Celebrating my 66th Birthday

Georgie, Me, and Tanya Lee

I celebrated my birthday yesterday doing exactly what I wanted . . . attending a weekend long agility seminar hosted by our local dog club.  Georgie Myers was our seminar organizer and did a fabulous job, and Tanya Lee from Shreveport was our instructor.  They posed with me briefly for this photo, but it was a hard one to get because Tanya is so bubbling over with enthusiasm to share information that it's almost impossible to find a momentary pause in her teaching.

My husband, John, paid my seminar fee as my birthday present, and family/friends agreed to postpone my birthday celebration until a later date.  Everyone who called with well wishes had to leave me a message because I didn't have time to answer my phone, and was so exhausted each evening I didn't even open my computer. Mom sent me a thick book on "Health Secrets For Seniors" by Bottom Line, which I suppose makes me an official "senior" now.  Laura dropped off a vegan birthday cake and a vegan loaf of bread from Whole Foods Sunday evening, but I was soaking in the bathtub and missed her visit.  Hopefully we'll share them on Wednesday night after going to the movies.  I want to see Lincoln.

Another great gift, Laura and I are both so tired of feeling so tired all the time, we're both interested in exploring Nathan's new vegan diet.  It's great having a friend with similar interests. Before the weekend I prepared a few recipes from the Forks Over Knives Thanksgiving collection, a butternut squash soup using Vegetable Broth and curry instead of my usual Chicken Broth, salt and pepper (and it tastes great).  I made vegan sausage, took notes on how to vary it, and used it in place of Jimmy Dean's sausage in my usual smothered cabbage dish.  Looks and tastes so good and the texture is so similar, I doubt I'll miss the meat.  I made a cous cous dish using veggie broth, which was tasty.  On the other hand, the next day I mixed the cous cous with a raw scrambled egg and fried up little pancakes in butter, which were scrumptous!   And my friend Thom, who fries turkeys and caters parties, gave me the bones from 3 turkeys as per our usual Thanksgiving custom, so I boiled the bones, plucked off the meat, and made a huge vat of turkey soup. It's so yummy I don't know how I can back off of that tradition, or how I'll do without my eggs and butter. Another instance where many baby steps will be required.

I'll discuss what I learned at the seminar in my next post (before I forget it), because this upcoming weekend I'll be out of town again at the Lake Charles Agility Trial.  Whoppie!

Upwards and onward!

New Camera Necessitates New Computer

For my 65th birthday (not for 2 more weeks, but it was on sale in October), my husband bought me a new Sony Handycam HDR-XR-160 Video Camera, with extra battery, charger, carrying case, protection program and all the trimmings.  SWEET!  I take so many videos and spend so much time transferring them from camera to computer, video cataloging, editing, the uploading to web albums, mostly waiting for the computer to complete an action, and all that for blurry quality and slow playback, he knew I've been jones-ing for better equipment.

Took some videos with the new unit the next weekend, tried uploading them to my old computer and it said I didn't have enough processing speed.  OOPS!  So, off I went to Best Buy the very next day, looking for a new laptop as well (mine is about 5 years old).  I've been looking around for 2 years or so and hadn't found anything I remotely liked.
 

I said a fervent prayer as I entered the building that I'd find the perfect laptop for me.  I waited til I felt the prayer "catch", held my breath as I ambled to the back  -- and there she was, first unit I laid my eyes on - a 17.3" TOSHIBA Satellite with Quad Core AMD processor, webcam, a decent graphics card, lots of RAM and a big hard drive, and a beautiful grey shell (most of them are shiny black these days and show every fingerprint, which is a deal-killer for me).  I swear, it was glowing.  It had a halo around it.  AND, it was on special.  I brought John back the next day to take a look, he loved every feature, and I took it home along with a nice carrying case and the 3 year protection plan (which includes a second battery).  All together it set me back $800, but that's not so bad considering how much time I spend on it. It was less than the total camera package!  I'm going back to get John an identical Satellite this week -- it will be his Christmas present from me.  We don't want anything else.

So, now I'm neck deep in setting up my new unit, transferring essential files from old computer to new, upgrading programs, etc.  And, testing its power.  Last night I streamed the first half of Dr Zhivago wirelessly off of Netflix, on battery power, in my bathroom while I soaked in a hot tub.  Picture quality was great, no pixellating whatsoever, no "loading" waits.  I carried the unit all around my yard and got perfect wireless reception clear out into the labyrinth, the shed, etc.  WHOA!  And after 2.5 hours, the battery is still more than half charged.

I've been dreading this upgrade for two years.  It was psychologically impossible for me until now, but suddenly I'm in the right frame of mind!  I've met my 2011 goals.  All else is lagniappe.  Processing/editing better videos next year, studying them in slo-mo, making composites, is paramount. I'm tunnel-visioned into the task, accepting confusion, frustration, surprise, expense and delay as part of the journey. Working my 3P's mantra:

Patience, Persistence, Prayer

So far it's working.  I've set no time limit.  However long it takes, it takes.  I'm making progress every day.  Every program I've used and loved (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Course Designer, my scanner, my printer, etc), are old, all need new drivers or reactivation codes to function on the new computer, which I have to search for on the internet.  Today I may get my ,pst email addresses and folders transferred.  I've had to seek out tutorials on where to drill down to find them in hidden files on the old computer.  Still, I'm calm.

RANT: Still, I can't imagine how Microsoft has stayed in business and kept selling new product with such difficult procedures required to set up their equipment, email accounts, wading thru screen after screen of pop-ups offering you choice after choice on things you don't know what they are or whether to click yes, no, or "learn more", with a thousand side tracks luring you to follow until you forget where you originally intended to go, then end up with nothing for the day. Kind of like real life.  Talk about a labyrinthal experience!!!

Oh, I should mention, John also printed out the 128 page manual on how to operate the camera, which I'm also wading through a page here and a page there.  And, I discovered that the video editing software I was using can't read/handle the new AVCHD hi-def files my new camera takes. Sh-t! Now I have to purchase new video editing software. I'm online researching what programs might work, and there will be a whole new learning curve for that.
While this is taking up most of my focus, I'm not writing about other milestones, like the LSU/Alabama game where all my neighbors revealed their insanity as LSU scraped out another narrow victory in the last 2 seconds; like Lucky Lucy's CGC/TDI test, which she passed.  I'll do Lucky's writeup when I process the videos to go with it.  That will be -- whenever it is.  No need to discuss the ridiculous antics of LSU football fans, players or coaches -- the whole country is talking about little else, and I've got some new thoughts about football.

Upwards and onward!

Potty/Shower Privacy Tent

I am so excited!  I just solved the problem of not having a private bathroom/shower in my pop-up camper like the big rigs have.  I don't really need it when I'm alone (I store the pottie outside and just bring it in to use it) but I'll soon be taking my grandson camping, and I sure am NOT going to sit on my little portable pottie in the camper in front of him, nor ask him to step outside in the rain or freezing cold while I "go"! 

I've been going to bed every night trying to figure out how I might attach a tarp to my awning, build a privacy screen, etc.  I went to Ace Hardware yesterday to see if they could advise how I might build a light-weight screen that would fold down into practically nothing for storage.  The guys over there are pretty helpful.  My salesman de jour said they sell a "privacy tent" at the Bass Pro Shop but they are expensive.  So-o-o-o-o-o, now I have the nomenclature!  So-o-o-o-o, as usual I did a Google search on Privacy Tent and came up with the pictured item for only $69!  I saw it for $79 on another site, so I ordered the lower priced one immediately.  With shipping it comes to $80, about half the price of elsewhere even on E-bay, and the color will match my blue and white camper just perfect.

Besides which, I'll be 64 years old in 10 days, so I'm giving myself another birthday present.  (Pretty much everything I buy in October or November tends to become my birthday present!  It makes me happy and relieves my husband and my mom of having to pick out something for me -  except a card or three.)  We're all happy with this system.

Here's the description:

"Use as a shower room, outdoor toilet, changing room, hunting blind, or privacy shelter. KWIK Silver mechanism and unique frame that sets up in 5 seconds! Just pull 2 ropes and the tent just pops right out instantly. It can also be taken down in just a few seconds! Dome cover and mesh roof panel and 3 windows for air ventilation. Privacy window flaps, inside storage pocket and carrying bag (7" x 7" x 28.5" packed). 4 stakes for anchoring or 4 weight pockets if stakes are not used. Heavy duty frame weighs 7lbs. 6' center height 4' x 4' sq. foot floor space. 1 year limited warranty."

One thing I love about camping -- I used to backpack into campsites, like to the bottom of the Grand Canyon for 5 days, canoeing on the Buffalo River in Arkansas for 4 days, the Grand Tetons, the Smokies, the Rockies -- is you have to pare your belongings down to the bare essentials. You quickly learn what is vitally important and what is optional.  You learn to travel light, to live richly without "things".  Then everything extra you add becomes a great luxury. So you can imagine, I am about as excited with my new $80 Privacy Tent as someone else might be adding a third bathroom onto their house! I can hardly wait to set everything up in Lake Charles for the upcoming agility trial and get some photos.

My portable pottie.  Line with a
kitchen trash bag inside a 1 gallon
zip lock bag, use a few times,
fold, seal, toss. No need to purchase
 those expensive chemicals
or Doobie Bags.
The legs fold up to make a
compact little box. Purchased
at Wal-Mart's camping dept.

It's also why I love my Pop-Up Camper.  It affords me the bare minimum 60+-year-old camping luxuries of a Memory-Foam mattress (which my back can no longer live without), a counter-height gas stove (no more cooking over a camp fire or starve because I can't bend over very long), Air Conditioning, cabinet space for full size pots, pans and dishes, a tea pot, a drip coffee pot, a sink with running water, a power plug for my computer, a cooler on wheels for ice, cold drinks and fresh food (can't function on granola bars and dried fruit any more), X-pen for the little doggies, a flexi-leash for Lucky, and a portable pottie.  And now, a private outdoor bathroom!

P.S.  In case you forgot, or don't read this blog so you don't know about my pop-up camper and all the creative work I've done to make ours really cool and livable, my Pop-Up Camper blogpost is here.

Upwards and onward! Here we go.