Technology Angst

It's one of those days...or weeks...in this case.  Why oh why did I ever become so dependent on technology!!!

I love using the computer...I spend hours every day checking blogs, emails, facebook, surfing the net, shopping, etc.  and I like doing it effortlessly.  This week, however, my desktop PC with it's large screen, wireless keyboard and mouse and built-in operating system, is in it's final death throes - and we've only had it for 3 years!.  Every morning I turn it on and after maybe an hour ...sometimes...I'm able to access  a program or two.  Most times I get the black screen with white printing saying that "the hard drive is in imminent danger of failing.  There are corrupted files. Back up your files and get it fixed or replaced".  So I backed everything up to an external hard drive and am waiting for it to be 'fixed or replaced' - hopefully in the next week or so.

In the meantime I'm doing all my computing on my handy dandy MacBook, which I love, but not for long term use - the screen is so much smaller than my pc.  And it's a different operating platform so not everything is easily shared.  I have used it mostly when I travel and don't want to miss anything.  Now it's my primary unit.

And another thing,  neither my HP all-in-one printer nor my Epson 1900 photo printer are working - probably because of some network glitch having to do with the crash of the desktop computer.  Aarrgh!

When did I  become so dependent on technology in my daily life?  I can clearly remember how excited we were to get our first telephone back in 1954 when I was 6 years old.  It was amazing that we could talk to people without being in front of them.  Then when we got our first black and white television a couple of years later, complete with rabbit ears, we thought we had a magic world at our fingertips.  We didn't have to worry about having to get up and walk to the tv to change the channel because there was only one channel we could get.  Those were such innocent years.

Now we have two televisions in our home here, two in our home in Lethbridge, and two in Arizona - all complete with remote controls, cable boxes, pvr capabilities and who knows what else.  Our television system here has five remotes.  It makes me crazy!  Sometimes I walk to the set and press the 'off' button with my finger...actually touching the button!!   Shhh - don't tell anyone.

I try to stay technologically current...I really do...but how much do I really need to know?  I have an iPad, iPod, smart phone, GPS system, and they all have many applications and capabilities.  And somehow I've come to believe that I can't exist without them.

Thanks for letting me rant.  I have to go now and watch a tv show I pvr'd yesterday, play Scrabble on my iPad and text Lloyd on my smart phone.

Have a good day.

Pat

Quinn's First Birthday

This weekend we celebrated my youngest grandchild's birthday.  Her mom, Sara, arranged a big family party. When I remarked to her that it was a lot of work for someone who doesn't even know it's her birthday, Sara said "It's a party to give us a chance to celebrate Quinn.  She doesn't need to know that its her birthday."   And she's right. 

The day before her birthday Sara, who's a professional photographer, among other things, set up a photo shoot for Quinn for her 'official' first birthday portrait.  The pictures were adorable.

This is the 'official' birthday portrait

For the party yesterday, Sara spread a plastic picnic tablecloth on the livingroom floor for the 10 or so kids who would be there.  She set a small picnic basket full of goodies around the tablecloth for each child.

That worked well because while the kids ate their hotdogs and goodies in the livingroom the adults were free to enjoy lunch in the kitchen and diningroom. 

A friend volunteered to make Quinn's birthday cake - it was huge and beautiful and delicious.

Daddy (Quincey) helped blow out the candle

Let the eating begin!

Quinn dug in with gusto

Now what???

One of the family friends brought a baby lamb with him from his farm.  The kids were thrilled with him and tried to feed him, but he's still bottle fed so didn't want too much solid food from them.

They eventually all went out back to play in the huge bouncy castle Sara had rented for the occasion, and Quinny went out too and met the lamb face to face.

All in all it was quite a big day for the baby of the family.  Happy birthday sweet Quinn.

Pat

Rainy Day Fun

I didn't blog yesterday because I was scrapbooking all day with Mickey - well for 11 hours anyway.  And in that time I completed a grand total of 4 layouts.  A pretty poor showing some might say.  And it is fewer than I've been doing lately, but in my defense I have to say that the four I did are pretty darn good.  I was using black and white photos which were a challenge to me - picking out proper papers and embellishments. They were beautiful pictures too and I didn't want to ruin them.  The first one alone took me three hours to complete.

As well as the actual work of scrapbooking, Mickey and I went to a friend's in-home on-line store to pick up some scrapbooking items Mickey had ordered. (I showed remarkable restraint and didn't get anything there).  Then we decided while we were out to go and visit my youngest grandchild on her first birthday, but they weren't home (I'll be attending her birthday party later today - guess what tomorrow's blog will be about!).  After that, since it was that time, we went to a lovely sandwich shop for lunch, then to a local scrapbooking store where I got the perfect paper for the black and white pictures I was going to work with.  And then we finally went home and got down to work.  Our only break from scrapbooking after that was stopping to eat some of the chili that had been cooking in the slow cooker all day.

It was a very good day.  At one point Lloyd called - he was on his way home from up north - and, knowing Mickey and I were scrapbooking all day asked, "Who's winning?"   I keep telling him that it isn't a competition but he's a man - what more can I say.  And for the record, Mickey completed 6 layouts, which is fewer than she usually does in a day.  I'll beat her next time!  All in all it was great way to spend a cool rainy day.

Pat

Pictures

I didn't budge outside the house today.  Instead, I started a project that I've been talking about getting to for weeks.  Started - not finished.  That's the way I am with a lot of things.  But I digress.

I have thousands of pictures.  It seems I've become, unofficially, the keeper of the family's pictures.  When my sister moved Mum from her home in Nova Scotia to Winnipeg so that she could take care of her until her Alzheimer's made it necessary to move her into a care facility, she gave me all of Mum's photo albums.  I think Wendy might even have slipped one or two of her own in there too.  So I have all those, besides the dozens of my own, plus all the pictures I've been taking in the past few years because the scrapbooker in me insists that I record every activity of every member of the family so I can scrapbook them.  I don't print them all of the digital ones out, thank goodness, but they're all recorded on my desktop computer (which is in the process of crashing as we speak), my laptop, my iPad, and an external drive.

So, I piled all the pictures from my scrapbook room onto my dining room table and started sorting them.  Well, of course, I got caught up in just looking at the pictures and remembering the fun times.  As I was sorting, I wrote names and dates on the back of all of them.  And I'm embarrassed to admit that some of the babies were hard to identify.  I mean, come on, they're babies!  I can usually identify my seven kids as babies, but when it comes to the 20 grandkids it's a bit tougher.  I find I look at the backgrounds to see what furniture is in the picture, who else is in it with the baby, what house they're in, what clothes the infant has on, etc.  and can usually identify them that way.  Of course, most of them have distinguishing characteristics at an early age but all but two of them were bald and/or blond, and all but two have blue eyes.  I really didn't get too far with my sorting but I left everything out so I can get back to it tomorrow.

Pictures on the dining room table

The scrapbooking table - six feet long

 I won't scrapbook all the pictures - I'd have to live to be 163 to do that, and have my eyesight and memory intact!  But the best and/or most interesting ones will get done.  I'm putting the finished layouts in albums by family so that when I'm no longer here each of my kids will be able to take their albums and see how much their mother loved them and their children.  That's my plan anyway.  Here are some of the layouts I've done lately.

Jenny's son, Sam

Amy's daughter, Sydney

Amy's daughter, Kenzie

Lloyd and me with Mary's kids, Baron and Layla

Mary's daughter, Layla

Butterflies at the Butterfly Pavilion at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, AZ

On Friday I'll be scrapbooking all day and into the evening with Mickey - it's been over two weeks since we've had a scrapbooking day together so I'm really looking forward to it.  I get more done and stay focussed when I have someone to scrapbook with.  Mickey and I met at a scrapbooking event six or seven years ago and have been scrapping together ever since.

But tomorrow I have to do more organizing.

Grammie Playdate

I had a playdate with 4 of my grandkids today.  I was out of town for Aidan's 4th birthday last week and told him I'd make it up to him by taking him to McDonalds for lunch.  I knew he'd have more fun if I took his best friend, cousin Elly, with us and as it happened his sister, Sydney, and Elly's brother, Max, were both at loose ends today so I invited them along too.

McDonalds playlands are great kid pleasers and these guys love going there.  I sat them all at a table for 4 and sat by myself at a table for two.

Elly didn't think that was such a great idea so she gathered up her food and trotted it over to my table so I wouldn't have to sit alone.

Aidan wanted to be sure he got noticed in the picture - after all, he is the birthday boy, sort of. That's his sister Sydney in the blurry foreground.

They'd play all day in the tunnel/slide structure if I let them.  Elly is showing off her new picture-taking face.  It's hard to get a shot of her these days without her toung sticking out.

These two sets of cousins have been friends as long as they can remember.  Syd will be 6 in August and Max will be 7 in December so they're pretty close.  Aidan just turned 4 and Elly will be 4 in November so they're even closer.

 
This is a typical picture of the little ones.  They'd come down the slide one after the other and stop to hug one another.  They love each other to death.  And when they were in their terrible two stage, it was chaos whenever they were together.  I don't know how many boxes of laundry detergent they dumped into Sara's (Elly's mother) dryer, on top of clean clothes, in an attempt to 'help'.  Or how many walls were scribbled on with permanent markers, or bathtubs and sinks filled with water while they stripped down to play in it.    Luckily they've outgrown that stage.

After spending almost two hours at McDonalds, we went to my house right across the street from a huge park and playground that they call Grammie's Playground.  They love it there but we had to cut our fun short because Aidan had an  appointment to go to with his Mum.  Just as well.  Grammie was getting quite worn out by then. 

It was a fun day for us all.

Sky Lights

I woke up suddenly about an hour ago (5:30am) to the sound of wind and rain and thunder and the strangest sky color I've ever seen.  I thought at first that there was a fire out there.  My next thought was "get the camera!'...and then "Is it a tornado?".  We've been known to have tornados here in Alberta and this is the month for violent weather.  But then I thought "this'll be my blog entry for today", so I kept taking pictures.  I do have my priorities right!!!  The colors in these photos is natural - just the way they came off the camera.

This first picture was taken through the screen on the window

So was this one.

Then I moved to the other side of the house where the screen was off.

The color changed after about 10 minutes and now the sky is blue with grey clouds, light rain, thunder still rumbling but no wind.  I'm glad I woke up in time to see the eerie colored sky though.

So how did  your day start?

Quotes and Kid-Speak

I choose to live by choice, not by chance; to make changes, not excuses; to be motivated and not manipulated; to be useful, not used. I choose self-esteem, not self-pity; to listen to my inner voice, not the random opinions of others." - Anonymous


My daughter, Mary, posted the above quote as her status on Facebook.  I like it.  I wanted to share it.  So there it is.  It particularly fits Mary, our 6th child, 4th daughter.  She's always been a bit of a free spirit and although not a rebellious teen, she chose her own path, had fun doing it, made lots of friends and has turned into a beautiful, strong, independent young wife and mother, all the while following the words of that anonymous quotation.

Baron, Mary, Layla and Greg - 2010

When they were little, the kids used to say such cute things, quite inadvertently, that  became part of our family's peculiar and personal language.  I wish I had written them down.  Here are a few that I remember.

1.  When we had six kids, several years before Emily was born, we moved our family from Saskatchewan to Nova Scotia.  We drove the 3000 miles in a small station wagon (before seatbelts were the law), spending almost 5 days on the road.  To this day we refer to the back of a station wagon or van as "the way back".    To make things easier on us parents, and to provide a measure of safety for the kids, we instituted a buddy system to be used at all stops along the way.  3-year old Mary was assigned to be 9-year old Jenny's buddy.  Mary couldn't say "buddy" so she called Jenny her "Bunny".  That term stuck in our family for many years.  Jenny was, and still is, Mary's bunny.

Lloyd and I with the six kids the year the buddy system was begun - 1981
Rob, Mary, Mike, Sara, Jenny, Amy

2.  Here's one from the grandkids.  Charlie started pre-school when she was 4 years old.  For some reason she called it "pretty school".  Her mother, Sara, tried to correct her the first few times she said it but Charlie continued to go to "pretty school".  It wasn't long before the whole family was referring to Charlie's school as "pretty school". The next year it was her brother, Max's turn and he happily went to pretty school, just like Charlie did.  And this year Elly will be the third one in the family to attend the same pretty school. 

Sara with Charlie, Elly, baby Quinn and Max
This is a Father's Day picture for Quincey

3.  Rob used to torment the girls.  He's our firstborn, followed quickly by three little girls, a boy, and two more girls.  We had been visiting my parents  and Rob was doing his usual good-natured teasing of his little sisters.  My mother noticed this and asked him why he was tormenting the girls.  He thought for a minute and then said, very seriously, "because it's my job".  And another phrase was coined and stuck.

Sara (9), Mike (7), Rob (14), Emily ( 1 mo.), Amy (11), Mary (6), Jenny (13)  June 1986

4.  Family language is often the result of mispronunciation.  Rob used to call the 12th month of the year "DeZember".  And when he could recall something he said he could "Bemember" it. Both of those words became part of our family language.  I'm sure things like that happened in many families.

5.  Another term that was in common use by the first six kids was Bowlie Black - their name for the old swing set we had in the back yard.  Lloyd and I didn't know about this word until a few years ago but the kids all knew what it means, although they forget why it was called that.

Sara and Amy on Bowlie Black, 1979

6.  Lloyd used to give people nicknames if he liked them.  The kids were Rob the Bob, Jenn the Ben, Sara Bara or Sari, Amy Bamie, Mike the Tyke, Mar-Bear and Em the Gem.  And of course, I was Pat the Brat although I brought that name with me from my childhood.  Sara's friend Janelle got called Rosella so much that Lloyd can no longer remember her real name.  When Jenny introduced us to her soon-to-be husband, Anders, Lloyd called him Antoine.  He gradually stopped the nicknames, but the kids used to say that if Dad liked someone he gave them nicknames.

Well, that's enough.  They've all grown up to be very responsible husbands, wives and parents and no doubt their families are developing their own particular language idiosyncracies.  I just hope they're writing them down so they won't be forgotten in the mists of time and fogginess of memory.

Maybe you'll write yours down too.  I hope so.

Pat