Carol's random babble

Cayla has been staying with my dad and stepmom in Illinois, and working to save money for college. She has not been emailing or Facebooking me every day (like she's supposed to!), so it's been kind of weird not knowing what's going on with her. Some things I had to find out second-hand, like she dated a guy while she was there. But she comes home tomorrow. Also, my laptop should be back tomorrow. I sent it away to get fixed, but wasn't sure if I would get it back in time for a family history workshop on Saturday at church. UPS says it's in Des Moines right now. The problem was that it's been really sluggish lately, and when I play Flash games, they crash - a lot. I checked to see if it would be able to play The Sims 4, and the site I used to check it said it didn't have enough RAM. That confused me, as it's supposed to have 6 G of RAM, which should be plenty. But when I looked at the specs, it was only registering 1.46 G of RAM. That's no...

My normal day includes a morning nap because I was usually up too late the night before. Today, however, I spent naptime at Iowa Central Community College, so Amanda could attend the orientation for the HSED program. This included a couple of evaluation tests, which she passed, so she only has to attend classes for 12 hours, instead of 40. Which is good, because we have other things we need to do during that time period (besides my naps). We then stopped at my work so I could take care of a thing I forgot about last night, then over to pick up chicken fried rice for Amanda and home. I messed around on the computer for a bit, then took a nap for about half an hour before going to the library. Normally I volunteer at the Webster County Genealogical Society on Wednesdays. Not every Wednesday, but today the volunteer was on her own for the first time and I thought I would stop by to see how she was doing. I brought my laptop and stuff to do, although I didn't get anything don...

Cayla graduated today.    First was church. Dad didn't enjoy it much because he couldn't hear very well. We do have the receivers for the microphone system, but they are set up for the Spanish-speaking people and nobody knows how to (or if it's even possible) have different receivers on different channels like Spanish and English. So he spent part of the time in his car. He also has back problems, and  lying down helps that. At Cayla's graduation, we sat on a bench on the track (like in the background of this photo). He went to his car while the valedictorian was speaking, because he couldn't hear. I couldn't either, but I was bound and determined to video the part where Cayla crossed the stage (and I did). After commencement was over, Dad took me back to my place. Donna and Jessica arrived right after we did. Cayla went to get Kent, since she couldn't remember how to get to his place before the graduation ceremony and he missed it Suzanna sho...

It's a little after midnight. I've got potatoes cooling in the kitchen to go with enchiladas after Cayla's graduation Sunday afternoon. I've crumbled the queso fresco and cut up an onion. Part of the cheese is still in a block because it hasn't thawed yet. We discovered years ago that the cheese crumbles better if it was frozen first. And the onion might be in bigger chunks than normal because it was nearly midnight when I was cutting it and, quite frankly, at this time of night I don't feel like cooking. It's been a long day and there's a couple more ahead. Cayla graduates on Sunday and leaves Monday to spend the summer with my dad and stepmom, and she'll be working to save money for college. Also on Monday, I'll have to go into work pretty much as soon as they leave, as I have a big project that's due Tuesday and it's nowhere near done. Some things that have happened lately Cayla's last band concert What w...

The Internet is great. I love it. There's so much to do, see and learn online. I could spend every waking hour surfing the Web. I play games, read Facebook posts, do family history research and more. But ... While there is so much available on the Web, that doesn't mean it's okay to take it. One issue is truth. Just because it's online, doesn't make it true. I see this all the time with forwarded emails (less so now) and shared posts on Facebook (all. the. time.). People see a Facebook post that they agree with - or disagree with - and they have to share it, often with their opinion on the subject matter. They rarely check to see if it's true. Sometimes these are innocuous things, like faith-promoting stories. But other times it may be health advice (water can save you from a heart attack! Well, no , actually .) or stories of abducted or sick children (those two boys kidnapped from their grandparents? They were returned safely to the grandparent...

I went out last night to get something for supper and saw this. Time for a trip to the mechanic.

Apologies, people! I forgot to start this on Sunday. Okay, if you have read my blog at all, you may have seen a few entries about My Memories digital scrapbooking software. If not, you can check here , here , here , here , here and here . The good news today is that you can get it yourself FOR FREE. Just go to My Memories , create an account and click on the software link. You want to get MyMemories Suite, which is the main program. Click on Add to Cart . You should see Enter Coupon/Promo Code . Use this code: FreeTreatEE148 . Copy it from here and paste it, as it has to be exact. THIS CODE IS GOOD THROUGH OCT. 26, 2013. You can click on Proceed to Checkout or go back to the main page and click on Free Kits in the Shop listing. There's a variety of free items, including fonts, quick pages, papers and mini kits. There are hundreds to choose from, which will give you quite a selection to add to what's already in the program. The next screen after Proceed to Chec...