Glitches and Boons

We've had a series of haps and mishaps lately that have kept me from blogging. There is that commission quilt to do but the next step on that requires me to print out some photo transfers. Then there are the remaining photos from Italy to download and tweak so I can share them with you--and get them off the camera card. But the computer has started to act up. A few days ago, the screen began to go dark after a day or several hours of the computer being turned on. That period of time between turn-on and darkness began to narrow until, by yesterday morning, we signed on, got our mail, read half of one e-mail and the screen went dark, a total of about 3 minutes.

It isn't that the screen goes black, but it goes dark enough that even though you can see the application behind it, you can't see it well enough to do anything with it. Thus we haven't sent many e-mails nor have I updated the blog. We bought a Dell laptop about 4 years ago and have a docking station for it which allows us to use it with an external keyboard just as though it were a regular computer. The monitor is about two-thirds the size of a regular computer monitor. Now we're starting to think perhaps 4 years is as long as you can use a laptop as your full-time everyday/allday computer.

Don had a Webinar to participate in late yesterday and I have those photo transfers to print and so we phoned a computer expert recommended by friends of ours--"Tom the computer boy" as they call him. Yesterday was his last day working until next Wednesday. He's going out of town until Tuesday and so told Don to bring the computer in yesterday. He hooked it up to his network and ran all sorts of tests. Of course the monitor never once went dark! But the good news is that our system checks out perfectly so it's obviously something in our screen display, which is what we suspected. Fortunately, Tom could loan us a monitor so that we can continue with our work. He's continuing to analyze the problem and will get back to us next week. Meanwhile, we're starting to think that it may be time to buy a standalone computer with a large flat-screen monitor. We realize with this loaner how much easier it is on our older eyes to have just one-third more screen to work with.

Anyway, above I've given you one photo from Buonopane, the village on the Italian island of Ischia where we spent a blissful week earlier this month. It is of a flowering plant at the entrance to someone's home. Until yesterday, I have downloaded and tweaked about 8 of my Italy photos each day. When I get finished, we'll have melded Don's and mine. Then we'll cull to get down to a selective set and share some of the best with you along with some descriptions. We definitely want you to know what a delightful place Ischia is.

The other glitch is that I got a temporary crown at the dentist's on Tuesday and yesterday at lunch chipped about a fourth of it right off eating shrimp salad. I'm about to go back to the dentist so I can get it repaired. The actual crown won't arrive until next Wednesday. Now, though, I'm reduced to eating scrambled eggs, cottage cheese, jello, and yoghurt--hardly a balanced diet!

Now to the boon: After the dentist, I'm going into Crieff to drop off two of my Scotland landscape quilts at the Crieff Bowling Club clubhouse which is where the Crieff 50+ Art Classes meet. They are putting on an exhibition and two of their members who know my work suggested that my quilts might look good alongside the landscape paintings. They'll be on exhibition from tomorrow for a whole week.