Thursday Thirteen #29

Thirteen Things about my current situation 1. The power cord/AC adaptor for my laptop quit on me last night just as I was getting started on my TT. 2. It was down to less than an hour of battery power before I quit trying to get it to work again by trying useless things like unplugging and replugging the various connections and jiggling the cord at the various connection points. 3. I powered off then by holding the power button down for twelve seconds not wanting to use any more battery power for the five minute logging off procedure. 4. Sitting there in front of the black screen, I really started to panic. Pieces of every project that matters to me are trapped in there. I feel like I have been climbing a mountain for six years and every time I get near the top something kicks me back down. For awhile last night I let myself wallow in that feeling. I wanted to curl up and cry out to whatever to just keep on kicking me if that makes you happy. All the fundamentalist teaching from my childhood roared back in like a tornado with the voice of that avenging God telling me to sit down and shut up, if you were doing My Will your efforts would be blessed, how many times do I have to say NO before you return to the fold and bow your puny will to ME. 5. I decided that this mood was more the result of extreme fatigue coupled with the emotional roller-coaster I've been on this week while watching the media coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre. And the Iraq war. And.... So I turned out the light and lay down to try to sleep. It took me over an hour to get back to sleep. I say back because I had taken a nap after dinner and had just woken up at ten-thirty. 6. I used that time laying in the dark to make contingency plans. And wallow in a bit of regret. Regrets included having spent so much time this past week researching sources of free ebooks online. That was going to be my TT. But the links are all trapped in my fav folders on the laptop. And if I am going to be without the laptop for very long, I won't be able to read ebooks on it will I? 7. Regrets also included having spent so much time over the last four months devoted to library materials as the day of our library closure approached. If I had know that my laptop was going to be available to me for only ten days longer than the library resources, I think I would have set different priorities. 8. Contingencies included buying a replacement power cord but I had no idea how much it would cost and thus no idea how likely it would be possible any time soon. (my husband researched it online this morning and it is going to cost about $60. We can't afford it. Yet we can't afford not to either. Definitely not before payday tomorrow and that really means Saturday. And it might take a few weeks to save for it. I tell you though that my very gaze could light my husband's cigarettes for him between now and acquiring a new power cord!!!) 9. Contingencies for a longer wait than a few days include using the last forty or fifty minutes of battery power to transfer all my relevant files, including URLs, emails, photos, graphics, text and HTML files, onto a CD-ROM so I can use them on my in-laws PC. Hundreds of files! And in some case I would need to download the applications involved onto the PC as well. Being confined to the PC again means being confined to the night-shift again. Or 9pm to 5am when I need to turn it over to my husband until he needs to leave for work. On the mornings he and his mom both work, I can get back on about 7 until noonish but shouldn't make too much of a habit of it. This was the schedule I was on between 2002 and late 2005. It was workable but very frustrating to be without access to my projects between whatever time I woke up and 9 or 10pm. 10. Contingencies also included using some of that time while denied access to the laptop to address some of those issues of serious neglect which I listed in a TT last month. You can find it by clicking on the label 'balance' if I don't manage to link to it here. I have started this morning by addressing the dire state of our laundry. Second of six loads has finished in the washer and awaits the dryer finishing with the first. That isn't counting the bedding which is another two or three loads but was recently done and can wait. Finding time to use the laundry facilities when it isn't going to interfere with my MIL use or some one's shower or my MIL sleep has been an issue. Being a night owl I still gravitate to the night shift for my computer and Internet projects so I tend to use the time my MIL is at work to sleep. Which is why I tend to get so behind with it. 11. I will also be tackling cleaning chores in our room in the next few days. I had already begun to address the clutter by tackling little projects that I could do while watching TV or in five to fifteen minutes. I was making progress in small increments. 12. I will also be picking up books again. I haven't picked up any fiction since I returned the last library book. I have been holding out as a reward for getting certain important tasks done. My priority since the library closure on April 6th had been to develop the habit of posting every day, research for resources to substitute for the library, sleep and self-care. This post will make thirteen consecutive days. I think that deserves a reward. I plan to pick up the Lemony Snicket novels my niece loaned me this afternoon. I read the first three last fall but I think I will start over. My husband read all thirteen inside of one week and I want to see if I can match or beat that. Yeah, silly little competition. 13. Other things I can do when neither the PC or laptop is available: Taking photos with my new digital camera, needlework, walks, listen to music, meditate, pray, daydream. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. L^2 2.christina 3. Susan Helene Gottfried 4. FRIGGA 5. Di 6. Laughing Muse 7. The Rock Chick 8. amy 9. Mensch71 10. Jamie 11. Tink 12.Kathy (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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