Well, it wound up being impressive after all. Sean went out with a yardstick earlier and measured 14 inches of snow out here (and it wasn’t quite done yet). It was entertaining watching it fall. It was good we had some nice neighbor boys to come up with their four-wheeler and plow our driveway for us, but it since the county hasn’t plowed the main road yet we’re still not going anywhere (they’ll plow it in time for Monday morning, I suspect).
Also amusing: I had called Comcast to do the self-help “resend the signal” routine since some of Mom’s cable channels were out and some were blocky (and some just fine, weird), just to see if it would help. I couldn’t get to that option, however – Comcast was refusing service related calls. (We’re lucky we have power much less cable, mind, so I wasn’t calling to complain or even speak to anyone, but it seems a bit of a poor customer service move to completely refuse to take service calls, eh?)
Lana standing in the bay window watching the guys plow the road was extremely cute.
BBQ!
Several of my office-mates use IM, just for quick comments/questions to one another during work or to help decide where to head for lunch: Specifically AOL accounts. So after being here for three months I decided to download AIM and resurrect my long-dusted account.
Now I’m well aware that AOL historically has a reputation for difficult software, but damn. With all the options and functionality available out there, you’d think they’d finally create a piece of software that played nice. I mean, it’s been some silly huge number of years since I was looking at chat programs, it’s got to be better now, right?
I installed it, told it not to open on start-up, and not to set AOL as my homepage. I added my work colleagues to my decrepit buddy list, tested it, and had it open in the background while I worked.
At one point, in the middle of doing nothing with it, it randomly sent my web browser to the AOL site. Annoying. I didn’t think too much of it at the time though (hey, I was, you know, WORKING, and thus distracted from the grander problems this might entail).
So, I start back to work this morning, and turn on my computer, and start to login to Groupwise. The AOL chat client opens up (did I somehow accidentally not toggle that box I was so careful to toggle during install that told it not to do this?) redirecting my typing to it, and simultaneously opening my browser to the AOL site. (Did I miss unchecking the checkbox that said “Randomly and capriciously send browser to AOL.com”?)
Of course, this was death as far as this program on my machine goes. I started to look for a replacement (the names Gaim and Trillian surfaced in my brain from the depths of my long ago chat client meanderings) though one of my coworkers recommended Pidgin (which I will talk about more in another post).
I went to shut down AIM so I could uninstall it, and the program refused to close. It stalwartly remained on my Windows 7 start bar, only pretending to hear me when I told it repeatedly to close. I wound up bringing up the task manager to close its sorry self before exiling it from my machine forever.
I would have used the basic AOL AIM chat program. It was the obvious, easiest path. But I need my chat client to fade into the background until requested, and the AOL AIM program always needed to be the center of attention.
It looks like Pidgin is getting my rose.
Lana has a new game. She spins herself dizzy. It’s pretty deliberate: she goes in circles basically until she’s so wobbly she falls down. Except that she really is unsteady enough to potentially fall into things, it’s pretty funny (the times she almost falls into something it’s scary – I’ve held onto her a few times to keep her steady until the dizzy passes).
It’s been a very very long time since I’ve spun until I was dizzy, perhaps I should try it some time – though probably outdoors.
Yesterday Lana had her one-year check-up. All was well! Except that I’m annoyed with the way that lead tests are conducted – does anyone know, does it HAVE to be blood from a fingertip for some reason? Because pricking the tiny finger of a 13 month old and squeezing (and repricking and resqueezing, ugh) until you fill a tiny vial with blood just seems a bit unnecessarily nasty (the poor nurse was very apologetic). It was at least a 10 minute ordeal; not fun with a squirmy crying barely a toddler. (Actually, the pricking didn’t bother her, it was the squeezing of the blood and the being restrained.) Seems like there should be an easier way.
Anyway, after the finger-pricking she definitely cried for the shots, but aside from all that mess it was a good visit. I love our pediatrician, she’s a student (I’m not sure of the technical term, but she’s allowed to write her own prescriptions and whatnot), and she asked about Lana’s vocabulary, and if we were reading to her, and how she was interacting, and all sorts of questions beyond the physical. (And also if we’d baby-proofed, which she’s asked about on every visit.) We also talked about food and sleep.
But anyway, Lana’s about 21 lbs and 30.25 inches! And we’ve gotten an official “it’s okay” to turn her around in the car (I think breaking 20lbs was one of the criteria), which makes me happy (I am so tired of having her rearfacing – I’d like to be able to see her, thank you). Still, it’ll be a short while before I get her a new carseat. The infant seat we got has served us very well – Sean would ideally like to wait until this winter is over to put her in a different car seat, since it’s still nice to be able to bundle her up in the carseat indoors.
And I don’t have time to finish up with pictures right now, so those will just have to come later!
Posted on January 14, 2010 at 10:03 am |
5 comments | Filed Under:
baby
