitude journal page I had to include getting my laptop back, of course, and I also sat here and called up all of the auto pay accounts and changed them from the closed checking account to the new checking account. And I had to chat with a helper on only one of the six. Made me feel accomplished. And grateful.

The other day a Hawk landed in one of the big trees behind me and I tried to take its picture but all I got was a blurry blob that looks vaguely birdlike but I was really glad to see it. Maybe it'll swoop down and nab the rat. Hey, I can hope.

It was very strange how rootless and adrift I felt without my laptop. I missed working on my manuscript, checking my emails (which I can do on my phone but it isn't the same), and of course, blogging. I'm just glad that I thought of the old tablet with a keyboard that I got going so I could register for The Clearing and get into the classes I wanted. You might know that when I'd really need my laptop it'd be in the fixit shop. But now it's home and I spent a whole lot of today just mooching around on it--because I could. I'm glad to be back.

--Barbara