WordPress Photo Challenges: 2017 Favorites
The past several years have not yielded many frost-on-the-windows photographs. I enjoyed the displays on our front windows during the beginnings of (now unseasonably cold, due to warmer winters) frigid temperatures here in the Red River Valley of the North.
Good afternoon! I am happy that you have stopped by for coffee. I’ve got Toddy coffee concentrate, and also hot brewed Folgers that I put on for Al, this morning. I’ve had my coffee with breakfast (Toddy concentrate with milk), and am now enjoying a cup of Oolong tea.
If we were having coffee together, this weekend, I would share my hassles in getting back on-line and setting up the (remaining and new) computers so that I can access files and web sites—not working out exactly as I’d hoped, but possible in the interim—and get some actual creative work done. My remaining desktop computer, a Lenovo IdeaCentre, has a very small HD and is not adequate to hold my photograph archives. The little Lenovo 2-in-1 is more of a tablet with a detachable keyboard, and the place-holder I purchased (on sale at Best Buy) has only a solid state drive with less usable space than my most recent flash drive.
In the midst of all else, by computer printer, an HP inkjet which I also used for work before I retired, quit printing legible copy, and no print head cleaning or realignment resulted in any slow–down of ongoing deterioration. I am back to going through the pre-Christmas sales advertisements.
The one thing that I have accomplished to my satisfaction is getting all of my email accounts to work on the desktop with SMTP, so that I have both local and web copies of my mail. My next priority is to rearrange the files on my backup external HD’s so as to clean off at least one of the largest external HDs for comprehensive photo archiving.
For the Photo Challenge prompt at WordPress, this week, I posted a photo without poem or commentary: Ascend into Heaven. I managed to write a few poems, this week, which I posted on my Quilted Poetry blog: Steam and Rivers, a tanka for last Monday’s Ronovan Writes Haiku challenge and Evening Silence, which contains both a tanka and a prose poem.
You can see that I live a very dull life, here. Computers and medical tests. And books. Currently, I am rereading the Samaria series by Sharon Shinn, one of my most favorite authors. Immediately previous to that, I read her series, Elemental Blessings. I count the Samaria books as science fiction, but those in the Elemental Blessings series are definitely fantasy and just as much fun. I finished my reread of L. E. Modesitt Jr.‘s science fiction books earlier last week with The One-Eyed Man: A Fugue with Winds and Accompaniment. I have now returned to rereading the Imager Portfolio series and am awaiting the next volume with all eagerness. I have not yet finished the second volume of Francis Fukuyama’s Political Order books. Too disheartened, I think, to see things playing out in the world as it is.
I would mention that on Friday, Al drove with his siblings and others to the Twin Cities for his uncle’s funeral. The weather was not as bad as expected, and they were able to spend much time visiting while they were there. They also stopped along the way to and from for meals and conversation among themselves. Still no sign of an obituary for cousin Nora. I do wish that I had contact information for that branch of the family in Washington state. I am grateful that we were able to visit a while when she was back in Minnesota in September for her mother’s funeral. The first time in decades!
While Al is working his volunteer shift, this afternoon, I have washed some of the dishes and put a chuck arm roast into the oven. I am considering taking a nap until the oven timer goes off. 💤
I am adding a link to Alli’s Eclectic Alli web site, where I will be adding my link for Weekend Coffee Share. Unless I hit the wrong button and delete this entire post again!
Best wishes for your week!
Lizl
I also found this week’s post of #DSFWeeklyRewind: at DaisySmileyFace.
We have a date for uncle Don’s funeral. I must wash Al’s white shirt, today. I’ve not seen further news concerning a memorial on the West Coast for my cousin.
I did go shopping at Best Buy, yesterday, and found a mid-range laptop on sale that will tide me over until I figure out what I want for photo editing and artwork. The drive is solid state and not large, so my flash drives and external hard drives will see more use. I must see about sorting through and consolidating things…erasing old client files as I find them, &c.
I am distressed that I cannot find an email client that will handle multiple accounts with accommodations for alternate mail server set-ups. Opera Mail reminds me of Pegasus Mail, and not in a good way. Thunderbird will not do. It seems that Microsoft no longer offers downloads or support for Windows Live Essentials. That was my go-to program. Since I do have a small desktop computer (Lenovo IdeaCentre) that does have Windows Live Mail installed, I will update my information there and use that for consolidated mail downloads and reading. It’s not as though I need to know instantly—or even every day—when an email arrives.
I am not so sanguine about not having a keypad on this computer. Must read the instructions to find out if there is an option. Or learn how to enter the nonstandard symbols and punctuation marks without it.
Also, all of my photo-editing software died with the two now defunct laptop computers. I must figure out where to store (and make a back-up for) my photograph archives. I missed backups for less than a month of photographs from my own photo shoots, none of which were remarkable. The best ones ended up online here and there. I may have to buy another 2-TB external hard drive to add to the desktop computer, whose own hard drive is not large.
Still, I am not sleeping well, and I find that uncomfortable, especially since I am trying to do detail work, here. My short-term memory function sidetracks as my mind wanders. Too many losses and too much stress on that account, and while I know it’s temporary, it’s disconcerting.
I’ve come to the end of my Toddy coffee and cheese. The temperature is 25°F in the gazebo, which is not impossible. I may next turn on the space heater to warm up the exercise bike for after-lunch exercising. I do believe that I will have a breakfast for lunch, today. Cheesed eggs and a turkey breakfast sausage.
It feels good to write an actual blog post instead of hunting for log-in information. Perhaps now I will sleep more soundly at night and even be able to take daytime naps.
I will be taking some time off during December to focus on other matters than blogging. First, as I mentioned (elsewhere?), I bought a paper journal, last month, and I am working on writing more and more often by hand, rather than by keyboard. I am enjoying that, but want to get into the habit of writing on paper first, rather than “taking notes”.
That’s been reinforced, this week, by the hard drives on both of my laptops developing fatal errors that the recovery routine can’t repair. The newer laptop was injured on Wednesday in an encounter with the floor. I didn’t come into the room in time to discover which dog knocked it over. The second, the older one, had been developing problems years ago (which is why I quit using it so much), and it entered a death spiral earlier today.
I expect that I have all of the passwords, and I plan to get back into my email during the coming week. (I believe I have the essential accounts working.) The tablet (2-in-one) is awkward for writing and has no backlit keyboard, which lately has become a necessity. Using a USB keyboard in the interim. Not fun, but I can see these larger keys a lot better. 😀
Too, as you might recall, there were seven deaths in the family between October 2016 and September 2017. Both of my parents, two aunts, and three uncles. This week, we lost an uncle from Al’s family, and I lost a cousin with whom I had become reacquainted after 48 years, when we met again at her mother’s funeral in September. Which took place in old home town close to here; their family was established in the Seattle area, where I visited for some weeks, just out of college. I was so happy to see her (and her brother) again after all those years. I am so glad that she and I remembered each other—and fondly—and we enjoyed what time we had to be together, again.
I have not been sleeping well, recently, and I am quite tired. Looking forward to meeting with the bereavement counselor again between Christmas and New Year’s Day. We can talk about the continuation of deaths in the family and how I am coping. Not comfortably, but instead trying to be present to the pain and loss. Part of life…part of the richness in the tapestry of memories.
Best wishes for the holiday season!
Much love,
Elizabeth
It is good, arriving at this time of the night with chores abandoned. The dirty dishes will still be in the sink and dirty when I wake up, tomorrow, and the laundered clothes will still be draped over the office chair, after all. The time is 11:00 p.m., and I am happy to welcome you to join me for … perhaps not coffee, at this time of night, but a virtual beverage of your choice and apple slices. The grocery has put some nice Braeburn apples on sale for the holidays at ninety-nine cents a pound, and so we bought half a dozen, this evening. Delicious!
If we were having coffee together, this weekend, I would tell you that the week’s been tough. It started out well enough with an appointment with my bereavement counselor; we decided that we would schedule one more appointment: just before the New Year’s Day weekend. Between October 20, 2016 and September 8, 2017, I lost two aunts, three uncles, and both parents. This week, on December 6, my cousin Nora, on the west coast died; I met her and her brother for the first time since I stayed with them for a couple of weeks in Seattle in 1969, when they came back to Minnesota for their mother’s funeral in September. Both her brother and she remembered me, and we had a great time talking.
I also met the widow of my cousin Jim and their two boys, and she and I had a wonderful time visiting on a variety of topics. I was in the process of trying to get hold of contact information, so that I could write to her. I did get such information from one of my other cousins who lives near Seattle, so at least I feel connected to a larger family group, now.
Late this afternoon, we learned that uncle Don, Al’s mother’s brother, died today (the ninth), just before six o’clock p.m. Arrangements for both funerals are to be announced. I cannot fly back to Seattle, and Al’s family gathering will in any case be in the Twin Cities.
A couple of nights ago, I came back into the front room to find my laptop computer on the floor, partly under the rocking chair and no longer functional. I expect that either I had not balanced it properly on the lap desk or one of the dogs tried to jump up into the chair, as they often do, and brought the lap desk and computer crashing down. Al has ordered a cable kit to try retrieving files that had not yet been backed up; some of the fittings inside the computer were broken, but the drive itself looks okay.
If we were having coffee together, this weekend, I would be grateful, because I really needed a break from putting together the information to do my writing on this older computer (that died after the upgrade to Windows 10, but came back with the various upgrades over the past two years). I found an email address I quit using and had forgotten about as I rooted around for web hosting passwords etc., and also came across the instructions for manually setting up my email client. And so I have all of my accounts coming to one computer/one email program! Secure!
Now that I am accessing everything again, and only lost a month’s photo archiving, I must get on-line to find a replacement computer. I wore this HP into the ground, and a couple of the keys are…unreliable.
And now it’s nearly midnight, and I must try to get more than four hours of sleep, tonight, or I will be good for nothing, tomorrow. I have run out of apple slices, and must warm some milk, now.
I hope that your week has been uneventful as you might wish it to be, but also enjoyable and, if appropriate, productive!
Best wishes for the remainder of 2017!
Lizl
P.S. Here is the link information for a weekendcoffeeshare post with a linky to others: https://eclecticali.wordpress.com/
Weekly Photo Challenge: Cheeky!
A beautifully cloudy day, but naught to catch my eye but fallen leaves, and those are not covered by any snow at all. The weather has been dry and windy, and I despair at keeping the floors clean, since dust blows in each time the doors are opened.
During November (2017), I took part in a “poem a day” activity with the same group who got together for NaPoWriMo in April. I still am working on a few that need more attention; the remainder are on my Quiet Spaces journal, The Written Word at Home (the “posts” link).
The Moments Between 