Mikey fixed something!

Holy cow!

My totally-not-a-handyman husband took something that didn't work and made it work again! Like, successfully!

Okay, here's what happened:

My dryer quit drying, so Mikey pulled it out of its cubby to check for a lint blockage. And there was a big-time blockage, so he cleaned that out. Also, the vent hose was all kinked and falling apart, so he went and got a new vent hose and went to work installing that.

And then, somehow, he managed to drop his pliers into the hole in the dryer where the lint trap goes.

(**sigh**)

But!

He fixed that, too!

He unscrewed the back of the dryer and the whole lint-trap housing thingy and got the pliers out and put it all back together and hooked up the new vent hose, and guess what?

My dryer works like new!

Is that amazing or what?

Yay, Mikey!

I took your advice, Sher

I downloaded the driver for my photo software directly from the website, followed the instructions to install it, and got a message that said, "Error extracting support files: Access is denied."

So now what?

Picture This

I've been dicking around with my new photo software, trying to figure out why it is that I can't figure out how to upload pictures from my new camera.

It turns out that it's not me that's the problem. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not me. I could be wrong.

Anyway, according to the manual, the uploading part is supposed to pop up automatically when I plug the camera into the computer. It doesn't. There are instructions for how to make it pop up manually, but that didn't work either.

So I looked further in the troubleshooting guide and I found instructions on how to look for two particular drivers in my device manager. Well, they weren't there.

Ooookay... so how do I make them get there?

Beats me.

The installation wizard doesn't give me the option to install individual components; it's an all or nothing deal. So I uninstalled the whole thing and reinstalled it. The two particular drivers still aren't there.

So that's what the problem is. Without the drivers that won't install, I will never be able to upload photos from my new camera.

(***scream, tear at hair***)

So what the hell am I supposed to do now? I could:

• trade the camera in for a different make/model, but will they take it back since I've had it for more than 30 days and I've opened the software packet? And will they take back the $50 memory card after I've had the cute pictures of Britt at the zoo printed? Because I'm pretty sure this $50 memory card won't work in any other make/model of camera.


• call the technical support number, but after waiting on hold for three hours will I get to talk to someone who speaks English? Will they just try to read the manual to me? Or maybe a a miracle might happen and they'll say, "Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. Do this and this and you're all set." (Yeah, right.)


• take my computer to the Geek Squad at Best Buy and pay $30 to have them install the software for me.


• buy a new computer, because maybe the problems I've had trying to install this software and Mikey's camera-phone software are related to the advanced age of my computer?

Hmmm, what to do, what to do?

It's freezing!

No, not the weather, although it is kind of nipply out there.

It's my big, beautiful freezer! You know, the freezer I got for Christmas in 2004? Or was it 2003? The freezer that's never been used because it's been sitting in the middle of the garage, marooned in a sea of household castoffs and blocked in by Mikey's weight bench?

Yeah, that one.

Finally, it has been dug out of the debris and pushed over to the wall. It has been plugged in! It works! Even though the warranty has surely expired by now.

Bob did it when he came to visit this weekend. Yay, Bob!

There's nothing in it yet, so it's just freezing air at this point.

But it's plugged in! It's working! It's one less thing on my list of things to bitch about!

Yay, Bob!

I'm pooped

Britt is not only peeing in the potty now; she's also pooping in it! Yay!

But... there's a problem.

Gah! Isn't there always?

Here's what happened:

Bob and Mary came down to visit this weekend, and Mary put Britt on the potty. And Britt sat on the potty without crying or flailing or screaming, like she'd been doing whenever I tried to put her on the potty. And she peed in it and she pooped in it, and we were all so happy. And she decided it was a fun thing to do, so she happily went to the potty whenever it was suggested to her. She even came up with the idea herself a few times. So, it was all cool.

And then Bob and Mary went home, and we continued with the potty-sitting program, and Britt continues to pee and poop in the potty. Except now, she doesn't want to get off the potty. She wants to sit there. All. Day. Long. She cries and flails and screams when I try to get her off the potty so that we can go do other things.

And it's not the potty chair she's using that I can move into another room so we can do other things while she sits; she refuses to even try using that. Nope, it's the potty seat that fits onto the big toilet that she loves to sit on, so we're stuck in the bathroom until I can talk her down from it. This is not so cool.

Seriously, it's from one extreme to the other with this kid. What is up with that?

It's always something

I'd planned on having a fresh post up by now about Britt's first class at the zoo last Saturday, complete with cute pictures, but there was a problem.

I got a new digital camera for Christmas; it's got twice the mega-pixels of my old camera, and it's only one-third the size. And no more floppy disks, ever! Wheee!

But there was a problem.

When I push the button to take a picture, it hesitates for about two seconds (to focus, I guess) before it actually takes the picture. Which is fine for landscape shots, but not so good when you're trying to capture cute expressions on a very active two-year-old. So I've taken lots of pictures of the side of Britt's head, the back of her head and the top of her head, but not so many of her face.

I wasn't sure whether I was going to keep this new camera, so I never installed the software that came with it. This is the third digital camera I've owned and I've never had this problem before, so I asked everyone I knew if they'd ever heard of such a thing, and they all (except Bridgie, who has an older model) said that their digital cameras also hesitate before taking the picture, which sort of convinced me that they all do these days, and so I finally decided to keep it.

So I grabbed my new camera on my way out the door Saturday morning and got some good pictures of Britt in her class at the zoo and, on Sunday, I finally installed the software so that I could post some of them here on my blog.

But there was a problem.

I got the software installed, I got the camera plugged into the computer with the USB cable, and then I couldn't find any way to upload the pictures from the camera. I mean, seriously! I looked at all the menu choices and even tried a few, and I studied the manual and I still can't figure out how to upload the freakin' pictures off my freakin' camera! I even had Bridgie try it when she came over yesterday and she couldn't figure it out, either.

Gaaaaaaahhhhh!

So, anyway, that's why you haven't had a full report yet, complete with cute pictures, from Britt's first class at the zoo.

Britt has a cold

She woke up with it after her nap yesterday, coughing and rattling all evening, and even vomiting a little bit. She woke up feeling much better this morning; her main problem today has been a snotty nose.

Mikey was trying to wipe her nose this evening while she shook her head from side to side to avoid the dreaded tissue. Finally, she exclaimed in frustration, "No, Poppa! MY booger!"

Potty Pooper

No, no, Britt hasn't pooped in the potty yet, but she has peed in it for the third time ever.

She's been doing this thing lately where she crosses her chubby little arms across her chest, tosses her head, and goes "Hmph!" to emphasize her indignation whenever I try to get her to do something she doesn't want to do. Like pottying in the potty:

No, Grummy! No! No potty! (cross arms, toss head) Hmph!

Anyway, she now has a potty seat that fits on top of the regular toilet seat, in addition to her potty chair. She was perched on that potty seat and I was sitting on the edge of the tub, reading books to her, when I noticed that the top of the toilet tank behind her right shoulder sat a whole lot higher than it did behind her left shoulder. Like, a couple of inches higher.

I made Mikey come and sit on the edge of the tub to see if he saw what I saw, and he did. There was some head-scratching and a few I'll be damneds tossed about, and we finally decided that the big bolt we found on the floor behind the toilet a few weeks ago -- a mystery we never got around to solving -- must have been part of what held the tank onto the toilet. And so it is tilting, badly.

Thus it appears that we have an imminent toilet disaster on our hands. And the toilet in the master bath hasn't worked for several years now, so if this disaster should happen to unfold before we get around to doing something to prevent it, we will literally be left without a pot to piss in.

Meanwhile, Britt's vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and her pronunciation is improving, if not always spot-on. Spongebob Squarepants is now Ungebob Pants instead of BobBob, for example. And tonight she was running around looking for "asswipe"; it took us several minutes (of choking back hoots of laughter) to figure out what she really wanted: her flashlight.