Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Day My World Went Black

How are all of my Blogger friends doing this beautiful Spring morning? I've been peeking in on all of you. Some of you are great at keeping us up-to-date and current on news and life events. Then there are those of you who are as guilty as I am about laying down on the job and being a slacker. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Work on that, will you?

 How am I doing, you ask? In a word...... BUSY! As I mentioned in an earlier post, Chatty became engaged back in November. Folks, I guess it really is official because they're still engaged. They have set the date for October 26 OF THIS YEAR. Yes, they've been engaged since November but they only set the date 2 weeks ago. So you can imagine how busy it is at the Chat household. Mr. Chat and I had a very simple ceremony when we married so all of this planning and detailed stuff is new to me. Chatty will not be having a huge or elaborate wedding. I think around 300 guests will be invited. There will be dinner and dancing afterward. So, yeah to me that's quite the shin-dig to plan for. Of course.... anything over 6 people is a big hoopla to me.

I interrupt this program to bring you the following message: We were having TV reception problems. Mr. Chat bought a new box for the antenna. Yes, I said antenna. It's my fault that we are still prehistoric. I refuse to pay for TV programming. To me, that's wasteful. But I will allow Mr. Chat to pay for internet service. I figure with internet we get more bang for our buck...the World Wide Web, Blogger, Facebook, Kindle Fire and YouTube. What more could you ask for?.....Anyway, I digress.....As I said, he bought a box for the antenna. Our TV would work for a while then it would get really distorted. He was very frustrated by the whole thing. Meanwhile, I still had my computer to keep me entertained. He finally found the problem. The connection to the box was broken. He replaced the part and VIOLA!....he was a happy camper again. Meanwhile, the TV in Chatty's room needed to be re-set. She decided she wanted to move it to another location. There were so many wires that it became entangled. Instead of trying to follow the wire, he tugged on it, she tugged on it and they finally figured out which wire was causing the problem. Fast forward a couple of weeks. MY COMPUTER crashed. We're talking black screen. It would not let me set it back to last known working state or open in safe mode. I was not about to spend money taking it to a technician to be repaired. So I did what any novice that knows nothing about the technical behind-the-scenes workings of a computer does. I tried to fix it myself. I set it back to factory settings and re-activated all original programs. And you know what? It worked! It had a few glitches but it worked for what I needed. I was quite proud of myself. Almost cocky. It saved me money and kept me from having a complete melt down. Do you know how helpful it is to have a computer at your fingertips for planning a wedding? It saves a lot of wasted time and trips trying to locate services or products.

One night I was surfing for bargains on Bridesmaids dresses. Chatty pulled a chair up next to me. She propped her foot up on the computer tower. That's when it happened. Everything went black!!!! Same as it did 3 or 4 weeks before. The only difference was I could not get the power on. That's when I found it. The power cord had been loosened from the back of the unit. I guess it had been making enough connection to work those few weeks. But when Chatty set her foot on it, it jarred it enough to make the cord completely disengage. I didn't want to and I didn't have time to go through all of the steps as before. But it wouldn't respond to anything else. So I set it back to factory settings. I performed the diagnostic tests that it recommended. FAILED! Errors in several parts of the computer. Oh no! Shot! GGGGRRRRRRR!!!! I had every kind of jerk, tick, and shake a woman could have. Whatever!!! Many a women planned weddings long before the internet was invented. I decided to put on my big girl panties and get on with life.

Chatty and I spent the weekend running from stores to stores that were located an hour away from our house. We came home empty handed and exhausted. We've been using her Kindle Fire to look up sites that might be helpful. But I gotta tell ya, the Kindle Fire is great for her entertainment. But I'm not real impressed with using it for major things. But we were muddling along.

Last night, Mr. Chat came home with a new laptop for me. Whoop-Whoop!!!! Now I'm a happy camper, too. So happy that I'm not thinking about the fact that we could have used that money for the wedding and all of the little unknown extra expenses that will come our way. I have access to the outside world again. Isn't Mr. Chat a sweetheart? There are some days that we growl and bicker with each other. Some people would wonder what we're still doing being married after all these years. But then there are the times when we go above and beyond the call of duty that  makes me know that I would marry him all over again.

I will leave all of you fine people for now. I have to play with my new toy for awhile. I think I have Windows 8 somewhat figured out. It's a lot different than Windows XP. So if you don't see me for awhile, you'll know that I hit a wrong app or button and my world went black again!

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