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Gorgeous Spring Peonies

Gorgeous Pink Peonies: One

My peonies bloom in early May every year. Here’s just one of the photos I took this year.

–> Photo taken May 14, 2010 < –

This photo on Flickr.


Finally got Design Studio activated

My husband called Provo Craft at their activation number in Design Studio listed on the “activate by phone” page. For some reason, she helped him get it activated when previous calls didn’t, nor did any help she or others offered to get it to “activate by internet” work … always outcome of “Error Code 3:” which means it’s already activated by another computer in their server. No matter that they “said” they cleared it and it’ll work, it never did. Others said nothing they could do unless we called. When called a couple of time it was run-around like, and they couldn’t do anything.

It wasn’t that we tried every day. I tried via email and via website support form fill-out with follow-up emails several months. Multiple times I initiated a new round of “please help me” and after awhile I did have 3 different people respond via email that they had cleared it and I should be able to “activate via internet” though never could I.

So getting it done yesterday was only because I got on the bandwagon again to get it done. I suppose it could have been done via the phone eons ago, but it just is something that went against us, it just didn’t work out the times we tried. So it’s done now. I guess my laptop will die or need to be OS reinstalled or something, rendering me with the problem again. FWIW

I have yet to hook my laptop up to my Cricut Expression, but just knowing it SHOULD work is enough for now. I opened a few files in Design Studio, and also tagged most of my cartridges that I own as “My Cartridges”, that’s it.

I have bad Fall Allergies the last few years, and this year is the worst of them all. I expect next year to be worse. And the year after that. So anyhow, I just don’t feel like doing much. Taking Benadryl & Sudafed (classic, not PE) & Advil round the clock.

BSOD after Sleep, Windows 7 x64

My Toshiba Satellite A505 laptop has worked fine until yesterday. I had an occasion where the laptop went to sleep, and upon waking it up and entering my password my desktop showed briefly, then a BSOD occurred.

I didn’t look for the dump file. It had never happened before, hoped it was a fluke. It was, until just a little bit ago, when it happened again.

I looked online for anything written on it and it’s a plague with no specific answer for many computers. Simply though, the answer of take “sleep” off of the power options that are saved. Meaning, don’t let your computer sleep. Just let it run out of power if running on battery, or keep it plugged in. This is problematic for me as I’ve loved using my computer with it’s huge battery without being tied to a power cable all of the time. It’s worked fine this whole time I’ve had the laptop since March 2010. Except for twice since yesterday. The thing about it is some Microsoft updates installed on the 16th. So I used System Restore to put me back to the 15th.

I did change my power options though. I just am unhappy about this issue, don’t want ANY crashes. I have Fedora installed on this computer (dual-boot) but don’t use it as ACPI issues keep it from letting me know how much power, or how little I have, or about impending power off’s. This Windows 7 issue then, on a laptop which I like using the battery with, is secondary to the Fedora problem, but similar. At least, in theory, it will still tell me to plugin soon or else. But I have loved shutting my lid and knowing that the next day I’ll have enough power for an hour or two or three. No more, if I don’t want those dratted BSOD’s.

I’ll test it out without letting Windows Update re-update my computer. But that will be a test I’ll not be able to stay with. How to find a solution, I don’t know. The last thing I want to do is search forever for a BSOD problem when all I want to do is use my stupid computer!

Windows 7 is way better than Vista was for me (on a different computer.) I’ve had problems nil on Win 7 until now. About 6 months of computer bliss. Now what? Slave to what Win XP would do to me … miserable. Vista was moreso a sluggish pest of aughhhhhh! Than BSOD for me. Whatever. I don’t like errors, especially when it wasn’t anything I did. I didn’t install anything. Just regular old Windows Updates. Whoa, maybe I did. FLASH asked to update at some point recently. So I’ll see what happens.

CKC-Charlotte Review

CKC-Charlotte is over. It was good, but something I’m not sure about repeating exactly.

  • All About Me mini-album by The Paper Loft

I found the first class OK, wasn’t crowded. Daughter and I each had empty spots on the side, with us sitting next to each other. It was warm in the room, but not overly warm since it wasn’t a room full of people.

  • Simple Summer Album by Creating Keepsakes

The next class was warmer, much fuller than the first class, double class-room too. Besides being warm I was feeling OK, which made it tolerable.

That was it for the day, except for doing some looking in the Vendor Faire (no buying until Saturday.)

  • Deliciously Different Recipe Book mini-album by The Button Farm

On Saturday we got there just in time for our class, and had a hard time getting two seats together, like we needed. There were about 3 seats available, and three people, but no seats together. I had to make a class helper help me get people to move so we could sit down. I was about to just say forget it, get our kits and leave.

We got seated somehow anyways, to my detriment. I’d have loved to just “do the kit” myself. It was extremely hot in that filled-up to the brim class. The seats we had were towards the back a couple of rows forward. The women in the back were chatting constantly, the teacher of the class had no microphone. We couldn’t hear her very well. We could hear them too well.

Not too far into the class the teacher talked about Zip Dry glue, and anyone who had some got it out. That included me. I glued down the first page to the acrylic page and prompty put the glue away. It made me very, very sick. It’s very stinky, horrible. It was so hot in there already and it seemed there were more than a few using it behind me. Me quitting using it made little difference.

Anyhow, I was fighting a migraine coming in that morning, and with everything from stress to heat to stinky glue, noise, stress … I got very ill and fought just standing up and leaving. Instead I muddled through the project and messed a few things up but not too many (paper cut too small or something like that, glue on edges of paper instead of center) and just plain didn’t do certain parts of the project for each page.

First off there was less room than there should have been. The people on either side of my daughter were disgruntled to some degree and didn’t move their stuff into their own space, so I was fighting a migraine, suddenly very sick feeling migraine, and fighting for space to just plain open my ruler on my cricut personal cutter so I could cut the right size. I couldn’t keep direction on top of the pile, I had to root around for everything, plus help my daughter know what to do, cut things, etc.

All in all it was a nightmare, and it was the class I was so looking forward to.

I liked the project still, still do, and would love to do more Button Farm projects. I didn’t really need to be there to do anything. I didn’t learn anything, it was simply “follow directions” and I’d have done better sitting at home with the kit for sure.

If I hadn’t been sick then I’d have enjoyed the class more. If we’d gotten there earlier (we tried!) then we’d have been set up closer to the front maybe. But all in all Zip Dry Glue is not my friend. Who’s friend is it? You need great ventilation in the room when using it. How about 20 people using it at the same time, probably more people than that???

It was enough to have made me sick probably. With or Without Migraine help. I’m sensitive to chemicals. I just didn’t think ahead at how bad it would be with multiple bottles of that stuff in use in a stuffy room.

Vendor Faire

We went to the Vendor Faire after that Saturday class. I felt miserable and never felt better until much later, after we were gone from there. I bought some things, nothing small. I wanted some things I could do stuff with, ended up with a 7Gypsies 4×6 printer tray in black. Vinyl 12×24 sheets in several colors, a pack of 12×24 different colors of cardstock. A Cricut Cartridge, Robotz. A Pioneer 12×12 album (Warren Kimble flag graphic design). 2 Clear Stamp sets from Tattered Angels.

The cardstock and vinyl were from cardstockonline.net … and I wanted to get a bunch more paper in 12×12 size, but with my headache I couldn’t figure out what to do, what it all meant, whereas it was simple to get the pack of 12×24 paper, special size, special price. The vinyl was priced per piece, easy peasy.

So I came home with good things, but nothing good to work with outright. I mean, no small (ha ha! 12×12) paper to cut up or use for anything. I wanted some good white paper. A lot of it. Other colors. Patterned paper. Just so much you can do with a Migraine sometimes.

I guess I need to find another Vendor Faire somewhere else to make-up for my pathetic buying at CKC-Charlotte.

Also I guess I’d like to get some kits from The Button Farm … but her website is terrible. I wasn’t into shelling out $52 for a bigger Recipe Album kit, or other things … I mean I had only so much and I wanted to get product to use, not just one project, though maybe I should have … she had a cute “cat” mini book, also a gorgeous “Christmas” book. Printer Trays with paper and embellishment kits. But I got a plain tray and that’s that. No special paper, just the special sized paper to use with my Cricut from cardstockonline.net. (Their site is merged with Couture Cardstock & I find it just as not what I want to shop as my trouble was at the Vendor Faire with a migraine…)

Charlotte

We are in Charlotte for CKC now. Left mid-morning and arrived early afternoon. We are staying a few miles from the convention in order to have the services of the hotel of choice that we like.

I have everything we need for the classes we are going to. We found the extra brown inks we needed at Archiver’s, in the Inkadinkado line (newer inks recently on the market, apparently.)

We have two classes tomorrow, and one on Saturday. Looking forward to it all, though a bit anxious about it since I’ve never been to an event like this, never has my daughter who is attending with me. I’ve been to other things, but not to anything large scale like this in years. Never to a “craft” oriented event, in other words. Major part of that all is my Introvert status. I’m iffy when getting into unfamiliar territory, even if I WANT to be there. FWIW

Things I need for CKC: Update 2

List is things I need thus far:

  • Dark Brown Ink
  • Light Brown Ink
  • Brown Chalk Ink
  • Roll of Foam Tape (Scotch)
  • New Glue Dots
  • Mini Glue Dots
  • Either Zip Dry Paper Glue or 3-in-1 Glue
  • A more portable 12×12″ paper trimmer
  • A new white writing pen
  • Inkssentials Blending Tool
  • Glossy Accents
  • Crop-a-Dial

I have found most of the things I need to bring in August to CKC. Ink is troublesome so far. I did buy some ink, but don’t know if it’s right or good enough for the event. I mean, most things are just “pigment” inks at Michael’s, and the one’s that are the Dye I’m looking for aren’t in Brown of any kind.

The thing about it is for sure, it has to be quick drying to use in a class that’s an hour long. Right? Right. Pigment won’t be right then.

I did buy a big (EK Success) Inkadinkado Black Ink dye ink pad … I just tested it, OK crisp really black lovely fast fast fast drying.

I also bought a giant (Ranger) Archival Ink Sepia ink pad … it’s brown, of some kind, so I need to find a darker one, anyhow, it dries very fast on regular types of paper. OK but it’s not dark nor is it light, it’s really in-between, and I guess it could stand in as light brown if it must, but not dark … no way.

Installing RTL8192se in Linux

I’ve done this more times than I wish I would have had to … based on many reasons, but the basic thing is, I have it down, at least how to do it with a good fresh install of an updated linux system.

I use Fedora, have done this in Fedora 12 and Fedora 13.

Download a recent Linux driver from Realteks website.

as your regular login self un-tar the file such as (the most recent linux driver at this time of writing):
tar -xzvy rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0017.0507.2010.tar.gz in Terminal.

Then, get ready: make sure you have given yourself Sudoer status.

I like this way in Terminal.:

su

password: <—–enter password

echo  user "All(ALL)  NOPASSWD:ALL" >> /etc/sudoer

exit

Make sure you have Sudoer status. Check out that link above for info about that.

Now you are ready to get going on the wireless install.

In Terminal cd to the un-tarred rtl8192se_linux_2.6.0017.0507.2010 directory.

Give yourself Super User status in Terminal:

Sudo Su
make
make install
reboot

When you are booted into the right kernel next time, your wireless should be working (setup any connection information beforehand so that it just connects right away automatically.

Nook Personalization

On my Nook I added some pictures to the My Screensaver folder.

I have a picture of Geo. Taylor (5x Great-Gpa), a profile of him looking to the right, with his sig. below. Looks awesome.

A picture of my Grandpa that is very long, in WWI Army, I cropped it to show head down whatever 600×800 would allow. It looks awesome.

Then I have an old cell phone picture of my now dead cat Princess from some years ago on the floor sitting in an area of light from a window. Really cool.

I have a picture of Radio City Music Hall in NYC that I took with my cell phone a couple of years ago when we were there.

They are all great in gray scale, except one of a  painting I took in 2009. It’s too even in coloring\light\dark to work. I’ll need to change something about it to look better.

I also changed the “desktop” of the reading screen when no functions are being used. I made a quick file in Photoshop Elements, used a texture and a maple leave shape to put a bunch of leaves like falling down the page randomly. Kind of a pebble texture, a greenish color, so it shows up on my Nook really nice, various grays. Unfortunately I seem to have moved the original only copy of it to my Nook. So I can’t upload it to this spot until later when I connect my Nook next time. I remember that I didn’t save the original photoshop file I was working on since I was thinking I would make something else, not keep that file. Oops. I liked it a lot when it loaded on my Nook. Anyhow, I WILL make something else sometime anyhow.

Things I need for CKC class: Update

This list is things I need thus far:

  • Dark Brown Ink
  • Light Brown Ink
  • A more portable 12×12″ paper trimmer
  • A new white writing pen

  • Inkssentials Blending Tool
  • Roll of Foam Tape (Scotch)
  • New Glue Dots
  • Mini Glue Dots
  • Either Zip Dry Paper Glue or 3-in-1 Glue
  • Glossy Accents

  • Crop-a-Dial

I got some of the above on Amazon.com. I looked for “brown” and “black” ink but I couldn’t find the right things. I have also looked in a Michaels (one I don’t usually go to, still need to go to the 2 I usually go to) and couldn’t find any. I mean regular ink, dye ink. Not expensive, just regular, easy to clean up and fast dry. You’d thing it would be easy enough. No. It’s too complicated to figure out which ink this or that in a store. Most end up being waterproof (not really regular dye then) or Pigment ink. Anyhow, I’ll just forget all that and get anything solvent and make sure to have plenty of wetwipes and stamp cleaner with me. But it’ll come down to this: still needing different shades of brown, light and dark, will be troublesome. I don’t have “BLACK” in the list above. Don’t know why, as I need that too. All my stamp stuff is either old or pigment.

The portable trimmer I have decided on is a Cricut product, $9.99 at Michaels. It’ll go nice with my Cricut/Gypsy stuff. I can get the glue dots at Michaels too. The roll of foam tape there also, or Target, I think.

I also want to get refills for my Xyron 3/8″ tape runner.

My Crop-A-Dial arrived yesterday via UPS. I love it. I wanted to use it right away to set some eyelets, and my eyelets are all missing. I don’t know where they are. I have gone nuts a few times looking for them, feverishly even. Anyhow it punched holes really well. Love that.

Sleep

I’ve been really tired lately. I haven’t gotten enough rest/sleep and this morning I slept way over … finally, so don’t feel quite as bad as I usually do by this time of day.

We had a crazy 4th of July, setting off fireworks, running around like crazy, it was fun and exhausting. I guess I feel like I hadn’t “caught up” with rest since then. So it was nice sleeping, but something woke me sometime after 4am, it was my hubby’s alarm clock, but he wasn’t there.

He left on a bus. trip yesterday, & what went off was not his usual, not an alarm, but a loud hissing of a radio not tuned to a station but volume turned way up. Ugh. I struggled to get it off, then laid down again, only to have a beep, beep, beep sometime later (probably snoozed the alarm) and I couldn’t think of what to do except to pull the plug. So I did. Ahhh, relief.

So I went back to bed and slept until my newly 3 year old started telling me to get up, so I was able to respond but go right back to sleep. I told him to get his brother or sister, and his sister said right away she was awake and got up and I zonked out right away again, woke up only when my Palm Pre started to ring. It was 9-something-am. I didn’t answer the phone. But did call him back a few minutes later. It wasn’t very nice. I didn’t feel like talking about anything he said, so he hung up. Oh well.

I’m going to make Pizza for dinner, that needs a lot of energy on my part. I make the whole thing, my own dough, shred the cheese, make the sauce, cook the sausage, put it all together. It usually totals me. So I need to start now, I guess, and get it done with so I can go to bed and hopefully be even more rested tomorrow than I was today. I don’t have anything big to attend too until mid-Aug. So that is good. Hopefully I will be in good shaped for that. (I’m an introvert who stays home with children, no “work” outside, no responsibilities outside of home, so I’m not has “hardened” as I once was. Nor as young as I once was. :) )

One thing about all this, I was a night owl all my life, until I had my 4th baby right before I turned 41. Since then I sleep at night usually. I get so run down thoughout the day and can’t wait to get to bed and go to sleep. I didn’t ever have the ability to just “go to sleep” until then. I sleep all night, unless someone or something bothers me. Sometimes I get woken up in the middle of the night and I read for a bit or watch something on TV, but I usually then fall asleep fairly easily again. My old life was one of sleep deprivation that I lived with just fine. I couldn’t sleep much without waking up. If I went to bed before Midnight that was too early. Bed before 2am wasn’t often. Even going to bed I’d awake a couple of hours later and be wide awake for 2 or 3 or 4 hours. Often I couldn’t fall asleep until that sun started to come up. I slept hard and fast then, sleeping for a few or two hours like that is what I went on until Midnight again.

So it’s weird still, after 3 years now of sleeping better, I’m still far more tired and still not a “morning person” so I have less time for me than ever.

My Birthday 2010

It was my birthday on Sunday. My big present was a Nook (Barnes and Noble eReader) … the 3G+WiFi version.

I also got a cover for it, went on Monday to see what else B&N had and stuck with the cover my husband had picked out. I wanted a stand to use it with and they didn’t have anything for the Nook particularly except for one cover that can do that natively. I didn’t like that cover.

The cover I have is dark brown leather. It wraps around the Nook & snaps to protect it when closed, and wraps the opposite way to keep it like a one piece device with the cover snapped behind the Nook when in use.

The B&N employee that helped us looked at the regular book stands they sell and I looked at one and thought it would work, plus it was all metal and finished in a manner I love, love, love. It’s the Book Hug and it works well with my Nook in it’s cover. It sits perfectly inside it. If I want it there when plugged in, it just sits a big higher and one edge of the Nook rests in the upper front lip of the Book Hug stand. It doesn’t need charged very often, so it’s not a big deal to use it like that.

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