I'm ready, I'm in, I'm jazzed!

I've done four entries for the A-Z tonight.  Got them scheduled to post as planned.  Got my new look on the blog.  I'm ready and I'm still in!

What about you?  Are you ready?  To write, to read?  

And how do you like my new look?  Is it a keeper?  

Tell me all about it.

Am I up to the Challange?

The A-Z Challange that is.  Who knows!?  I've loved taking part in it the past two years.  And have been looking forward to it since January of this year.   I've had a list of topics for the past two months.  



BUT, since Charles foobared our server at work on January 21st, I've been working a lot of Saturdays.  Staying late.  And then there was Pete's hospital stay for Ground Hog Day.  I've been worn out, frazzled, frayed, abandoned and abused.  So, here I sit on March 29th with no entries written.

I had so looked forward to having most of them pre-written and scheduled so I could just sit back and enjoy blog hopping and reading, commenting and such.  

Well, I gave hubby forewarning tonight that I'm still in the mix.  I'm going forward.  The only thing working on my side this year is the new computer and the new high speed via Hughes Net. 

So, jump in with me, sign on, follow, like, share, comment, read, visit, tweet......the Good Lord willing, I'm going the distance!

See you on Tuesday, if not before.  

Barbara in Caneyhead

Thirty Years

Earlier this month, Pete & I had our Thirtieth Wedding Anniversary.  It was a Wednesday, so I had to work.  Often times, we don't even get each other a present.  We just acknowledge and mark another year under our belt.  But this year seemed special.

So, when I came in from work, I asked Pete "You want to exchange presents before or after church tonight?"  He told me that I wasn't getting his now.  So I asked if he minded if I went ahead and gave him his gift.  And he didn't.  So I did.  I got him a nice camera with some good ZOOM.  He loves to take pictures of birds, squirrels and everything else.  Hope I can get him interested in sharing some on a blog of his own.  He seemed tickled and pleased with his gift.

We got ready and went on to church.  Just so happened our anniversary fell on our church's Business Meeting and Birthday Social night.  We have the business meeting, then we sing Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary to all who are celebrating that month and then adjurn to the fellowship hall for ice cream and cake.  

We're both happy to have our 30th fall on the very night.  When the business is concluded the pastor calls for the anniversaries to come forward.  There's about five couples total lined up in the front of the sanctuary.  Then the pastor says something about someone wants to say something before they sing to us.  And the next thing I know Pete is pulling a little blue velvet box out of his shirt pocket and opening it in front of me.  As he does this he is saying "for putting up with me all these years."  Inside is a simple and elegant white gold anniversary ring with a leave design on the top of the band with diamonds in every leaf and diamonds between each leaf!! 

People, my little redneck man done good!!  He made a memory I will cherish as long as and even after the beautiful ring.  

There I was,

all gung-ho and ready to proceed to post regularly and get a head start on my A-Z entries....and life happened.  

First my computer decided to start to have issues.  I thought it was going to sleep and not waking up.  Changed settings, rolled it back and finally it seemed to be working right.   

Then, the IT guy at work crashed our server on January 21st and we lost a month and a half of work.  That's when the overtime started.  

Next, hubby ended up in the hospital for Ground Hog day.  I'm really starting to think holidays make the man sick.  He was there this past 4th of July, then again for Labor Day.  Thankfully, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's didn't phase him.  Probably because those occurred in and near deer season.

Once again, computer issues at home.  One day the electricity quietly went out and when it came back on, the computer wouldn't. Ever since it had issues in January, we had left it on continually.  (Yes, in a surge protector.)  It would act like it was coming on, but it didn't.  It took me a few days to realize I had computer protection through my AOL membership.  I finally contacted them, they had me send it off.  The status came back, motherboard has died.  They emailed me info about a suggested new replacement PC.  I agreed it was a good one and low and behold they had it at my house the very next day!  We decided to go with broadband satellite instead of sticking with dial-up.  And now here I am.  

Still have a lot to catch up at work.  Funny, I finally reach the eight year mark, with three weeks vacation and right now I can't see a time when I can go on vacation.  In all these years, I've never taken more than 3 days consecutively off from work.  That was to make a 5 day weekend for us all to go visit our friend Jim a few years back for the 4th of July.

Hoping, since it is still early in March, and now I have high speed at home, I'll still get some A-Z entries done early and be ready to plunge into the fun with all fours when April 1st rolls around.

In the meantime, I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone to visit AOL and pick out a paid membership plan.  They have so many value added services for free! (Lifelock, Computer Protection, Tech Support, Priceline, Privite Wi-Fi, AARP, DataMask, Norton Online Backup....on and on and on.)  Host of choices for under $20 bucks a month.  And then, you have dial-up backup if you ever need it.  And as dial-up goes, theirs is fast & reliable.  I don't plug goods and services in my entries for any compensation.  And if I decided to, I'd say it was compensated.  So, when I recommend anything here, you know I truly do believe in it, like it and use it. 

Well, it's my one day off this week.  So, I'm going to go about catching up the laundry and cooking a good meal for my family.

See you round!