Slacking!

The weekly blog post has gotten skipped the past few weeks.  Who was I to know that, when I set up my reminders for blogging on Tuesday, my light day, that it would become the ONLY day I have something scheduled in the morning?  It's time to move the reminder. 

Windows 10 isn't doing a bad job behaving itself.  The only casualty of my major computer tinkering was that I lost all my bookmarks.  I remembered to export them to a file ... but didn't think to put the file on the external drive.  Ahem.  Well, I do like starting with a clean slate, and making things all tidy ... that's one way to go about doing it.  One thing I'd like to add to Windows 10 is a way to put a file in the start menu.  Otherwise, everything is moving along decently.  All the pesky glitches are GONE!  Except for the racing clock.   My clock tells me it was successfully synchronized today at 9:08AM.  It says it is 12:44PM.  I synchronize it, and poof, it's 12:30!  The lesson around here is - don't check the computer to find out what time it is.

College is going well for the Filii.  Work is going well for the Vir.  Tinkering and puttering is going well for the me.  My days do not suffer from a lack of varied, interesting activity. 

Thanks to a question from my faithful blog reader (waves towards the west), I have been a bit more diligent about reading the 40 Questions about the Law book.  I can't find the question now, alas, but here are my thoughts on the book, halfway through. 

The book is not written for the average person in the church.  It's not even written for the average person who is an active participant in Bible Studies, has dabbled with ancient languages, reads a bit of theology, and is fairly well-versed in doctrine.  The target audience seems to be seminarians, with a decent grasp of seminary-speak.  In explaining what the New Perspective on Paul is, he notes that Sanders espouses Covenantal Nomism ... without really linking up the latter with the former, or doing much more defining of either.  In answer a question about the abolishment of the law, the redemptive-historical and salvation-historical clocks are mentioned (and the web tells me there is a grammatical-historical perspective also) ... and I get rapidly lost.  Sometimes it seems like the answer isn't to the question, but rather to a sub-question which is apparently big in theological towers but is off my radar.

Having said that ... if you have an interest in the use of the word Law in the Bible, and are willing to dig deeply to figure out what the author is saying (or if you read heavy theology for fun), the book might be good reading. 

To lighten things up a bit, I am reading some C. S. Lewis on the side -- Poems, and That Hideous Strength.  I've read the rest of the Space Triology a few times, but barely made it through the third book once.  I'm hoping that 20+ years of life will help me appreciate it more. 

Knitting du jour is a prayer shawl.  Yarn is en route from Nebraska and Cornwall for a hat and gansey, respectively.  Latvian Mittens are floating around in my head.  And someone accidentally introduced me to Turkish Lace, or Knotted Mediterranean Lace, which I am thinking I will really have to learn and practice a bit.  In preparation for that, I've dusted off my tatting supplies. 

Happy almost October, all! 

So far ....

In which exciting things should happen

With an empty nest (again, having had a child home for the long weekend), one must make one's own excitement.  And today, I am going to restore my computer to factory defaults.  Or at least start.  First, to make a nice backup of all my data.

Why, you ask?  Because it is being fractious.  In June, Firefox began crashing when my husband opened the Facebook website while he was logged in.  (Solution: use my computer account) A few days later, Firefox began crashing when I opened Facebook while I was logged in. (Solution: Use Chrome)  And a few days after that, my beloved Service Dog Project webcams at Explore crashed Firefox (Solution: Watch them via Youtube)  And a day after that, playing any Youtube video began to crash Firefox. (Solution: Use Chrome)

Things worked in Safe Mode.  But who wants to always use Safe Mode?

Then, the upgrade to Win10 would not happen.  I wasn't particularly thrilled to discover that it crashed after 3+ hours of downloading.  And that each re-try required another 3+ hours of downloading.  Seven tries later, I gave up.

Windows Explorer randomly crashes.  Windows Media Center will not open.  Windows Media Player crashes when I try to play a DVD, as does the MPC-HC program I downloaded to try and get around that.  And opening the Microsoft Support Pages crashes Firefox.  That just smacks of irony. 

Bleagh.

A quick scan for viruses goes fine.  A full scan hangs at the 3 hour mark somewhere deep in a ~Windows folder.  Twice.

So ... I have ALL sorts of information jotted down.  I have passwords saved, product IDs located, and apart from the hassle, see no problem with giving myself a Brand New Computer that is a Blank Slate and seeing how that goes. Unless, of course, a computer guru yells TRY THIS FIRST before I get fairly started on the restoration project.  

I've decided the hassle is relative.  How much time have I spent trying to solve the above problems?  LOTS.  Lots more than if I had just done the factory default thing back in June when Filius was around to do it for me. 

In other news, we may have a new street-to-house sewer connection by the end of the day on Thursday, and I am finished with the baby layette AND the project after that.  Today, Vinterbar is on the docket.

And early next month, Bandit is having his teeth cleaned and some loose teeth dealt with.  We also found out that his rare episodes (1-2 a year) of goose-stepping and tripping over his own crossed feet are most likely atypical isolated cerebellar seizures.  

In which nothing much has happened

The landscape outside has been constantly changing, but the changes are all of the same sort.  The equipment moves, the dirt moves (thankfully, only with the help of the equipment.  No spontaneous sinkholes or mudslides), and the pipes move. 

It has occurred to me that if the new sidewalk doesn't get laid down by winter, I won't need to be shoveling our front walk.  The silver lining to that potential cloud has been FOUND!

Bandit is starting to have 'issues' when left home alone.  Sunday, the issues required mopping the living room.  Last night, it was a matter of cleaning the fragments of pumice stone from the bathroom floor.  But why, after 5 years of sensible, sane, sound dog-hood, is this happening?  The smoke alarm isn't going off, and there wasn't any construction work going on.  Hmmm.

Both Filius and Filia have survived a first week of college.  We see them at church on Sunday, and it's good to hear more about their weeks. 

Knitting is progressing nicely.  If all goes well today, I may finish the baby blanket I've been working on.  Next up is an intarsia cardigan to finish off the layette.  I'm delighted to have other projects lined up for after that. 

'See' you next week!  (All one of you who read my blog?)