Quatre is finally home!

I don’t think I ever saw a computer techie so happy to get rid of a computer!

I’m currently downloading updates and scanning for viruses. My baby seemed a bit sluggish booting up, but that could be my imagination. It has been two months and the loaner didn’t have much loaded on it.

*hugs computer* I missed you!!!!

After sleeping all of yesterday and a good chunk of today, Ben is feeling much better. He immediately perked right up when we returned from Target with Rock Band for PS2, the game he really wanted for Christmas, and was pissed because all he got were Target gift cards and (up until today) Toys R Us was the only store locally to carry the game. He is taking a walk down to the Center to buy a pizza from Domino’s as I am typing this. He wanted me to phone in an order for delivery until he realized he didn’t have the money for a tip.

I’m trying hard not to fall asleep. Glenn had to get up early this morning to finish the snow clean up and made damn sure I was awake and unable to get back to sleep until after he left. Since I’ve been dealing with a mild bought of insomnia, I want to avoid altering my sleep schedule if I can. Animal Crossing for the DS was almost the death of me. 🙂

A couple of sites of interest I thought I’d share:

http://www.buffet.com/eclub allows you to sign up for a newsletter from your local Buffet Chain resturaunt (Old Country Buffet/Hoemtown Buffet/Country Buffet/Ryan’s/Fire Mountain). For signing up you get a coupon for a free meal (any size) with the purchase of an adult meal. They also send out a goody or two for your birthday.

http://www.walkathome.com/club-walkslim/ Get a free six month’s membership to Leslie Sansone’s Walk Club. Definitely a bargain. I only got 12 weeks for my free trial last year! Obviously the club is a promotional tool, but I’ve managed to avoid most of the hype to make it work for me (and if you have a laptop with a wireless connection you can take the best advantage of Leslie’s streaming workout videos).

http://flylady.net Fly Lady’s website to help the organizationally challenged get it together.

http://www.rememberthemilk.com An online To-Do list. I use it to keep track of all my Fly Lady stuff.

http://google.com/calendar Creat an account (if you alaready haven’t) and get yourself this free online calendar. You can create several mini calendars (each a different color!) to keep track of individual projects and decide who else, if anyone, can view them. You can also intergrate your Remember the Milk list into it.

Okay. Done now. Time for sleepy sleepy.

Night!

In other news: Today we are experiencing our first official snow day, Ben is sick with a cold, I remembered how much I hate the touch pads in laptops, and I lost 3 pounds (and better not find them again!).

Whole Foods’ Lemon and Garlic Olives are to die for.

The local Petco has 15oz cans of Halo’s Spot’s Stew for Cat’s on clearance. I have the recipe for it, courtesy of Halo’s director and her book “The Whole Pet Diet”, but 70 cents a can definitately beats making it from scratch.

“Man Checks” seem to be a current way of passing time for teenage males.

I am a car whisperer. Did I mention how the Taurus has gone from bad to worse? Well, in case I didn’t, it now shakes like a junkie going through withdrawal because whatever is thinning out the gas mixture is now at the point where the engine thinks it’s not getting any gas at all. Anyway, I seem to have this knack of “talking” to the car and getting it to run smoother. Hey, it seems to be working so don’t knock it!

The cats prefer the canned Spot’s Stew over my homemade.

My uncle once told me that Dell computers are either really good, or utter crap. Can you guess which one I got stuck with?

Replaced motherboard? Check.

Replaced power supply? Check.

Booted computer? Check.

Replay of front USB hub frying computer? Check.

Apparently the Dell E510/5150 is being referred to as a $1000 paper weight. Thankfully I only paid $749 for mine… up front that is.

On a positive note, they managed to locate a replacement for the part Dell doesn’t offer a replacement for (the front USB hub). Something the Computer Cafe wouldn’t do. Estimated time of pickup is now Monday.