I have had several good news/bad news moments this week.
On Monday I decided I not to do one “fun” thing until I tackled some chores. So I started cleaning out a kitchen cabinet. It is one of those corner cabinets that has round, lazy Susan-type shelves. Things were going well until the whole top shelf fell about a foot. I was bummed.
Because Tommy says that his idea of being a handyman is a credit card and a phone book, I didn't bother him. I just took a deep breath and found a big Phillips screwdriver. I pulled the shelf up, turned a big screw tight and voila! It stayed in place to my surprise. No. 1 fait accompli.
Shortly afterward a second challenge presented itself. I bought a new serger. A serger is a sewing “machine” that, in a word, makes a makes a neat overlock finish on fabrics. I have had one that Mr. Bean at MidSouth sold me about 10 years ago. It was the most user-friendly one at the time, and I have loved it. But, boy, it is a bear to thread (four threads must be perfectly channeled for it to work). So a friend of a friend knew someone who selling the best machine made because she had never used it. I now know why. So she sold it to me at literally one fourth of the retail price. Good news. I now know why. The bad news is that the instruction manual wasn't with it, but it did have a video. I haven't been able to learn how to use it with the video alone.
I found an instruction manual on eBay this week. The bidding ended at a time when I could sit at the computer the second the sale was over. But I was outbid. Bummed again. In retrospect I realized that all I had to do was put in a price I was willing to pay (my maximum bid), and Ebay would have done the bidding for me. The price would have been high, relatively speaking, but worth it. And now that I have seen how much trouble it is going to be to get a replacement manual, I'm still kicking myself. Enter a maximum bid on eBay and forget it. A lesson learned (anyone out there have an extra replacement manual for a Babylock Evolve)?
So here’s issue No. 3: I have a new TV in my sewing room. Daughter Beth and Alex found it at a discount store for a very modest price. Tommy asked, “Why do you need a new TV?” The answer is because I bought the one I am using now for $25 from the Gore headquarters in 2000, and it’s not ancient but very small.
Dear Alex and Beth set up the TV for me and hooked all existing cords, but I later purchased a DVD/VCR combination device ($49 at Essex) so I could watch my old sewing videos and DVDs, too. Son John, computer geek, hooked those up. But the first time I tried to watch the serger video, the connections were wrong. So guess what? I read the book and fixed it! Who would have thought that the “DVD out” plug would do the trick?
My brother Mike got married last month — a big surprise. As I've mentioned often, we have seven siblings. His new wife Rosie has 12, and all of us are elated. We are throwing a (need I say BIG?) party.
Mike did the video when daughter Beth married and it was a lot of work.
So I offered to do the video.
Nowhere in my resume is the title “videographer,” but when you're lucky enough to have a Macintosh computer like I am, here is how you do a slideshow: You open your photo program, press the button that says “new folder,” scan, drag and drop photos into that folder and push a button that says "slide show." So I felt I owed it to my family to do it.
Problem is I also need to scan hard-copy photos to my computer and I couldn't get my printer to scan. Again, I was determined to prevail. I went to my printer's website (an inexpensive Epson, which I love, by the way) and downloaded the scanner online and voila! My fait was accompli'd again. I was elated. But then the printer stopped working and additionally spit out all color copies in blue and white.
I wasn't going to let this issue get me down. So I went back to the website and downloaded the latest printing software. And it worked again. The problem then was that the graphics on the printing screen were in Japanese with characters that I couldn't begin to understand.
Reading the online manual corrected that problem along with the blue and white issue.
So now I'm feeling really empowered.
With a history like this, I'm waiting to see what other challenges lurking in the background.
But I have a hankering that I'll be up to the task.
'Til next week.
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