Quick takes, renewed computer edition

Even with a brand new hard drive I am still unable to publish this in an easy to read version...no time to figure out the problem I'm off to eat tons of cookie dough balls the DMV. I'm not even sure if this will work, as I am finally here typing this on my revamped computer. It looks the same, but all it's innards are different and as yet it has nothing on it to indicated that it is indeed my computer (pictures etc). Grace over at Camp Patton (one of my new favorite blogs) is hosting this this week for Jen (on of my other favorite blogs) while she recovers at home with her new baby after too many medical issues for both her and said baby. Aside from finally having a working computer to do so, I might also be doing these quick takes simply so I can link to these two famous-to-me women. 1. We have been away more than we've been home in the last month and that requires a ridiculous amount of catch up when two of your kids are homeschooled high schoolers. Jonathan has actually been gone 3 out of the last four weeks and for five weeks since mid December. Crazy, I know! It is remnicent of our earlier parenting days when we homeschooled especially because it gave us the ability to travel with Mike. Among those old days was the "6 week trip" we went on when I was pregnant with Jake. That summer we came home for two weeks and then headed to Texas for two more weeks. 2. Speaking of Texas...pray for all those people affected by that explosion. 3. Speaking of the six week trip, Boston was one of the places we visited on that trip. Pray for all of those people too!! 4. Jonathan needed to be at the theatre at 7am to program the lights for a show that opens Sunday night. He was back by about 9:30 and was called back in to the theatre at 12 (he was supposed to go into work in the box office at 2:00 anyway). The good news is, he now gets paid for almost everything that he does there. The less good news is that all that time at the theatre doesn't help with the needing to catch up on schoolwork problem. 5. Madi is most likely going to public school next year and for the rest of high school. This deserves as post of it's own, but suffice it to say a lot of thought and prayer has gone into this decision so you can trust that we know what we're doing. 6. We are heading to the DMV momentarily where Madi is hoping to get her learner's permit. 7. In my blogging hiatus I have become addicted to pinterest, and speaking of addiction, I am pretty sure I could live the rest of my life with no other sweet but this one! We don't make them fancy with sticks and chocolate coating, and we even use freshly ground wheat and throw in a little flax meal which hopefully makes up for the fact that I have literally eaten pounds of these in the last week.

Checking in

My beloved laptop didn't live to see 18 months old. That is a huge part of why I haven't been around here lately. Gone are the days where I feel motivated enough to try to post from the ipod (or iphone). I can keep up with other people on those things though, and even comment. Back to the laptop, it isn't actually completely dead (I don't think...) I'm pretty sure it just needs some new internal parts. Thankfully a friendly computer wizard was able to salvage 90% of my pictures and videos anyway, and that's the most important part. Incidentally, we had purchased an external hard drive two days before the computer stopped working, we just hadn't taken it out of the box yet. The moral of this story is... back up your important stuff before the computer dies! In the meantime, I have found myself with a rare moment at the mostly still functioning loft computer so I thought I'd pop in and say hi! There is definitely way more going on than there is time to update it, so suffice it to say this blog post is nothing but a tease anyway. In the meantime...Happy Easter!! I'll leave you with this thought, 6 months from today I will be the mother of an adult!!