I'm an IDIOT

I should know better.  I've played with SIMS before and they ate up months of my time.  (It seems like after you play for 100 hours the game mentions that to you - you've played 100, 200, 300 ...)  I don't know that I ever reached the 200 hour mark, I think I was shocked when I hit 100.  Plus after a while, I started to get to the point that it wasn't fun to be God to a group of people who either did what I told them and prospered, or if let alone would never do what I told them and so they died. 

But then the boys have been playing. 

So last night after they went to sleep.  I fired it up.  "Just to build a house or two, play with the designing features ..."

Oy!  Three HOURS later I  have two bachelor guys living beside each other with a lovely single woman across the street.  One of them is trying to impress her with his up and coming career in politics and his nifty pad.  The other is just a really sweet guy who loves to putter in his garden. 

I do NOT have time for this. 

I closed the loan I was working on yesterday.  My clients got back about $3,000 more than I had told them at first so they were happy.  Then I had a meeting with the boss at Service Mortgage and I'm not so happy.  Some changes in the direction of the company that are going to make it a little harder for me to get going.  But I'm learning everything I can learn. I'm going to be very teachable.  Because the more I learn now, the more I'll be able to do later and the better I'll be able to turn around and help the people who come in next. 

I know that's cryptic.  Let's just say that I'll be working harder and longer hours for a while.  But hopefully, the end result of that will be a happier little life for me and the boys.  Now - let the KIDS play SIMS while Mom works.  No more giving up three hours of my good sleeping time to PLAY.  

Terri

16 Bit Windows Subsystem                                              

c:WindowsSystem32Autoexec.NT.  The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows Applications.  Choose "close" to terminate the application.

Yesterday afternoon the boys asked if they could "build houses".  In other words, would I please load the SIMS onto my system and turn them loose in all their creative genius.  Sure, no problem.  Only ... there was a problem.  I tried a few things that I thought might fix it dinking around with XP.  They didn't work.  I went onto the internet and checked for XP versus SIMS problems.  Didn't find anything helpful. 

Finally rather late last night, I called Tim and asked for his suggestion.  He suggested that I put the error message into a google search and see what I turned up.  I did that.  And foudn all kinds of hopeful suggestions including a little executable that promised to fix the problem.  Only, it didn't.  In fact, what it did was slow my system to the point that it was taking 3-7 minutes PER MOUSE CLICK to perform any function.  So last night I was discouraged, defeated, and resetting my system to previously saved settings.

This morning, I went back out looking and found it.  The autoexec.nt file was in the Windows REPAIR folder instead of the SYSTEM32 folder.  I moved the file, the problem went away.  The boys have spent the past ... almost 5 hours ... building houses. 

I feel triumphant. 

It's all good.

Downright Gamey

I'm really starting to look forward to Saturdays.  I'm learning how to really take Saturday "off" and it's a good good thing.  Michael was sick again last night so he and I got very little sleep.  I broke down this afternoon and called Dr. Tom for some advice.  (I'm probably less likely to call him than I would a "regular" doctor because I'm so conscious of not wanting to take advantage of his good nature.  I know that he doesn't mind, and in fact rather expects that the family will use him for advice, but still ... okay, maybe that's a pride thing from my side.  And if it weren't my child, I'd probably let pride win, but it IS my child so I'm bothering the doctor.)

He told me that I'm using the wrong kind of cough medicine at night.  So Eliza said she had to come out to do some errands and volunteered to bring over the kind he recommends.  Hopefully, armed with the new formula, we'll be getting better sleep. 

After two nights with no appreciable sleep ... (isn't that a great adjective?  Appreciable?  Actually I appreciated very much the almost 45 uninterrupted minutes I got between 4:30 and 5:12.  Anyway, my inclincation to do anything other than relax was ... nonexistent.  So for the highlight of the day, we went to the library long enough to turn in the books that were due today, checked out a few replacements and some more Hank the Cow Dog on cd rom.  Just when I think we MUST be getting close to the end of the Hank Opus, I glance over and realize that we just checked out volume 27.  Hank is great entertainment for under the weather kiddos.  They lie quietly for each episode.  And that's great for Mom. 

In addition to lying around listening to John Erickson read, the kids lay on my bed for a while and I read to them.  Then we played Connect Four (Tucker invented this rule that we get to drop two checkers at a time which made the strategy thing a while different game and that was more fun for me.  I'm pretty good at losing often enough to keep them going, but sometimes ....

For dinner tonight, Michael asked if I'd make some "real food."  I asked him what he had in mind and it turned out that he's been hankerin' for Mom's stir-fry.  Okay, I can do that.  So in short we had a great family kind of Saturday.  And I'm only sorry that it took two sleepless nights and a pretty miserable family to slow us down to do it. 

I hope you are all having a great weekend. 

Hugs

Terri

"Look, I don't mean you're WEIRD or anything, but you know, sloppy joes and french fries are fine for hte rest of us but no, YOU have to have food with like fresh green stuff.  ...   See?  I rest my case."

She's not writing on Xanga anymore, but for those of you who were wondering, my sister, (used to be Fugitive) is alive, well, and still offering her unique view on the world.  Just now, she's sort of confined herself to critiquing me and my life instead of taking on the broader realm. 

Yeah - I'm home with Michael.  He's still feeling pretty rough.  We were up most of the night (did I say that already?) sitting in a steam-filled bathroom hoping to get him enough relief to buy 30 minutes of sleep before we had to do it again. 

So I have nothing better to do (I'm done with the vacuuming and the laundry, I've cleaned my room and moved the bookshelf that was blocking the intake vent to the furnace - DOH, Terri.  )  I suppose I could be WORKING on something.  And I kind of have been.  But after my phone call with my sister ... well, there are just some moments in life when you know it must ALL stop so you can write a blog.  You have no choice. 

Especially with a sister like Cheryl.

She knows this already so I can say it without revealing any major secrets, but in all my longer writing, there's always a character loosely based on my sister because when I get bored with writing the serious stuff, that character can be counted on to say the outrageous thing and get it all shaken up. 

I'm making notes all the time.  Honest to God, I keep a spiral notebook just for the things that Cheryl says.  If they ever find the drugs to cure what's wrong with that girl, my life won't be the same. 

Eeeew

I had a terrible dream last night.  For some reason, in my dream, it seemed like a good idea to cut my hair.  So I did.  I mean bobbed it right up to ear level.  Spent the rest of my sleeping time dreaming that I was crying over my lost hair.  <shudder>

I didn't spend a LOT of time dreaming last night.  Michael is sick with a nasty cough and congestion.  So we spent a lot of time sitting in the bathroom breathing steam.  Somewhere, I'm supposed to have a vaporizer, but at 1 am, I couldn't find it.  That will be the number 1 "to do" today.

That and NOT cut my hair. 

<shudder>

Relentless Hope -

Over all it hasn't exactly been a BAD day.  The weather was clear and mild.  I had work to do.  I had friends who called, emailed, and otherwise kept in touch with me so I know that I'm loved and supported.  I belong to a wonderful circle of people and I'm extremely blessed to have them in my life.  So why am I bummed out?

I have noticed a certain pattern in my life.  Sometimes I'm hopeful, and sometimes it seems like there's just not much point in getting out of bed.  Today was kind of a not much point kind of day.  It started off with the boys dinking around and us being late out the door.  Well, that's not the first time that it's happened.  In fact, it's happened so often that the school has taken notice of that pattern.  I've been unofficially notified that I need to get my butt in gear a little faster in the morning.  ~sigh~  I REALLY miss the old days of homeschool when the kids and I woke up, had breakfast and commuted all the way across the hall to our schoolroom.  But alas, this ain't homeschool anymore. 

Then I went in to the office where I learned that the loan I've been working on ~ the one where I did everything write and the client got in every piece of paper that I asked for before I would ordinarily have needed it ... has been postponed.  It's not our fault, the people who hold the client's existing mortgage have not sent us the payoff.  That just purely stinks.  We got in our request two weeks ago, they are supposed to respond within five days and we still haven't gotten it. 

I hate when I have to go to anyone and give them bad news.  I especially hated this one because the woman has become way more than a client.  She and I have traded recipes and she photocopied all kinds of information for me on how to adjust my cooking for the altitude.  I've worked very hard to make this go well for her.  And I hate that I have no control over the fact that this other business is being uncooperative. 

And maybe that's my problem,  I have no control.  I really miss control.  I remember when I used to feel like I was in control of my life.  I'm not exactly sure when I lost it.  Maybe it was in high school that my grip got a little loose.  I'm pretty sure that I still held the reins at least somewhat when I was in college.  I'm certain that from the moment that my first baby took his first movement across the carpet it was gone. 

Oh, I've tried.  I organize and plan.  I clean and arrange.  I schedule and double-check and inplement redundant systems... but I really don't have any more than the illusion of control.  And you know another thing?  I've recently come to grips with the fact that yes, it is all about me.  I've thought it was cute for years, that little thing about "if Mamma ain't happy ain't nobody happy."  I don't think it's cute anymore, I think its the law and it's my job to enforce it. 

And what does any of this have to do with hope?  I've been thinking about Brennan Manning's book "Relentless Trust."  He talks about Trust like its a weapon to be wielded.  I'm thinking that in my day to day battle for sanity, security and a tighter scheduled crew the greatest weapon I can draw is relentless hope.  I may not have control, but I have hope.  I may not have cooperation, but I have hope.  I may not have a behind that fits into the size jeans I want to wear ... but I have hope.  And I have friends who keep my hope alive on days when it's getting a little anemic. 

Thank you