Here I am on Sunday 26 Feb 2017 and I have had one of those weeks! No wonder someone came up with the idea of a Quilting RETREAT! Somewhere we do not use computers, phones, cook, clean, handle problems, etc. What a great idea! So a week ago Friday I told myself (again) ‘just 5 days Lord, 5 days without interruptions, etc’! Well, he gave me 3 days…. Then the unforeseen requirements hit. Tuesday was a house cleaning day and I assumed (oops) that Wednesday would be a good day to applique and get the last of Stonefield’s Section 4 finished.
What was I thinking? Wednesday started out OK but I made the mistake of thinking I could get my taxes out-of-the-way then sit and relax! WRONG. After I loaded Turbo Tax I began to have issues with the computer and within 15 minutes my hard drive died!!! (yes I have a backup of documents, etc) I have reformatted and reinstalled operating systems on PC’s but never on our Apple computers. This was a learning lesson – the lesson being that Apple support is not the greatest if one does not know more than the person on the other end. Always ask for a 2nd level technician when obtaining computer support. Now I can be certified to work on Apple computers – YEA! Six hours later we had a new Solid State Disk on the way! I thought that I was through with problems for the week – what a joke!
I received my quilting frame from Grace and good ole’ UPS must have been playing ball with the box (which was not the best one to send 67 pounds of wood to me) as it had holes in the box and pretty beat up. Bottom line – I sent that one back and now waiting for a new one that I will stain and finish. Wednesday was such a fun day – may I never have another one like that!
Thursday. Hum – all I can remember is that we picked up the Town Car that had 2 computer modules that had gone belly up and remembering how the check book was beginning to cry a lot! I did get my Oh Glory quilted along with all of the A Bountiful Life ready for applique (4 more). Good ole Stonefield’s remaining blocks of Section 4 had some “fabric selection” problems so they will be finished tonight!
Now Saturday was a day to remember – The new hard drive arrived Friday so the plan was to format the hard drive using my other Apple computer to make sure there would be not issues. Well 30 minutes into that computer something went wrong after I downloaded Google Chrome……………long story very short – that one took 6 hours and ultimately I erased the hard drive (I BLEACHED IT!) It took 14 hours but it erased the disk 7 times to make sure there were not bugs OR DATA on the drive. This morning I re-installed everything only to have the same problem. The mouse and key pad were not letting me control the computer. In steps my hardware guy (hubby) who figured out that the keypad was stuck for some reason. He found that the battery was old and was pushing on the keypad on the laptop keeping it pressed down all the time – fixed in 30 minutes. So now I have lost some data and files on that computer because the idiots told me to reformat and reinstall. Grrrrrrrrr. But now all is settled down and I am downloading some updates on the “Wednesday” computer problem, but there will be more time to do some downloading of my documents and pictures once the upgrades are done. I need to get out of retirement and start a computer business – I am just having too much fun in retirement!
Now on to quilting! Clay and I had ordered some fatigue mats and they are wonderful. Great for the long arm area and my cutting table. (Check book was crying on this acquisition also! but they are worth every penny!)
I did get one thing accomplished – Oh Glory is quilted!!!! YEA! I do free motion quilting and on this quilt I tried to get creative. I will work on doing curved lines, but basically I am pleased. It is a utility quilt and probably will be hung on my wall in my Studio.
Morale of this post is that one cannot count on having 5 days straight to quilt without the roof caving or those nasty unforeseen requirements. I can hardly wait to get to the Dallas Show and my favorite Casino where I can drain my brain and come home refreshed and quilt!
I hope that everyone is enjoying a peaceful quiet day stitching. I am headed for the other room to finish my 3 remaining Stonefield’s blocks!
PS – weather is hot! Winter is no more!
Chopin - A Passionate Quilter From Texas 
I am not ready for winter to be over…. I don’t car how many daffodils are blooming.
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I am hoping that it is a year that Easter is late – then we will have some cooler weather in March and April…. Wishful thinking! Shorts all winter!
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sounds like you had quite a week – thankfully I do not deal with computer problems hubby does – I have no idea how to do this stuff. I have never been interested in how a computer works where as hubby has always taken care of them. He does the taxes too – if I ever have to deal with it I will pay to have someone else do it!
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Well the computer saga goes forward for a few more days! I love math, logic and abstract reasoning. So I have been around them most of my life. Just blessed that hubby is the Engineer so between the 2 of us we can fix our own rather than taking them to someone.
But as I get older, I really do not want to get any smarter on them – but this time it caught me. Should be through by tomorrow night. Clay wanted his updated so we worked on his this afternoon.
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I hope Monday is a lot better day for you. Oh Glory will look lovely hanging on your wall.
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Well, the day was OK full of computering! I am doing a trade off with Clay – he will stain my new frame and we did the upgrade for his system this afternoon! YEA
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Your post reminds me why I only use Microsoft vs. Apple. Well, Windows on the kitchen laptop and Android on the long arm tablet and phones. As a geek, I have no love for i-anything that does not allow me to expand the memory and control the settings as I see fit. Glad you at least got some things done. $20 on black! Enjoy!
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I do both PC’s and Mac’s. We purchased our Mac’s with the capability to expand the RAM and I love my new Solid State Hard Drive – the Mac runs faster than with a regular hard drive. I am one of those who loves math and logic and have been around computers since 1966. They fascinate me and we love our iPhones, iPads, and MacBookPros. I keep my PC because of my quilting software.
Updated Clay’s Mac today and tomorrow I will probably upgrade mine to the last O/S. HOPEFULLY by Wednesday I will be through as my new hand quilting frame comes.
As long as I can do the software issues and Clay does the hardware issues more money for fabric! YEA
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Yikes! What a lot of computer problems. I would have just taken it to a computer repair place because it is so frustrating.
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The computer that I had to re-install did not have a problem. The keypad on the laptop (apple) had the battery pushing on the keypad causing it to stick. NONE of the Apple people picked up on that problem. I thought I had a virus or malware, but not the case. I have now become proficient on all of our Apple computers! Not a volunteer though – LOL
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I don’t know if there is a way to get ahead of computers. Hubby is an engineer who spent his career writing code and working with computers. Even he is stumped sometimes when we get a hitch. (Also he will have nothing i in the house!). Fingers crossed that your problems are behind you and it’s free posting/quilting from here on in. Old Glory is glorious!
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Thank you on Oh Glory. Well, in the last 6 days I have spent 4 of them working on the systems. I have successfully reformatted, reinstalled, and (thank you Lord) transferred all my files that had been backed up in the 2008 Mac! Just one issue – iPhoto. But that one is not used that much. Now for my 17″ Mac – It is running better than ever with the Solid State Drive – 1 Terrabyte ! Clay’s upgrade went smooth so we are up and running. Now I also have PC’s. Computer poor! I keep the PC for genealogy and for my quilting software.
I always look for “logic” in their programs and usually it works, but now people are using the iCloud to put EVERYTHNG on the Cloud to save hard disk space. Not me – good ole external hard drives is great to back up and it looks like it saved me! Think I have one more day and all will be back to normal…..I am looking forward to the 4 days at the Casino – will drain the brain! Thx for the comment!
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