toddycoffee

Winter Snowstorm

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

The town, and many surrounding, closed down for Monday’s winter storm. The snow was wet, piling on tree branches and leaving the yard and streets heavily covered.

Photo no. 22427
Piece no. 22433
Piece no. 22418

This morning, Al finished blowing snow from the driveway and sidewalks. After a break, he hauled the snowblower into the back yard and made paths for the Scampers. They had a lot of fun running up and down the new alleyways and making new paths from one to another, bounding through deep drifts.

Photo no. 22438
Piece no. 22417
Photo no. 22437

They’re now taking a nap, while we are waiting to move the laundry from washing machine to dryer.

It’s been nice to have a (severe) winter storm during which we did not lose power. Although there was a lot of heavy snow, the winds never got to blizzard strength. And not having to depend on landlines for telephone/Internet service also is reassuring; we did charge up the emergency batteries for the phones and tablets.

Recovery time

by Lizl/Liz Bennefeld

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.