Friday, June 28, 2013

Back to sofa mode

Today, I'm hoisting my air mattress onto my overhead bed area & going back to sofa mode! Yay.

After several days of laying in bed, propping myself up onto the wall against pillows & such, I want to get out of bed now. Plus the sheets tended to slide while trying to sit on the bed to use in sitting mode. And you kind of have to crawl into it. My phone & remote control would also fall off the bed. Which resulted in the phone's case to break. The cover for it that is, so that's replaceable. But I'd rather it didn't break at all!

I won't be able to climb up into the overhead bed for a few weeks yet, plus the portable a/c really doesn't seem to reach cool enough air up there. So I'll just hoist the air mattress up & down each morning & evening. My last surgery, I deflated it & inflated it till I realized how silly that was when I could just plop it up there & pull it down each evening. And setting the sofa back into sofa mode will do wonders on how I feel each day too. The jack knife sofa is not comfortable to use as a regular bed. I sleep better on the air mattress on top of it. If I ever get a real bed again, I think a sleep number bed would be perfect for me.

My leg has two different wraps on it. One is to cover the suture area. The other is to cover where the pain pump is connected. The pain pump is inserted into my leg via a catheter. I'm not sure even where it's inserted. But today, that wrap nearly fell off, so I had to rewrap it. And I have bandaids all holding the tubing down as the tape they used is falling off. I'm falling to pieces -- literally!

If you see my leg laying around in pieces, please put it in a baggie & return it to me. ;-)

I had a pretty bad spell for awhile yesterday, but finally ate a bowl of cereal for dinner & felt MUCH better. Of course, I also took my pain meds, so that may have contributed too. I think I might've forgotten to take my antibiotic at noon? I can't remember. So I might've felt a little ill from not taking it too?

Slidy bed mode...great for night. Not so much for day.

Comfy sofa mode. Much better for day use.




Air Bed in over head bed storage mode.

Hide a bed mode. Plus the RV stays cooler if these curtains are closed during the day.



~As always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them on your travels & respect your neighbor~

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Netbook problem resolved

Well after all my moaning about the netbook, it's working beautifully inside of my friends house! Go figure. It was actually a connection issue. She called AT&T, they are still having wifi problems with the router.  At least I feel better about the computer now! A day & an evening of needless stress....


Still have that program to get rid of, but compared to all I was thinking, this is much better!
Thought I'd better send this update after my "mournful" post of earlier!

When I first brought the netbook in, I got limited internet. Then finally, the router started working again. I think they are planning on upgrading.

I am also going to check into what it would take to make my air card stronger out in the RV. I won't be here forever & want to be able to connect if I get into poor access areas. Which I will because I have Sprint. And I'm grand fathered in with the air card, which is getting kind of old. So probably needs a booster of some sort. A booster would not be a bad idea as it can also strengthen the cell phone. Last year, when I got stranded at a State Park in Arkansas, I had to use the help of strangers to aid my poor broken RV. (the transmission went out as I was driving around the park, looking for a site)

Thank you everyone for your advice! It never goes uncounted & we all learn from each other.

Oh and as far as the hard drive on my Compaq goes. I remembered I have my old HP laptop still that was rebuilt a few years back. It's old & antiquated, can't deal with today's standards. But maybe I can move the hard drive into it or use it for parts for the Compaq? I could still use either for video/photo editing, then transfer to my external hard drive. I'll ask my friends tomorrow. I'll owe them a great dinner if it works, which will be well worth it!

Computer Waaaaahhhsss advice please if interested

Waaaah, I'm having computer issues!!

WARNING LONG POST ON MY COMPUTER ISSUES & DOWNLOADS!
If you are tecchie & have advice for me, please comment.

If you find this boring, then just ignore. :0)

Today's post is about crashing, bad drivers, bad wifi, bad air card, bad download, my new netbook which has turned bad.

Ordered my new Acer Aspire One Netbook computer on June 9th.
http://texcynlife.blogspot.com/2013/06/new-netbook-on-order.html

Received my new netbook on June 13th. Yay, got it home set it up.

Had connectivity issues.

The wifi connection in the house keeps going down.

Don't have my aircard set up with the netbook yet. Need to go get a few items first.

June 15th, leave a post about having network issues.
http://texcynlife.blogspot.com/2013/06/having-network-issues.html

June 16th, I blog about the cool things I get for the netbook:
http://texcynlife.blogspot.com/2013/06/best-buys-best-deal-my-netbook-just-got.html

Wifi in the house is still spotty.

I am able to install my Sprint air card with going to their website & downloading the driver for it.

I got numerous messages before it took that it wasn't compatable with windows8 but finally, I guess I hit the right portal in the universe for it to take.

OK, cool, now I can get online & actually finish something!

Not.

Apparently, the Acer has possible driver connectivity issues.

Grrrrr. So now, lets combine that with a bad wifi connection from my friends router or when using the sprint aircard, it all still shows I'm connected when I'm using either one (not both at the same time, that's not possible), but the web tells me I'm not connected when the connections drop temporarily. So it's gotten frustrating trying to do anything.

I go to Acer's website. It tells me there's no service for my netbook! ARGH!!! (ha, just got dumped right now on my friends wifi)



OK, more.

Last night, I decided to download Open Office. I go directly to their site rather than through Cnet, which I usually use Cnet. I start the download. I watch it as I don't want added things like Chrome or Bing or Yahoo or, you make your choice.

******Oh just freakin' great. I just crashed! Just lost a whole bunch of what I was typing! ARGH!!!


 
The crashing thing has happened a few times since I've gotten this netbook too :-( 
 
OK, back to my issues, waaahhhh, I want to cry now.
 
I think I'm downloading Open Office from their webpage. I click on download, the computer glitches a little, but I'm still on the green download button. It starts downloading. It asks if I want it added to my task bar, I say no. Well, click no.
Download takes awhile due to slow internet, but it finally finishes.
 
Then all of a sudden, it asks me if I want to update my drivers? What? Open Office is an office program, not a driver update program. What just downloaded??
 
Oh goodie, I just downloaded LiveUpdate! What the heck!!! So when the computer glitched, it jumped to a different download instead. :-(   And that also brought with it, two other weird downloads, which I was able to uninstall. I was so peeved. I tried to uninstall LiveUpdate, but it won't uninstall because in my infinite wisdom, I told it NOT to add to my task bar! Apparently, you have to install it there too in order to uninstall it. Grrrrrr.
 
So I go to Microsoft's webpage, they actually support the LiveUpdate program. I don't care. I'm not happy, I don't want it. I try to uninstall from there. Nope, ain't gonna happen. Their link doesn't work!!!
 
I can uninstall from LiveUpdates webpage, but haven't even tried yet. I'm too angry right now that it all happened to begin with.
 
Now, as it turns out, I probably AM dealing with driver issues!
 
So now Acer says there's no service available for my computer. Grrrr
 
I gave up trying because I'm losing my patience. And my wifi. And I lose service with the aircard too. Not on the aircard, but in the computer because IE tells me I'm no longer connected, although the aircard shows I am.
 
I'm blogging about this so I have a reference page on all this crappage!
 
I am not happy.
 
My Compaq computer is now dead, so my hard drive needs to be pulled out of it so I can save stuff from it. This has not been a good month so far. In the past, my HP laptop & my Compaq laptops have all updated & downloaded the proper drivers. Is this something new? Or an Acer thing? Or what?
 
OH And get this! McAfee was supposed to be free for ONE year from the time of purchase with the netbook! I register it when I first get online & it's all installed & working. I then get a thank you email that I have something like a 60 or 90 day free trial. Then I get another email stating that my 30day free trial is about up. Today, I get a reminder email to renew.
 
I set it up on June 13, 2013. Today is June 27, 2013. Perhaps I should send them a calendar? That's only 15 days. I'm guessing a calendar without pictures would be best as the pics would be too much of a distraction for them....
 
I'm not keeping McAfee anyhow. I'm switching over to Avast. It's what I've used in the past few years & have been happy with it. Besides, Avast talks to me. ;)
 
 
Soooo, now I'm wondering if I need a driver update program to update my drivers & if that will fix my issues???  I don't know. I know I've invested a small fortune already into this little netbook & don't want to return it unless I really have to. I can't get my money back on the 8 gigs of memory I've added as it is.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

It's a good day

Day 2 after surgery.

It's been a good day!

I've put the boot on & was able to walk a little bit.

Mostly just to go outside & dump my a/c water from the portable a/c, but hey, I was able to do that!
So no flooding in my RV!

Walked around the RV a little bit, which kind of doesn't count for much since it's a small RV, but I could do that.

I got hungry, so decided to do a little bit of cooking. Made scrambled eggs & turkey bacon.

I bought a cast iron pan awhile back. It's a small sized one that I thought would be great, but I'm not so happy with it. It smells funny?! Do new cast iron pans smell funny? I've used it for a few meals, but the food off of it tastes funny too & I usually end up throwing it away. Again, is this because it's a new pan & needs breaking in? Is there a way of treating it to stop it from smelling funny & making the food taste like cast iron? I've done the seasoning thing to it, but that didn't make a difference.

Anyhow, I also managed to do my dishes. It took me 45 mins to do that, sitting on a stool at that. I have this great fold up stool that I can sit on & sometimes use it as a small table too. I didn't have many dishes to do, it just took me longer because of my current condition. Soon, that will get better though!

I'm amazed how well I am doing actually.

Yesterday, I had some pain, but it was tolerable. Had some swelling, which started to concern me as I was losing feeling in my toes. And my leg was swollen too. My friends husband is a nurse, so he came out & checked on me when I texted them to tell them I was concerned about it. He tested my toes & said if it gets worse, no matter what time it is, to call him. He showed me what to look for. This morning, the swelling was definitely down though & I could move my toes much better. They still feel a little spongey, but nothing like they did last night, so that's good.

I didn't sleep much last night either. Ended up taking vicodin at 5am just so I could sleep. Then woke at 7 something this morning & felt ok. A couple of hours later crashed again. Now I feel really good.

I'm also attached to the pain pump too so I think it's doing a good job of keeping the pain away. My last surgery was more difficult & I had more pain & such back then. I've only had to take a vicodin & a naproxen once, so that's all good. Took the naproxen to try to get the swelling down. Today, I can move my toes & actually feel sensation in the bottom of my foot, so that's all good.

Before I know it, I'll be back on my feet again!!

I'll be back in the dog show ring, finishing Birdie's championship!

And I'll be able to take the RV out again too.

I want to go to Pa as soon as I can to see family & escape the heat here. But I have a feeling I'm stuck here for a few more months though, so we'll see. I'll have several weeks of physical therapy ahead of me once the stitches come out.

I have an appointment on Monday for a bandage change & they'll remove the pain pump then too.

I'm good! I really, really am!! :-)

I can't wait till I can start taking care of my dogs & kitties again too. I miss them. I hope in the next day or two, that will be possible.

Ack, getting a cramp in my right calve again! That's not fun. Had one yesterday that turned my vocabulary VERY colorful!!

Again though, recuperating in an RV is the best!!

My computer is done for. I need to sit down & log all that needs to be saved from the hard drive as I had many, many folders & divisions in it where I stored stuff. I really should have saved it when I noticed the computer was going down sooner. The day I tried, the computer said nope, I'm done in. Oh well. At least the hard drive can be saved to move stuff from.

Don't know when I'll be able to get another computer, but for now, I have this little netbook to carry me through. So that's good.

I'm going to try to catch up with ya'll now.

Man, this keyboard is sensitive. I keep hitting wrong buttons!

~As always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them on your travels & respect your neighbor~

Monday, June 24, 2013

Surgery Day

I'm at the surgery center now. In 40 mins, My much awaited surgery will begin.

Finally!

For those that don't know, I'm having tarsal tunnel surgery and the removal of a cyst, which is related to the tarsal tunnel syndrome. TTS is like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, except it involves the foot rather than the ankle. In my case, wankle  ;--).

Afterwards, I'll be in the best recovery room in the world.

My Motorhome!

They are perfect places to recover!

Have a great day everyone -- catch ya'll later.



Update:
Got home at noon.

Settled in.

Some tolerable pain for awhile, but better now.

They have attached a hand grenade to my wankle. I must not sneeze....



Actually, It's a pain pump.

Toes are very numb and tingling. So long as they have feeling, I'm doing OK.

I'm in bed, ice pack on. Small ice chest beside me with ice in it.

Opened my big window by sofa, dumped water out there from ice pack they gave me.

Oopsey. Closure thingy falls off.

Hobbled to bathroom - the walker helps as I hop.
hhad to get another ice pack from under bathroom sink.

Again, RV's are great recovery rooms!

I did get colorful once when I shifted and a major muscle cramp took my leg hostage!

My language that is....

I'm gonna be OK :-)

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Got blood?

I'm nauseated. I have this weird system, step on my foot, I'll get sick. Cans fall on foot, I get sick. Labs taking my blood, I definitely get sick!

Surgery slated for Monday. Finally. Lets hope the lab tests get to them in time! They should, but with my luck...

So here's the deal. I go in & sit & wait my turn. No big deal, expected that & was actually lucky to be only the 8th person in line.


They call me in about 45 mins later. We discuss how it's to be paid for, where it's to go, etc.

Nurse: Take a seat there.

Me: Oh, the torture chair!
I sit. I slide. I sit, I slide, I sit, I slide....guess you can tell this chair is made of hard plastic & dips downwards. I think they manufactured it on purpose to do that.

Nurse: Which arm?

Me: Doesn't matter. Neither one will work for you.

Nurse: Why?

Me: Because no one can find my veins & IF they do, you won't get anything anyhow. Can I just please work behind the desk till I get a paper cut, then you can get my blood?

Nurse: No.

Nurse then straps a rubber thing around my arm, tightly. "Now make a fist"....methinks ohhhhh, sure baby, I can do that.....oh, wait, you don't mean that I can punch you do you?
No comment from nurse because she can't read my mind. Thank goodness. I'd might be in jail.

OK, now a needle is being stabbed into my arm -- OUCH!!! Did I say ouch? Yes, OUCH!! hmmmm....just very little blood, very little. Making little tiny dots up the clear tube. Not enough for an ant.

Me: I told you so! You're going to do my hand now aren't you :-(  

Nurse: Yes.

Me: Oh that will hurt!!! And it does. And it brings tears to my eyes.

Nurse: You aren't a good candidate for giving blood.

Me in my mind again: No sjit Sherlock, what gives you that clue??

Nurse: Ok, we're done now, you can go.

Me: Thank you for a great time! Now I can scare everyone sitting out in the lobby! Yay! Because I have two big bandages on me & tears in my eyes! I should have sat back down to gather all the looks I could gather >:-)    But I didn't.....

Instead, I went to Big Lots to get bandaids. I walked out of Big Lots, with a box of bandaids, a new fan cooler for my computer because the two others are dying that I've had for a million years & a ----- FINALLY, a cell phone holder for my vehicles!! YAY! I've been needing one for awhile now, but my phone is big & all the holders I'd come across were too small. And around $30 bucks, which to me is insane. So I found one for $8 dollar bucks. Yay to me!

Then I went to Scholtzskys for a bandaid sandwich.

Got back, ate the sandwich, but still feel nauseated. So I put laundry in the washing machine. My arm hurts & is bruising. Now I know how those tomatoes feel in that TV commercial....ouch.

Oh & did I mention that I got a paper cut at Big Lots??? hmmmm....

Boy, I can't wait to see how I feel on Monday!!!!
My arm looks weird at this angle. I'm pretty sure that's all that is wrong with it in this photo though.

Yummy, a Schlotzsky Band-Aid!

Objects are closer than they appear. My luck. Got stuck behind a garbage truck. Which seemed to have some kind of magnetic attraction because as he was speeding up, I was too - so I could simply stay behind him & enjoy the smells???

Gee, another object. Again, closer than it appears. I speed up to pass this one! Wanted to beat it to the red light!

Not my sofa. Not my dog that did that. Thank goodness....not on my watch either ;-}
(Bad Sara)

~As always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them on your travels & respect your neighbor~

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Best Buy's Best Deal!! My Netbook just got cooler.

First of all, welcome to yobobe! She has two blogger sites. This one: Planting Along The Verge is about her new life she's about to embark on. And her 2nd blog: yobobe  where she shares her arts & such. Really cool items at that. I'm anxious to follow along. Have lots of fun!
Welcome, glad that you've joined up!

So, I'm loving my new netbook. Picked it up on Thursday afternoon. Set it up Thursday night. Friday, my Bluetooth dongle came in, so I added it to the netbook. It will come in handy for my laptop too since it's not Bluetooth enabled either. I wanted to be able to use Bluetooth wireless speakers & also, add pics from my phone to both computers via Bluetooth as well.

I got a cute little pair of Bluetooth wireless speakers, but am going to return them. They are cool on my phone, but for the Acer Netbook One AO756, they are not powerful enough. The downside to the netbook are it's speakers. They rather suck. They aren't powerful at all, you can barely hear them on some sites. Not good. So I wanted a better alternative. I could not find my headphones (not wireless), so I bought a pair at the Dollar General Store for $10. Not a bad deal, plus if I ever choose to set up Skype & use the Acer's camera, the headphones act as a speaker too. Below is a photo of the Diamond speakers. They daisy chain together, which is a nice feature, because it allows you to connect two speakers for better sound, but I didn't find them all that pleasing. They are probably just too small to do what I want them to though.



OK, so now the new Bluetooth speakers must be returned. I paid way too much for them as it was. Then I was in Big Lots the other day & saw that they had two different types of Bluetooth speakers. So I bought the bigger of the two for $30.00.  They are much better, louder for sure. Not the quality I like as for smooth sound, but for the price, they are decent. The best price I could find online for the speaker box was around $60, so I feel I got a good deal from Big Lots. Funny, most of the reviews said they bought theirs from Big Lots too.

It's the Hype Audio Blox. Big Lots had it in red -- yay! So it can go with my red netbook! It also has speaker phone capability, so again, it could be used in lieu of the netbooks speakers for Skype too.


So now for the REALLY COOL NEWS! Best Buy has fallen into my good graces today!

I also wanted to upgrade the memory on the Acer Netbook as it's capable of holding 8 RAMS of memory. I also wanted to add my Sprint aircard to the netbook, but had to have a DVD drive to do that. Netbooks don't come with DVD drives. So here is what came into play today.

I go to Best Buy just to price memory & the DVD usb drive.

They show me the drive. It's $39.99. I thank the sales person & told him I'll order it online as I saw it for around $19.00 online. He asked if it was the same brand. I told him I didn't know. He said they match online prices! I thought cool, & told him I'd check it out. Started to walk to an area in the store so I could google it, then remembered I have the amazon scanner app on my phone. Why not use it? So I went back to the DVD player & scanned it. It came up with $9.25! Whoop! Really? Really, really??  So I went to the counter with the DVD player & my phone showing the price. They honored it!! COOL BEANS!!! So then I paid, then went to look at memory. $69.99, scan it, $49.99 -- SOLD!

Bought it too! YAY!!! I took my netbook with me to be sure I'd get the right type of memory & all. The sales people all loved my little netbook. They don't sell them there. They were impressed that it came with Windows8, that it has a 320gig hard drive & is upgradable to 8 gigs of RAM. And the entire back comes off to make it all so much easier to work with. They passed it along to each other & were quite impressed. They were wishing their store sold these things. I told them if they had, I would have bought one from the last weekend!

I saw the sales guy on the way out & thanked him again for letting me know about their comparison shopping. He was happy to share that & thanked me for keeping my business with Best Buy.

I'm happy.

Now my cute little netbook is all geared up. New external usb DVD drive, more RAM, a new external wireless Bluetooth speaker, a new wired headset, a Bluetooth dongle & my old wireless mouse works on it. Oh & a cute new carry case that I also found at Big Lots. Now to get my laptop fixed. I hope it can be fixed. The netbook is only for fun, surfing & youtube. But not for the big heavy duty stuff of photo & video editing.

I'm now learning my way around windows8. Need to figure out how to install my aircard as the DVD isn't compatible. Which is really why I bought the external DVD player. But I did watch a movie on it!

Below is my cute little netbook set up! Again, I'm happy :-)  And this is perfect for RVing Too!!!

Netbook with the slim external usb DVD player!
Oh yea, check out that price. Got it for $9.25! How cool is that??
Woohoo, got this for $45.00. This is better than Mexico!!


My Big Lot buys. Case, $12.00, Audio Box, $30.00 ($60.00 online at other outlets)
 
~As always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them on your travels & respect your neighbor~

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Having network issues

I'll be back once I get things resolved. Wrote a long post, lost my internet connection.

Post gone.

Grrrrrr

I hate technology tonight.

I hope all is well with everyone.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

New Netbook on order!

I ordered a netbook last night to make due while my computer is ill. 

I had hoped to be able to change the fan out myself, but on my computer, you have to pretty much disassemble it to get to the fan. When I watched the tutorial on youtube, I chickened out as you had to take out the keyboard, then take off the monitor, etc. I'm not savvy enough, nor brave enough to actually kill my computer! So I'll take it to my tecchie friends when I can. But they live 80 miles from me & have busy weekends, so we'll see when that can be accomplished. 

In the meantime, I went to the store to check into getting a tablet. The more I looked, the more I realized I needed something that could do more for me. Then I looked at Chromebooks. I almost made an impulse buy! Then I decided to wait. On the way home, I actually turned around again to go buy it! Then I talked myself out of it. My common sense part of my mind said, go home & google. Do your homework. See what would work best for you. Check out the mini computers, aka, netbooks. So I bought gas instead & went home. 

My entire day yesterday involved googling, researching, learning everything I possibly could about netbooks. I've been wanting something small to take in my friends house in the evenings & such anyhow. I really wanted a tablet for that, until I learned about them & realized again, that they would not be what I'm looking for. After watching many youtube vids on comparisions & such on the netbooks, I chose the Acer Aspire One AO756 Netbook.  

I think it will be a great addition to my tecchie needs! And much more portable than my current 17" screened laptop that I'm always afraid I'll drop trying to carry it around, or my friends dogs will knock it over & kill it. I also ordered the coverage plan on the Acer in case my friends dogs do knock it down. I hope they don't though! I'm pretty careful, but things still happen. I've heard too often about screens cracking. The plan was well worth the cost of it.

I ordered it in red. Ahhh, another big decision! As you know, our lives depend on what color we choose if given the opportunity!!! The blue was really pretty too! 

Compared to the Chromebook, it was a much better choice. The Chromebook comes with 2gigs of memory, but only a 16GB hard drive. You can't do much on it. Although it has ports for exterior items, none of them would do well with that kind of HD space. 

The Acer Netbook I ordered comes with an 11.6"screen, 2 gigs of memory, very easy to upgrade. A 320GB hard drive, so I can also use my external hard drive to it to transfer things over to. I don't plan on using it heavy duty like a real computer. I have a real computer, it just needs to go to the hospital.  I will probably put more memory in it to make it faster. I mostly wanted it so I could keep up with blogger! And my email & RV folks I follow on youtube. I'm stoked! But have to wait about a week for it to come in......will I survive?? ;-) 

                   **all images borrowed from google images**





And a big perk. The entire bottom panel of this little computer comes off! So memory is easy to change, the fan is easy to clean and if one wanted to add a bigger hard drive, it can be done easier too! I think this little computer is a good move in the right direction & will give my big laptop (computer that is, not my real lap) a much needed break! 

So soon, I'll be able to catch up again. I've missed ya'll!!!!

~As always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them on your travels & respect your neighbor~

Friday, June 7, 2013

Computer Troubles

I'm behind on blog reading.

Very.

Very, very behind.

I'm missing everyone's posts. My fan on my computer quit working, so now I'm computer-less until I get it fixed.

I try reading on the phone, but trying to comment is a hassle and getting WiFi is a hassle here on the phone.

I might go find a cheap tablet to use in the meantime, Best Buy had some the last time I was there.

Just so ya'll know, I've not abandoned ship!

Hope all is well with everyone.

Last nights skies. It did not get bad here though.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Good Morning

Good morning everyone.

              Have a Stellar Day!!