On Missing Skills:

I’ll find out later today how my computer ‘Rupert’ is. What I do know about his condition is that it is not a virus, but probably a conflict of software programs. They will call me later today.

I am having fun revisiting some of my old games on my gamecube. I did find that I’m not used to using my thumbs as much since I moved onto games for my PC. Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit), Link (Zelda - Wind, 4 Swords, & Twilight), and Omar (Picmin) have been keeping me company and on my exercise bike and out of the refrigerator.

I have discovered I have a lack of quality self soothing skills. I eat to feel better. This not good. I can’t ignore it any longer, although I am trying to learn to work around it. If I want to loose this excess weight I’ll have to find a better way to deal with daily bumps in the road.

I have to find something else that does not cost money, is not food, or craft project oriented to sooth myself. I collected some bad habits after my son died. I slipped into using outside things to substitute for dealing with my troubles.

This led to an escapist attitude. Eat it away, ignore it by doing something else, or buy something to make me feel better at the moment. All are okay to do sometimes, but not to use as a rule.

My first reaction after I stopped using my bad habits was to want to curl in a ball and suck on my thumb. Primitive and infantile, but telling. I went right back to the beginning looking for comfort to the negative things in life.

Somewhere in my life I started to take the easy way out. And now I have to find the right way to deal with things again.

My question: How do you self sooth when you can’t eat, buy, or pretend it away?

Right now I’m alternating from dealing with any one smaller trouble at the moment and escaping into video game land. This works for my weight loss but not for things like my frustration at my computer troubles. Any suggestions? My thumbs are getting tired.

On Missing Skills:

I’ll find out later today how my computer ‘Rupert’ is. What I do know about his condition is that it is not a virus, but probably a conflict of software programs. They will call me later today.

I am having fun revisiting some of my old games on my gamecube. I did find that I’m not used to using my thumbs as much since I moved onto games for my PC. Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit), Link (Zelda - Wind, 4 Swords, & Twilight), and Omar (Picmin) have been keeping me company and on my exercise bike and out of the refrigerator.

I have discovered I have a lack of quality self soothing skills. I eat to feel better. This not good. I can’t ignore it any longer, although I am trying to learn to work around it. If I want to loose this excess weight I’ll have to find a better way to deal with daily bumps in the road.

I have to find something else that does not cost money, is not food, or craft project oriented to sooth myself. I collected some bad habits after my son died. I slipped into using outside things to substitute for dealing with my troubles.

This led to an escapist attitude. Eat it away, ignore it by doing something else, or buy something to make me feel better at the moment. All are okay to do sometimes, but not to use as a rule.

My first reaction after I stopped using my bad habits was to want to curl in a ball and suck on my thumb. Primitive and infantile, but telling. I went right back to the beginning looking for comfort to the negative things in life.

Somewhere in my life I started to take the easy way out. And now I have to find the right way to deal with things again.

My question: How do you self sooth when you can’t eat, buy, or pretend it away?

Right now I’m alternating from dealing with any one smaller trouble at the moment and escaping into video game land. This works for my weight loss but not for things like my frustration at my computer troubles. Any suggestions? My thumbs are getting tired.

On Winners and Losers:

The Epitaph Contest for this week has a winner. Jen is a baker by trade and came up with this week’s epitaph also.

To the few other epitaph entrants not chosen this week, your Epitaph will appear on the Epitaph of the week in the future and I will put your names back in the hat for the next Contest of the Week on 11 th through the 18 th. Better luck next time.

I am the grand looser this week. Not because I am sick. I’m getting better on that front. Not because I lost two pounds this past week. Who knew that coughing and blowing my nose was considered exercise. But because I am now using the computer named Clayton. He is the older, weaker, and the now owned by Mountain Man, computer.

Okay, so I name my computers. You do things like that too, you know you do.

Clayton is at least seven years old, has never been serviced and can’t run any of my newer games. He is slow but keeps on going. Clayton is an E machines with XP. He is the old faithful.

I got Rupert a little over a year ago. We have a love hate relationship. Rupert is a Gateway and he has Vista. I have had to learn to live with that. (Side note: I am still trying to unlearn all the nasty words I leaned as we got to know one another.) I have also had to learn to baby Rupert. Rupert has gotten great care, service and maintenance.

Rupert is headed for computer intensive care, later on today, to see if they can revive him.

Yesterday, while I was trying to check and see if any other epitaphs came in for the contest last minute, Rupert crashed and burned as I watched and franticly hit buttons, keys and finally pulled his plug.

Gladys, my notebook/laptop, is beside herself. She never did have any power to speak of and fancied Rupert her hero/ boyfriend. She is in a bad mood and won’t play nice even though I have never taken her anywhere near the big bad internet and its virus germs.

Until Rupert is pronounced well or dead and replaced (And that may take some time. I‘m not made of money.) I will be unable to have pictures on my blog. Clayton is just too slow.

On Who is Sicker?:

My computer may not have gotten the conficker worm, but it is now sick too. It takes forever to load, it won’t play nice and I’m too sick to get it fixed at the moment. I’m the techy in this house. (And I’m not all that tech to begin with.)

Yesterday afternoon I thought I would answer some emails and catch up on what all of you have been doing. Well, you didn’t hear from me and I’m in the dark about how any of the other bloggers are doing. Aside from managing to get a few comments cleared for viewing, all I got done was to frustrate myself. I can’t even get a picture to up load if my life depended on it.

I’ll try to get the problem worked on later today or tomorrow, but you know how weekends can be.

In the mean time know that I’m missing your company and I hope you are fairing much better then I am at the moment.

On Playing Until I Get Well:

Okay, so I loose my mind when I’m sick. I started crafting projects after I made my moratorium on starting any new ones until I got the old ones finished off.

I know why I do this. I’m not on top of my game, and I don’t want to mess up the projects that I had been working so hard on. And being a person that needs to have her hands busy all the time, I start new projects.

So, Now my basket/list of undone projects have more instead of less this week. This I did in between napping all day and using an insane amount of tissues.

After realizing what I was doing. (This came about as I ripped all the stitches, for a third time, from a miss-started new knitting project.) I gave it up as a lost cause and moved onto playing old video games on my game cube. (Okay, so I had to dust it off first. What else can you do when you can‘t even knit right.)

Yes, I still have an old game cube and wish that Nintendo still made games for it. I really liked some of the games you could only get for the game cube system. (Pickmin can still keep me entertained for hours. And I‘m still looking for a used Pickmin 2 to add to my collection of games.)

I’ll probably never get a Wii. I can’t even think of that expense right now. So I dream of used games for my purple cube.

Thank you for the ‘Get Well’ wishes. Better days will come again, I’m sure. My working mind will return someday, maybe when my nose dries up, and as I wait for it, I’ll go back to playing and napping all day.

On Being Conflicted:

I am posting late today. Not because my computer was sick with the conflicker (Whatever?) worm but because I was sick in bed.

I was conflicted because I didn’t want to move but felt I had an obligation to myself to get my daily blog out. And to get another box of tissues.

I dragged my butt out of bed at around noon. If you knew me, you would know that getting up at six in the morning is late for me. Not even the draw of food got me moving today. And at 194 pounds (Yes, I lost a pound as of yesterday, since Sunday.) You know that food is important.

I sit here with tissues up my nose and in my night gown. Wishing my bed would come closer to me so I didn’t have to actually try to walk to get back into it.

It looks like a beautiful day outside. I only looked out the window in trying to find my husband. I was hoping he would make me something to eat. When Mountain Man comes in from outside, I’ll have him get me some food and help me back to bed.

Here to hoping this illness runs its course swiftly because I can’t stand being sick like this for long. I have to get better in time for my spring allergies to start when the trees go into bloom. I’m thanking the powers that be that they haven’t bloomed yet around here. The trees are barely in bud.

I’m rambling incoherently now. I’m going to crawl back to bed now. Mountain man is having fun in the sun and may not be back for hours. I just can’t wait any longer. Back to bed for me.

No complaining tomorrow, I promise.

On Not So Funny:

Since I post so early in the morning on a regular basis and there have been so many news stories on the TV and the web about that internet worm set to go off on April the first, I have decided ‘not’ to turn my computer on until after I know what is going on with it.

So this message has been posted on a timer.

If my compute crashes or has been taken over by worms, I may not be back tomorrow. As of right now I don’t think I will have a problem.

I spent the day backing up files just in case, and I don’t want the added expense of having to have my computer over-hauled if I don’t have to.

I may be called a lot of things, but I won’t be called an April Fool.

May your computer be bug, worm and virus free.