The weather hates me too.

30MPH winds Saturday afternoon caused this to happen.

You can see how bent the tower is.

It’s unlikely they will be able to straighten it enough to set it back up.

*sob*

I’ve got two layouts to share this week.

You can find credits for them at my Sweet Shoppe Designs gallery

Link up your layouts here.

Thanks for joining me!

View from my kitchen most days.

This new batch of chickens are far more interested in what goes on in the house than the previous bunch. I don’t think the previous bunch ever paid much attention to the door, though they did peck around in the sage off the right of it.

This flock [...]]]>

View from my kitchen most days.

This new batch of chickens are far more interested in what goes on in the house than the previous bunch. I don’t think the previous bunch ever paid much attention to the door, though they did peck around in the sage off the right of it.

This flock though seems to spend a rather inordinate amount of time just standing there, in a group, right in front of the door, watching me cook.

This is extremely disconcerting when I have to crack eggs.

I feel like I have to stand sideways to island & block their view of my hands while I am doing it or I’m going to have an angry mob of chickens kicking in the door.

They block access both in & out standing there. You have to knock them out of the way if you want to use the door.

They bang their beaks on it sometimes, which sounds like someone knocking. If I am in another room I get a bit weirded out hearing it because I didn’t hear a car in the driveway & cannot imagine why anyone would walk all the way down my driveway if they didn’t have some sort of ill intent.

I’m not entirely sure the chickens don’t have any ill intent.

They know I have their eggs.

My Blight on the Landscape™ is back!

And the man from my ISP managed to get it up with only minimum pulling on my part.

It’s so hard to do these pole & tower related posts with out using words that will attract the less desirable elements of the internet.

So I [...]]]> ere.ction!!!

My Blight on the Landscape™ is back!

And the man from my ISP managed to get it up with only minimum pulling on my part.

It’s so hard to do these pole & tower related posts with out using words that will attract the less desirable elements of the internet.

So I just embrace it.

Because actually, it was also minimum scre.wing on my part.

I held in place & then tightened guide wire bolts when his partner in crime was called away to an emergency repair on a signal tower & I had a choice of waiting until they could get around to me later or helping out.

Naturally I said “Well if it’s help achieving ere.ction I‘m your girl! I’ve had lots of practice over the years.”

Because I’ve been helping these guys get their poles up in my yard since 2007.

Now that my landscape has been re-blighted my internet has improved exponentially.

That big dish at the top is the second most powerful receiver they have.

I used to download stuff at a max speed of maybe 70kbs, on a good day, around 10am, Tuesday mornings, when the wind is from the south & I am the only person using that signal tower. Lately it had been more like 38kbs, with frequent lows of down near 5kbs.

I haven’t watched a non buffered You Tube clip in a year or more.  I‘ve heard of this thing called ‘streaming video’ but never experienced it in my own home. If the video doesn’t buffer, I can’t watch it.

But now! Now I’m downloading at anywhere from 400-550kbs! 

I watched Downton Abby on pbs.com with no pauses yesterday!

Graphics load instantly!

I uploaded 11months worth of 2011’s edited photos to Smug Mug in less time than it took me to upload a single month’s worth a week ago.

Yay for faster internet!

And yay for my ISP returning my Blight on the Landscape™ to me!

They really are good guys, despite my sometimes frustrated comments about them.

I’ve only completed a couple layouts recently.

I did this two page one for the 2011 photo book I am trying to put together

and I did this About Me one

You can find [...]]]> Welcome to Scrapbook Saturday!  I hope you all will join me and link up your layout posts.

I’ve only completed a couple layouts recently.

I did this two page one for the 2011 photo book I am trying to put together

and I did this About Me one

You can find credits for them at my Sweet Shoppe Designs gallery

Link up your layouts here!

I’ve got 24 photos edited for January

It’s Photo a Day project, not Editing a Day project. Though actually I may do that the second half of the year.

My P365 began on my birthday back in July & runs until then this year.

It’s playing merry hell with my 2011 photo book [...]]]>

I’ve got 24 photos edited for January

It’s Photo a Day project, not Editing a Day project. Though actually I may do that the second half of the year.

My P365 began on my birthday back in July & runs until then this year.

It’s playing merry hell with my 2011 photo book project.

Normally by now I have not only completed my photo book, but ordered it and had it delivered but this year so far I haven’t even begun assembling it. I have 7 months of some random photos and 5 months of 365 plus many more random ones. I took 15 photos last February. All on one occasion. I took 135 photos on at least 8 occasions in October.

Balance is a challenge.

It’s just so much easier with a photo a day.

Remind me never to skip a year again.

One of the downs has us considering a new bank after 16 years at our current one.

But on the up side Mom seems to be doing ok. She is home now but is still short of breath from time to time & last I heard [...]]]> 2012 has had its ups and downs so far.

One of the downs has us considering a new bank after 16 years at our current one.

But on the up side Mom seems to be doing ok. She is home now but is still short of breath from time to time & last I heard they were thinking she once again had fluid in her lungs & are apparently considering a pacemaker for a different problem.  Nothing is certain though. Could just be a chest cold, which is admittedly dangerous after heart surgery, but the treatment is easier.

I’m still working on my meal planning resolutions. I have about half the recipes I want to try written up on a list on a clipboard in the kitchen and I have made several of them

This is broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl, with the removed bread on the side for dipping. It’s from the Cooks Illustrated cookbook, though the bread bowls are my own doing. They are made from the peasant loaf recipe in Artisan’s Bread Book.

I also made roasted cauliflower, cupcakes, chocolate cake & chicken dumplings from the CI book.

None of which would have happened without the list on the clipboard.

Budgeting time still needs work. It always seems to be suddenly noon and then suddenly 4pm & I’m not sure what happened. I’m ta.king a layers class at Creative Passion and I have yet to manage to read lesson 1

Budgeting money was thwarted by the bank, which in the past 8 weeks has held DH’s check deposit for anywhere from 12 hours to 12 days with no coherent explanation about why the difference or why the hold. And it’s not the check issuing bank’s fault. They show the money leaving them within 12 hours of the deposit. Our bank is just holding on to the money for various time periods before letting us have it.

Budgeting stuff is better now that I have organized my scrapping, yarn & fabric stuff. I have yet to buy any craft supplies, apart from a couple fonts from Darcy, yet this year.

How is 2012 going for you so far?

Mayhem is 8 today. He asked for the Skylander’s Wii game & some additional characters. We got him those, a Big Nate book and a gift card to Game Stop.

This is the last year for cupcakes at school

He asked for green & yellow ones because he is a Green Bay fan. [...]]]>

Mayhem is 8 today. He asked for the Skylander’s Wii game & some additional characters. We got him those, a Big Nate book and a gift card to Game Stop.

This is the last year for cupcakes at school

He asked for green & yellow ones because he is a Green Bay fan.

He’s been counting down the days since Christmas.

He wants a make your own pizza party tonight with some friends so I have to par cook a bunch of small crusts.

And make more cupcakes.

Happy Birthday my little man!

They came & moved it a couple Saturdays ago.

But then they realized part of the top was bent from the fall it took & would have to be hammered back to straight.

Then they discovered the gear part [...]]]> It’s made it from the trailer to the roof, but it is still horizontal

They came & moved it a couple Saturdays ago.

But then they realized part of the top was bent from the fall it took & would have to be hammered back to straight.

Then they discovered the gear part that moves & controls the receiver at the top of the tower is broken.

And the place in town where they normally bought new ones stopped carrying them.

And no place else in town has it & no other company that might use them had any spares to sell so they had to order it to be shipped.

And then it snowed.

Plus I am at the bottom of the priority list. That pole in the photo is my current source of internet and it works so everyone else with problems or who are new installs come before my upgrade.

Also? And this is the kick in the pants part…

They are looking at putting a new broadcaster up in my area. Part of my problems are that too many people in our area are feeding off of one broadcaster so they want to put up a new one.

They found a site less that half a mile from my house!!!

But due to our house being topographically challenged, we are slightly downhill on the other side of a rise between us & the new site.

So we can’t see the new broadcast tower & broadband signal works on line of sight, hence our need for a 50ft pole or 75ft mini tower because we can’t see any of the other towers either.

New, close, limited usage tower and we can’t use it.

Technology. Never short of new ways to hate on me.