I put up our tree last night. I didn't rush and it took about five and a half hours (or maybe it was more like six). We have lots of ornaments and every inch of the tree is covered (except the back portion that faces the wall and the room divider since here's really no reason to put ornaments back there).

I did, however, put tinsel back there, as it ruins the look of the tree if you don't do the whole thing. By eleven my back was aching and it was hard to move, but James had safely slid the tree into its corner, the rug was vacuumed of fallen artificial "needles" and I was setting up the manger scene under swaths of trembling icicles (since it was so warm we had the air conditioner on).

James, unfortunately, was having less success with his computer; this continued into this morning. There was a minor hardware bobble, but then the new motherboard/processor installed properly, and he was trying to partition the new hard disk (320GB)/load Windows 2000. While I was enjoying a day off for my birthday by having a late sleep, doing my dailies in Webkinz, reading the comics, etc. he was wrestling with it. He continued to wrestle when we got home. The fool thing won't load. It says he is missing "NT Detect." He also got another an error message, five digits beginning with a 3 (37564? something like that); I did a search for it online and came up with various reasons for the error ranging from bad hardware to a dirty installation disk!

I finally said, "Look, the old hard drive works, right? Put that back in and research your problem and then go back and install when you can work with it."

He did that. Now he has no sound card and Windows 2000 keeps asking him to install a file from Service Pack 4...which is already installed!

Screw it. I'm going to buy two copies of Windows XP. I've had Win2000 since May and it's been nothing but a pain in the ass. Win98 worked better, even if it wouldn't run TurboTax. (Maybe if I get XP, WordPerfect 7 will load again. WP9 is okay, but I bought it only because it does PDF files. WP7 was comfy like an old shoe.)

Despite the computer being a complete b**** it was a nice "bird-day": besides the nice late sleep, I put up the boxes for the Christmas stuff, put up a few last decorations, including a cute little display next to "Missie Skye's" cage, got everything vacuumed—the disorder was driving me nuts!—and then we went out for lunch at Longhorn. Stopped at Trader Joe's and Hallmark, visited the hobby shop, and came home.

Off to read a library book. (I went to the library just to use the bathroom; I came out with three books!)

Labels: Christmas, computers, decorating, food

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:39:00 PM

Comments:

"I went to the library just to use the bathroom; I came out with three books."

Oh geez, you too? I've done that for years, especially when I lived in Cape May. ;)

# posted by  Emma : 11:44:00 PM

 

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