Kurt left on a business trip down to Florida this afternoon. It’s so odd not to have him here. Sure, he gets on my nerves, and I keep teasing him and asking him when he’s going to leave again. But it’s been fifteen months since we’ve been apart, and let me tell you, it’s a strange feeling.
Technically we’ve been apart more than that. I’ve gone to California and to DC and on an overnight trip to Boston in the last fifteen months, but it’s been me who’s done the leaving. I have to say, I find it somewhat amazing that it’s been Krut’s who’s been left for days with two kids to raise, not me. When Kurt went away for months at a time, I only had Grace. This is my first time having both kids all on my own.
Scary.
Of course, I’ve done just fine. This afternoon my friend M, whose husband was on his way to Iraq on Independence Day, came over to hang out for a bit. The weather was really, really lovely — an amazing change from the gloom and rain and overcast skies we’d been having for so long. Today was sunny skies, maybe a couple of puffy clouds, warm temperatures, and a cooling breeze. You couldn’t ask for anything nicer! We spent a good hour outside, drinking mint iced tea, and chatting about everything and anything. Grace played around us, and I had ME on a blanket on the grass. When I noticed ME was getting a bit pink (and I had sunblock and a hat on her!), we came inside. But Grace kept going in and out all day long.
How I love having a fenced-in backyard with a swing set.
Did I tell you how I got the swing set? My neighbor and her family were here for just six months while her husband attended a short school, and they acquired this old, metal swing set, much like what I had as a kid, from another family in the neighborhood. When she moved on, she gave it (gave it!!) to us since they couldn’t take it with them to California. We were the most logical choice as everyone else was moving at the start of the summer, while we still have two more summers here.
Grace was so thrilled to have a swing set of her own that she even played on it in her snowsuit with several inches of snow on the ground. And even now, it’s her favorite thing to play with. It’s just one swing and one of those double-swing things that can hold two kids, but to her it’s the coolest thing ever.
I love how easy-to-please kids can be.
So my computer. Gah. Can you believe that the last time Kurt went on a business trip I had major computer problems?? That’s when I bought this machine because the desktop was dying. Go figure.
It’s a lot of money to take it in and have the hard drive installed, on top of the cost of the hard drive itself. But I’d rather it be done and done right. Somehow if I am near some sort of installation of Windows, it gets royally mucked up. I learned that the hard way on my 19th birthday, when my friend Dave was attempting to make my computer into a dual-boot running both Windows and Linux, and my entire hard drive went kaplooey.
So much for my extensive collection of mp3s. And back then they were like gold! This was long before iPods; we had to listen to mp3s on our computers. They weren’t portable, that’s for sure.
The thing is, I need recovery disks to install a new hard drive. And they weren’t packed in the box with the laptop. Oh, no. They want you to burn your own recovery disks! I should have done that the day I bought the laptop, but I didn’t know they didn’t exist. Hmph. I attempted to make my recovery disks this afternoon, and after my computer locked up (again), plus at least an hour of waiting to see if it was even working properly, my computer decided that it simply cannot make any recovery disks. Bah. I have ordered new ones already — for a fee, of course.
I hate it when software doesn’t work the way it should.
The computer seems to be behaving itself at the moment (*knocks on wood*), so I’m hoping and praying that it hangs on till Friday. At least then I won’t be completely sans computer once Kurt returns from Florida. I can always pop onto his once in a while to check my email and my Facebook. We won’t be IMing each other across the room for a couple of days, that’s for sure.
Yes, I IM my husband from across the room. It’s strange, I know, but it’s the easiest way to share an article with him or to show him a photo. It works for us anyhow!
The rest of the week is shaping up to be just a tiny bit busy, the way I like it. Swim lessons twice this week, and Grace has school on Tuesday and Thursday. I just don’t know what I’m going to do for lunch each day. That’s usually Kurt’s job! Any ideas? I have a box of mac n’ cheese, so that’s one lunch. I need at least four more!
Have a Monday!
