Hello!

Well, here i am, its 5:44am.  Are you up? Probably not! How lucky for you.

Sorry it has been so long since i've posted!

We are 'moved in' but far from moved in.  Over Easter Weekend (i know, don't even say it) we unloaded the 23' truck of many of our possessions that have not been seen in 2 years.  This was after spending the week (through all the rain!!!) retrieving our belongings from NJ and 2 locations in PA.  We still have things in both PA places!

So now we wonder, as we sit here in our new (rental) home...how much of this STUFF do we really need? 

Have you ever really tried to separate yourself from your belongings?  We did some prior to leaving the farm house almost 2 years ago...but not much.  And note to self - when you live in a huge house people give you things you a)don't necessarily need, and b)don't necessarily want.  (the same is true when you have children - this problem has been following us for over 14 years now! : )  ) But people are so generous and for that we are truly thankful.  What is an extra, occasional trip to goodwill or the St.Vincent De Paul society...nothing.

So currently i am wading through boxes, trying to make myself be reasonable - how many colanders does one family really need???  Holy smokes!  : )

Now the ultimate goal is to get as little extra stuff into the house as possible...not easy with children  -especially when all the toys are in clear buckets!  Thankfully, we have weeded through those numerous times over the years and honestly, only the best (for the most part) are in the buckets... see how that mentions nothing about all the gift from the past two years?  We have a ways to go yet.

On to other news....
My computer is still out of commission.  Its not a huge problem as you can see from the fact that i am currently writing you : ) but still - photos and addresses would be nice to retrieve.  I may be able to salvage some of it but if i tell you how you will laugh so i'll save that for AFTER i try.  Fair?

No sewing, crocheting, etc has been done in way too long....and no i never got the Easter dresses done by Easter.  We were lucky to make it to Mass as we were all exhausted by then!  But my husband and i pulled ourselves together enough to hold on to our family traditions even through the mess of a Lent we have had. (but only for Easter, Lent is a whole other ball of melting wax!)

School is on hold (and the children are SO upset - teeheeehee!) They can't seem to find their books!  I, of course, know where they are, but i'm not talkin'!  ...ok, we start back monday,whether i like it or not.

In other school news - our oldest has taken it upon himself the task to teach himself computer programing. I am very impressed.  So i went online to see about online classes at the local community college but you have to take 2 real life classes before you can enroll in the online stuff...and  you have to be 16 to enroll in the college.  SO, i started looking online and found (quite unintentionally) a site that has several free computer programing courses.  One set is through MIT.  I looked at it a bit and i think we'll add that to his daily schedule after his actual school work is done...if he wants.  Or he can continue on as is, but with the blessing of an hour of extra computer time just for teaching himself something he seems to really enjoy.  I love homeschooling!

Well, that about sums it up for now... i promise eventually i will get back to blogging about school and home in a more beneficial to you sort of way, with photos etc as well.

But please, bear with me as the stress is high and the tasks many - and most are not part of our normal life.  Moving can be both a joy and a stress at the same time .... much like life in general. : )

So i will try to get back here more often than not from here on out...but please say a prayer for us as we try to decide what is really necessary to keep and what we can drop, to better follow Him....

Have a Blessed Sunday!

Well, it finally happened...

The computer finally won.  Actually maybe i should say Dell finally won.  My hard drive died.  Not crashed.  Not infected.  Died.  The burial will be today sometime ...probably in the dark of night so our new neighbors don't think me too crazy yet.

The biggest loss?  The photos of course.  I finally got them all off the (stupid) digital camera and onto the (stupid) computer.  Don't say it, don't even ask it, cause no....i had not yet backed them all up.  There were tons!  One step at a time please.  Actually i really have very little backed up... a few things that were moved from the old computer, that's it. 

My brother-in-law said someone might be able to save some things ...maybe at a price. I am hoping one of our God Daughters' daddy (who was my go to computer guy when we were in PA/MD) can help...Please? Paul!???  (we have 3 God daughters so the s' seems right?  grammar is not my best subject!...but you should know that by now...)

I decided a while ago that Dell is NOT a good company to buy from.  My computer was doing well (still in its 1 year warranty) and we purchased a computer for my husband.  There were a few items that would commonly come with a computer (and be listed on the 'it comes with' info) that were not listed.  So i purchased one seperately.  When the computer arrived it came with one!  so I tried to return the item but because the computer was late in arriving we had already missed the return window time frame....its from the time of purchase AND they were VERY late but we are the ones to get penalized.  There were other things with that purchase that really ticked me off but i will spare the story.  Then about a month later - my computer's 1 year warranty expired.  A month after that the battery died.  No longer covered. 
Now what? the computer is a couple of years old and the hard drive dies.... We have a computer from when we were in college that still has the same hard drive!!!??
Oh...and i lost the disc from my printer (cause really, only a dell printer will work consistantly with a dell computer...) I had problems with it after we moved it from one house to another.  So i needed to figure out what was wrong.  I went online, followed THIER directions- i was eventually told to remove and download the driver again....but it didn't work.  I tried repeatedly.  Eventually i called them - i was told they could not help me (the warrenty on the printer had just expired!!!) but i could pay some obnoxiously large amount of money to have them work with me on this one problem.   I explained i followed thier directions from online but well, they are apparently not held accountable for either thier own lateness in shipping things OR thier own troubleshooting directions on thier own company website. 
I ended up paying $18 plus shipping for a new disc.... Dell is out to get me.  They have some of the worst customer service i have seen AND they do not hold themselves accountabe for thier mistakes.  PLUS the customer is always WRONG.  We will never buy from them again....and you shouldn't either.

Now i can spend $50 for a new hard drive, which may not be much to some of you...but what about the ebooks bought online, like my Catholic montessori albums, what about my extreemly complicated cross stitch patterns you can't find in stores and the company closed... what about hthe priceless things like photos and kids writing they do for fun.  All lost.  I really hate computers....technology is not always as great as it is made to be.  There are still problems.  and yes, i know nothing is perfect but heck!  it could at least be reliable.
 yuck - i am done now! I'll post better things later!