Updates, Schmupdates: or, if it ain’t broke, do an update

January 20, 2016February 26, 2016 / Apple Hill Cottage / 11 Comments

I’m old.

Old enough that I don’t always like to check my age category, because it’s too far down on the list.

Old enough that my time left is precious, and I don’t want to spend it re-learning what I thought I already knew.

Old enough that I believed the lie that technology is supposed to make our lives easier and simpler.

Lately, I’ve been fighting technology, and it’s wearing me down…

First there was Windows 10 on my office computer. Now I have to put in a password every ten minutes when the screen goes to sleep. (Is that why it’s called Windows 10?) Oh yes, I’ve set and reset the settings. Ten times at least. The screen is not supposed to go to sleep — ever. But there it is, every ten minutes it starts snoring. Does exactly what it wants. I think I’m going to start calling it HAL. (Proof that I’m old.)

Then there was the new iOS on my iPhone. Now the blue tooth in the car just circles around and around, and I can’t play the music that is on my phone. I used to be able to do this… And yes, I’ve uninstalled my phone and reinstalled it. Three times. Nothing. No music. I’ll have to go back to CD’s I guess.

Then there was El Capitan on the MAC. Yep, the wireless printer stopped working. This is actually one of the success stories, because after uninstalling and reinstalling the printer three times, it has finally started working again. But my new writing program Scrivener — advertised as El Capitan ready — has frozen repeatedly. It is frozen as I write this (which is why I’m doing a blog post instead of writing on my novel).

And then there is the WordPress update. For a year now, they’ve been telling me to switch to the improved posting experience, but I’ve always been able to get around it. Because the old way of posting had commands right at my fingertips. Easy. Visible. But today I tried to get in the back way, and BAM, the new dashboard is the only one to be seen. I was beyond frustrated…

New and improved rarely means improved. It means frustrated and irritated, which quite frankly, I don’t need in my life. Is there anyone who does?

cat and computer

I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve turned off automatic updates. I’ll just have to put up with those annoying little numbers on the App Store. And those banners on the Mac that make me feel like I’m way behind the times? I’m blind to them.

I can take it.

Because, yeah, I’m old.

(If you are a frustrated WordPress user, here’s the workaround, courtesy of Life in the Realm of Fantasy. Go to My Stats; click on WP Admin; click on posts; and Voila — you are at your old familiar dashboard. Thank you, Connie! NEWS: And just this morning I noticed that from my home page drop down under My Sites, WP Admin is actually one of the tabs. Yes! Eliminate extra clicking!)

146. Taking flight

October 28, 2015October 28, 2015 / Apple Hill Cottage / 16 Comments

Before a few weeks ago, I had flown once in my life. Well, twice if you don’t count it as a round trip. And that was a LONG time ago…

It’s not that I am was afraid to fly. I just like to drive. Or be with people that I know very well who are driving. Road trips make me happy. It makes me feel like I have really, really travelled to get where I’m going.

I’ve been to lots of airports. But always as the person who is hugging people hello or goodbye, never as the person who is flying there and back again.

And I’ve been on road trips to lots of places — I’ve been to the tip of Nova Scotia to San Diego; from Ashland,Wisconsin to Juarez, Mexico; from Boston to Santa Fe — and because I’ve been in a car, in between I’ve seen Chicago, St. Louis, San Antonio, Big Bend, Boulder, New Orleans, Nashville, Madison… I’d always rather drive, thank you very much.

But then, my daughter moved 2,590 miles away to California.

That’s a long drive.

Google Maps tells me it takes 36 hours to get there by car and that is driving straight through, no stops. 38 hours with traffic.

And maybe in some future life, I’ll be retired with extra time; for now though, we had to fly.

We were leaving Chicago at 8:30 am and flying nonstop to Oakland, landing at 11:15. Supposedly.

At about 7:45 the announcement was made. Flight 1350 to Oakland California was delayed. We wouldn’t be leaving until noon at the earliest. It was a mechanical problem: not anything one could glibly say “Eh, just fix it and let’s get going, shall we?”

So we sat around. And sat around some more. I vaguely wondered if I should be up at the ticket counter with everyone else, jockeying for another flight, another city, another time?

The people at the desk never lost their cool and were ever so pleasant; they gave us each $100 off our next flight.

By the time we finally got on a plane–our original plane from DesMoines never was repaired; they just found us a new one somehow– it was 12:30 pm.

Our pilot apologized and added this caveat: “Our flight time is regularly 4 hours, but we’re going to get you there in two hours. Enjoy your flight.” I think he was trying to confuse us about time zones and real air time — but we did get there around 2:30 with our baggage on the right plane.

I must say the takeoff over Midway Airport in Chicago is disconcerting. People’s houses are right there and very close.

I must say the landing over Oakland Airport is disconcerting. From the little window over the wing, all one sees is water coming up very fast. I was hoping for land to appear soon.

But in between taking off and landing, it was breathtaking.

Looking down at the real topographical map of this country, watching cloud shadows, brown squares and green circles dissected by curving roads and rivers, Rocky Mountains, high desert, green mountain lakes — Mr. H. C. said I was like a kid with my nose pressed against the window the whole time.

Cloud shadows
Brighten an empty
Desolate brown moonscape.
Look far and see
A sea of clouds
Inside out
Top down.
Below
Cloud shadows
Darken the geography of time.

Words scribbled on my phone tried to capture the awe I was feeling; photos taken with my phone were just as unsuccessful as the words.

Passengers mostly seemed unimpressed by the view out their windows. Unaware and unconcerned that we were hurtling through the clouds in a metal cylinder (albeit a brightly painted one), they were busy eating, napping, laughing, reading, laptopping…

Yes I know it was all new to me. And everyone else on the plane probably flies twice a month and finds it all boring. But it wasn’t. It was some of the most amazing landscape scenery I’ve ever seen.

It’s good to shake up those road trips every now and then.

And so I’m shaking up this road trip that I’ve been on for awhile. I’m taking a break from blogging in November to participate in NaNoWriMo. Don’t know how far I’ll get, but flying is definitely faster than driving…

133. No Time to…

May 26, 2015May 10, 2017 / Apple Hill Cottage / 20 Comments

So what happens when one finally gets settled into a routine at the cottage where one has spent three years preparing to live?

Life.

Yes. Life.

Yes. Life. Happens.

There’s a new job.

There’s a volunteer commitment one made before the new job happened.

There’s cooking to do, gardens to plant, flowers to grow, pillow covers to make, Bible to study, VBS to get ready for, neighbors to visit, friends to talk to, firewood to haul, and, yes, there are still boxes to unpack, files to organize and a room to paint. As well as the bathroom to gut and redo, and the back porch to finish.

And suddenly, there’s no time to write.

Ha, silly me. I thought perhaps after we moved here, I’d have spare time to finish that novel… Now I can’t even find time to write 500 words for a blog post.

It’s the rhythm of life. Suddenly there is much going on, but it is the routine of day-to-day, interspersed here and there with a gorgeous full moon, the bloom of a new starburst flower, the scent of peonies, a gentle sunrise.

Sunrise in March

But that is life, isn’t it? Making the most of those boring bits of life in-between the great, amazing stuff that, if we are honest, doesn’t really happen all that often.

It’s what we do with the routine and the interruptions to our routine that are important. Read this C.S. Lewis quote and put it on your fridge.

Yes, the unremarkable, the humdrum, the commonplace — that’s the life God is sending us. And do we sing on the way to work, or grump about the trucks that are making us late?

Do we gripe about having to fix dinner on a day when we don’t get home until 6:00, or do we look into the fridge and make it a game with ourselves to come up with the best we can with what’s there?

Do we go to visit the neighbor when we really should be… (insert really important thing to do here.)

I have to admit that I’m only good at loving the uneventful life sometimes. I try to remember that God has given us this ordinary life to live for him. He sees when we grumble at our husbands for no good reason except a mood; he knows when we choose to be in a funk, rather than pray; and best of all, He understands when we chafe against the boring bits of ho-hum pfhh that so much of life seems to be…
Bare hill
and he graciously gives us new eyes to see beauty in the familiar.