July 4th

The only fireworks today were in my head.

Since the computer I bought in January after mine died has been excellent, I figured I wouldn't be paying my friends at Computers and Beyond another visit so soon. But alas, we had a problem with Mama's computer. She only uses hers for reading emails, listening to music from Wanda's Country Home, and reading the obituaries in the Andalusia Star News on line, but she does all those faithfully several times a day (the obituaries only once though), and was a little perturbed when she couldn't get internet connection yesterday. I did all my usual things that I know - repairing, resetting, pushing and pulling cables and things but still nothing. I tried twice to make Knology take the blame but they refused to fall for it and said it looked like a router problem. So off I went to my favorite computer store with the unfortunate potholes in the parking lot - still there except in different places now.

They are always so patient with me and listen to what I say, but this time I could tell Sam didn't believe me when I told him there was a router in Mama's room connected to her computer but in no way connected to the cable modem. I told him it had worked for nearly 3 years. He even drew me very good pictures, and I understood what he was saying, but I stuck to my story. I said it must be receiving a signal (magically) from the modem in my room. He didn't even roll his eyes or laugh or anything.

It turns out I spent an enjoyable morning in the work room of their shop while Sam tried numerous things. I got to see beautiful pictures of his little nieces and showed him the pictures on the blog from my visit in January along with a lot of other things. It would have been just lots of fun if that computer hadn't been sitting over there refusing to cooperate.

One thing I did show them up on was the Ishihara Test for Color Blindness. I wish I had gotten the names of the other 2 guys - maybe cousins of Sam or maybe just friends (maybe they'll leave me a comment!) - but they would show me the test, and I would immediately see the number, and they they would show it to Sam, and he would study it and could never see a number, much to the delight of the others. Secretly, I'm not sure they were seeing the numbers themselves because they always asked me first. Being the mother of a colorblind son, I have to live with the guilt that I carry the gene that caused this, although Gray said it's never bothered him. He did, however, admit lately that he's milked it all these years for as much sympathy as he can get.

Sam installed something - I'm too lazy to get up and find the box - that allows her computer to communicate with mine now, so we're back in business. It didn't work at first even after I put my 26-character key in and kept giving me back a wrong IP address. So after more Google searching about IP addresses and one more call to Knology to try to get them to take the blame for the whole thing (they declined again), I figured it out. I had even tried to call the computer store back for more help, but they had already gone to get ready for the fireworks excitement tonight. It drives me CRAZY not to be able to fix things, and I pretty much kicked her computer and told her it would have to wait until next week, but then I came in here and thought about it some more, did a repair and renewed MY IP number, and guess what? - it worked. I had a few moments when her computer worked and my two didn't, but that fixed itself. So fingers crossed, we'll stay on line.

Not the usual 4th of July today, but it'll do. I'll try to have a more interesting week next week.

Just because I like to always a picture to break up the monotony of these posts (too late, I know), I've looked and looked to try to find something 4th of July-ish and this is as close as I could get.

These are actually 2 quilts, same pattern, same fabric. This is when I took a class in Columbus a few years ago on "blended quilts," and I was the only person in the class. Guess which is mine and which is my teacher's. I never got the concept of blending and didn't do so well, but I like mine better. I did learn a lot, having the teacher's undivided attention (and undivided eagle eyes too). Mine is the bottom one - unblended.