Computer Scramble!

It all started last spring when my daughter sent me weekly, sometimes daily, requests via email (even though she lives at home, and is in high school, this is her preferred method of communicating with me!) asking for a laptop computer.

She already has a laptop computer, supplied by her school, as part of a program whereby kids with communication "disabilities" are able to use a laptop in class to improve their writing and organization of school work. In Wendy's case - thank goodness! - as her handwriting is worse than egyption heiroglyphics.

But, Wendy kept saying that the school laptop was a drag because everytime anything went wrong the school board tech people had to take it away to fix it, sometimes write before a term paper or exam.

So we listened to her saaaad tale, and saved up and bought her a laptop - presented it to her last week as her 16th birthday present, which will be Sept. 5. She hates it! We couldn't figure out why when everytime we got in an argument, or she was in the doghouse, she would say "take my computer back then!!". So finally we got down to it the other day, and discovered that she would prefer her school laptop, even though its heavy and slow, as there are restrictions at the school for use of personal laptops. And, she never said that she wanted her birthday gift "used up" on a laptop.

So now what? When I grew up we had hand-me-down clothes, now we have hand-me-down computers. Younger brother Scott got Wendy's desktop which was better than his, and we even stole some bits from his computer and added it to Wendy's to make a super new computer for Scott, rendering Scott's old computer pretty useless. Following me so far?

So now, Wendy has no desktop computer and doesn't want a laptop computer, and has decided she'd rather have some kind of furniture for her room (I think she has unfortunately inherited my mom and sister's compulsion to constantly re-decorate and move furniture!).

The decision was eventually made that we would return her new laptop, buy *me* a cheaper less fancy laptop, and give her my desktop which takes up less deskspace for her as it has a flat monitor and smaller CPU (?). Buying me a less fancy laptop will give us money back toward her new furniture.

That meant that for the past two days I've been playing - no, working, sweating, and hair pulling - at getting my stuff from my desktop to the laptop - Vista and XP don't particulary like each other.

Its done now, and I'm more or less back in business. Major major problem though is my EQ6 "ran out of activations" - meaning I can't use it. This was likely because we've done similar computer scrambles with desktops over the years between the three kids and me. I've written to EQ imploring them to let me use my software - all my current quilts are in there, as well as a new class to take at Quilt U next week!!


The really good news with all this, is as waited for the computers to "do stuff" I finished sewing on the binding on at Home and Away - yay! The bad news is that somehow a little corner of the folded binding at the corner somehow got snipped and looks quite sad - don't know how I'll fix that yet.

So, more Vista learning for me, and getting acquainted with a laptop which sure has its quirks compared to a desktop, and to start sewing the back of the binding on Folk Art Finery.