Summer Heat Getting To You?

Go practice swatting mosquitos. It's absolutely useless, well, unless your kids need to practice their mouse skills or something. It would be great for that! If you miss them, they just keep getting bigger and bigger. Eew, it made me itch though just battling even virtual mosquitos. With the West Nile Virus spreading so fast, we need a way to get back at those pesky creatures. They're bad enough anyway.

People

If you watch the news too much you tend to get a warped view on the nature of people. They mostly show you people who are only out for themselves and who cares about anyone that gets in the way. That's just not the way most people are though. I've met so many nice people lately. On Saturday I went to a homeschool convention, and everyone there was so nice to everyone else. Several of the people there were people I already knew, but most of them I hadn't met before, and everyone was just like we had all been friends forever. Most of the on-line communities I frequent are like that too. The knitting bloggers and other bloggers, most people on most of the e-mail chat lists I am a member of, people on a couple of message boards that I frequent. There are exceptions of course, and maybe a few of those people are only pretending to be nice and if you have to deal with them in real life they would be different, but almost all of them I believe are genuine.

Maybe it's easier to be nice on the internet. If you're nice, people will be nice back to you. But isn't that true in the real world too? Have you found that it's easier to make friends through your computer than it is in real life? I really have. Part of it is just that I'm quiet and I don't stand out, and I just get overlooked. The internet equalizes us and if I have something to say I can say it and people are just as likely to read what I say as what anyone else says. I really have gained some really good friends through e-mail too, and even met a couple of them in person. While it's easy to get carried away with the internet and neglect real life people and responsibilities, it has been a great tool for me.

Since I am rambling about the internet, maybe I will answer the friday five questions from last week afterall. I know, I keep getting later and later. I looked at them Thursday night when they first came up and they didn't grab me so I didn't do it. Then I kept thinking about it and decided finally that I will afterall.

1. How much time do you spend online each day?
Adding it all up would be hard. Maybe I am on the computer a little bit too much. With this really spiffy wireless internet connection it's so easy to stay busy doing internet stuff. I have to check my mail and stuff in the morning of course, and also before going to bed, and I'm back and forth between the computer and whatever else I'm doing pretty much all day unless I'm actually doing something that takes me out of the house for the day. And I do have withdrawal symptoms if I don't have internet access for a while, whether it is because I'm not here or because the internet service is down or power is out or whatever.

2. What is your browser homepage set to?
Flylady.net Otherwise I will forget to look there, and I do need the reminders.

3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?
No, I don't use instant messaging. I have in the past used ICQ, but it just got to be a pain, and we had too many things on the computer and were tired of ICQ jumping in all the time when we didn't ask it to, so we canned it. If you need to get ahold of me or want to chat, use my Tagboard or send me an e-mail. I check my mail pretty often.

4. Where was your first webpage located?
We had an old Geocities site that Mark set up for me. You can look at it if you want to, but it is a cobweb site and I don't think we even can make changes on it anymore.

5. How long have you had your current website?
Seven months, since January 15, 2003. And as of today I have had 2900 visitors!

Summer Is Winding Down

We're getting ready to go back to school. Ashley and Jonathan are signed up for an exemption to homeschool, and Carol wanted to go to public school this year in order to make new friends, so we got her signed up today. I registered for classes too, but got purged because my financial aid didn't arrive yet so I will have to do it again. I'm already involved with a research project though, and have been busy working on getting it set up! If you are wondering how I will manage to homeschool and go to school full time myself at the same time, two of my classes are web-based and two meet once a week each in the evening, so I will just be studying along with the kids here during the day. And the research project is pretty much as I schedule it. It will involve time away from home during the day, but it will work out. Ashley is old enough to babysit for a little while. Even though she and Jonathan sprayed down the whole kitchen with the water sprayer from the sink while I was registering Carol for school today, I will have to trust her to refrain from similar lapses of judgement in the future.

The days are getting shorter too. It's just 6:30 (the posting times on here don't allow for Daylight Savings Time) and I already had to turn on the light. It gets dark outside by 9:00, and really fast too, and noticeably earlier each day. In effort not to have a repeat of last winter, I have gotten a light box and have already been using it for about two weeks (before getting on the computer). It is making a difference in my sleep patterns. I am naturally a night owl and would stay up later and later every night, and then avoid getting up in the morning as long as possible. About every third or fourth day I would actually lose a night because I would just not bother to go to bed since it was already getting light outside before I started getting tired. Then I would start over again. Now I actually wake up, voluntarily, well, pretty much, sometime between 6 and 7 in the morning! Wow! I like using the light box too, because I have a gauranteed 30-45 minutes of knitting time every morning and if anyone comes looking for me or wanting me to do something I just tell them I can't because I have to sit in front of my light until the timer goes off. So there. I am getting about six rows of Ragna done each morning, plus whatever I get to do during the day. The back is finished and the front is half way there. No, I haven't taken many pictures, but I will.

Having talked your ear off and finally gotten around to a small mention of knitting at last, I will close for now. I promise I will get more pictures up soon. For today I guess you will have to settle with a bunch of links.