Porter House

Back online again...

I set up my brand new computer about 5 minutes ago. I could not wait any longer to come and tell you all about  it. I would have had to wait to get a new computer until after the holidays if it wasn't for my father helping us to get it sooner. So a huge thank you, Daddy. ( I promise to blog more now....)

My last computer was a low end budget computer. It did not seem to necessary to get a nice one, a few years ago when we bought our first computer. Well, I have learned a lot since then. I wanted a good one this time. I still did not need a high-end computer, but I wanted one with good performance. I turned to Consumer Reports for help. They have three categories for desktop PC's: budget, work horse, and high-end. The Dell Inspiron 518 was in their top 3 workhorse computers. It sounded perfect for me. I made sure to get the best processor and hard drive offered for the 518. I think I made the best choice, at least I am in love with it so far!

All I have to do now is get a new camera and I will be set. I have a couple in mind, so hopefully soon. I plan to start blogging frequently again, albeit without pictures for a while.

I hope a few of you are still checking in, I have missed ya'll.

Still Camera-Less...

We made it home Sunday at about 3:00. The drive was a little scary. It poured on us the whole time. This wasn't comforting for several reasons. Mostly because I had hundreds of dollars of purchases in the back of our Tundra. Justin and I kept telling each other that as long as we were moving, the rain wouldn't reach our stuff. Justin showed off some very admirable driving skills.

*Driving  7 1/2 hours with only one lunch break.
*Not rear ending all the people who suddenly slammed on their brakes.
*Driving without any visibility, without ever pulling over.
*Not floating away in the flooded streets of Carthage.

Amazingly, nothing was ruined except packaging materials. Thank goodness. When we arrived home we were in for a wonderful gardening surprise. Our broccoli plants had 2-3 inch florets on them. Too cool!

I really need to find my battery charger. You would be seeing some pictures of delicious beef shish kebabs with wild rice. As well as pictures of the best berry fool ever. Both CI recipes, the fool is in the newest issue that just came out online. Unfortunately I still haven't looked for found it.

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I signed up for Netflix Sunday. It was bound to happen after Karen (By the way, did you know It. Snowed. there?) gave it such a high recommendation. The main reason I signed up was to get the miniseries The Stand on DVD. I am currently about 1/3 through the book. My dad told me it was the best Stephen King book ever written. I believe him.

Of course, it is the only movie in my queue that has Very Long Wait beside it. The new releases are all available. I assume they do not have many copies of The Stand, it also seems to have some sort of cult following. So if you happen to be rewatching The Stand from Netflix for the 3rd time or something please put it back in circulation so that I can watch it.

I have spent the day trying to update my virus protection. I am embarrassed to admit that I have not kept it current. Today I got fed up with how slow my computer was running and decided to fix it. I bought Norton online. During the installation I got an error message. I followed their trouble shooting, downloaded CleanDownload and re-downloaded Norton. Once again, I got the same error message. I called their support team. I was online with a very nice man for a very long time. He took control of my computer, and deleted some files before we tried downloading again. This took about an hour. At the end, guess what?  Yep, same error message. He informed me that he was refunding my money and that I needed to buy a disk at the store and try it that way.

I went to the store and ended up buying McAfee. I was able to get an 8-in-1 protection at the store for cheaper than a less protective Norton online. It is now working, hopefully my computer will work better.

Justin was off work yesterday and today. We went to Sam's. We always end up spending way too much when we shop together. When we got home I made some smothered pork chops, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and a green salad. I bought this salad mix from Sam's. It is fantastic. I got enough for four meals, it has stayed perfectly fresh for over a week, and it is really tasty. I just throw on a little Newman's Own dressing and feta cheese. So great.

I was also shocked to find White Lily flour at Walmart. You would think it would be easy to find down here, but I never see it. I made some biscuits out of Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible. She recommends White Lily for all her biscuit recipes. I did find them a little sweet, but otherwise they were great.

I was contemplating a dessert to make with my large bag of Granny Smith apples from Sam's. I made the mistake of mentioning the apple turnovers to Justin. He got really mad when I decided to try another recipe instead. He apologized to me later though when he tasted the fantastic Rustic Apple Tartlets from Cook's Illustrated. They have a cream cheese/butter crust, which I love. I still prefer the apple turnovers, but variety is nice.

Well, I've got great news. For the first time ever all my electronic devices are actually working correctly. We have been shelling out so much money every month, and nothing was working right. We were finally able to get DSL a few months ago. Unfortunately when we did it made our telephone service super staticky, to the point where we just stopped using our land line and relied on our cell phones. Our DSL also spent just as much time not working as when it was.

My father kept telling me to call the phone company people out here to fix it, but I kept putting it off. My husband finally set up an appointment. They came out yesterday. I learned that we had a short, and that our phone line wasn't the best quality. It also wasn't positioned right everywhere. Who knew? I thought you either got phone service or you didn't.

They graciously replaced our phone line. When they left, I was amazed to discover that not only was my line clear, my internet also stayed on! It actually has not went out once in the last 24 hours. I cannot believe we waited so long. I really should have listened to my Dad a few months ago...

So hopefully now that everything is working I can blog a little more consistently. I am so much happier. Now if I could just get my Tivo into my living room I'd be set.

My Camera is Fun...

I have been playing with my camera all day. I have been wanting to experiment with all the color settings. You have the choices of: Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, Black/White, Positive Film (?), Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin Tone, Vivid Blue, Vivid Green, and Vivid Red. There is also a Color Accent Setting which singles out items of one color while making all other colors appear black and  white. I am not sure how you change the color on it though. Mine is stuck on green/yellow. Here are some neat examples.

Color Accent:

Vivid Blue:

Vivid Green:

Sepia:

Black and White:

I can't wait to really work all the settings out. There is so much that this camera can do that I haven't learned yet. I just love this camera, and my Daddy.
-Becca