Tuesday, August 12, 2025

August Happiness Challenge Day #12

 


Today I am happy for the young woman who comes and cleans for me once a month. She makes the house feel good, and me feel better about the things I'm not able to do anymore. Hurrah!


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About the August Happiness Challenge

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

Monday, August 11, 2025

August Happiness Challenge Day 11

 


Today I am happy for grocery store roasted chicken. We eat a lot of them. I cannot buy an uncooked chicken and cook it for what I can purchase a pre-roasted chicken for, hot out of the rotisserie. I do not know why this is, but I am not much on cooking anyway, so I am very glad that this option exists.

It makes for a quick and easy dinner.

______________________________________________________________________


About the August Happiness Challenge

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

When Did My Tech Stop Being Mine?

Once upon a time, a girl bought a computer. Then she bought software to put on the computer. At first, that software came on a 5 1/4 floppy disk, then a 3.5 floppy disk, then a CD, then a DVD. 

However it came, I bought a video game or a word processing program, installed it on my computer, and it stayed the same until I decided to update it. Software programs just worked, and I didn’t have to worry about it suddenly changing the rules on me.

Those days are gone. With streaming, there are no rules.

Everything’s a “service” now. My games, my software, my books on my Kindle, even my conversations with AI are all subject to sudden updates, changes, and upgrades I never asked for and can’t refuse.

The technophobes tout this as receiving "new features and security improvements,” but the downside is a loss of control over what is happening, because I can't stop the changes even if the older version of somethign worked fine. 

It also means taht something I enoy could vanish or mutate overnight. Amazon can reach into my Kindle and change anything it wants in a book, for example.

And then there's the learning curve. Suddenly MS Word isn't what it used to be and you have to spend forever trying to remember how to format a document. 

It's a pain. Technology has gone from being a tool into being a landlord we have to live with.

The other day, open.ai upgraded ChatGPT. I had grown used to the language it used, the cadence of what it was telling me. I could recognize a ChatGPT essay on LinkedIn without even reading the thing in its entirety. 

Now the new version has a different "voice." A different cadence. A different personality, even. Microsoft's CoPilot does too. I think it now sounds more like the older version of ChatGPT than whatever it was before. It's like both AIs fell into a vat of witch's brew and came out dripping wet, and each one swallowed a different frog or a bat or something.

Inno Games, which operates one of my favorite city-building games, has taken to making upgrades that users have supposedly asked for, but no one I know ever likes their changes. The changes all seem geared toward making us do more "in game" purchases than enhancing game play. If a company has to make changes, it should at least be honest about why it is doing it.

I feel like I'm in a perpetual beta test. Nothing settles down. Just when you think you've got the hang of Microsoft Outlook, oops, there's a change. Or just when you've settled into Gmail, oops, there's a change. 

The comfort of ownership has been replaced by the frustration of constant change.

This is happening everywhere as we switch over from ownership to lending models with the things we use every day. All of this stuff updates constantly. Even our cars. The updates promise fixes and enhancements, but often they just mean relearning how to do the simplest things.

It’s not just about convenience or familiarity, either. I want to feel in control of what I'm doing. I want to know that my tools - the stuff on my hard drive - belong to me. And I don't want to waste my time having to relearn something that worked perfectly fine before some technical egghead decided to change it.

When your technology owns you, instead of the other way around, something essential is missing.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just want to put on my old favorite game, load it up from my hard drive, and know that it’ll play exactly the same way it did the last time. I don't want to wait for an update. I don't want surprises or changes.

Is that too much to ask?

Sunday, August 10, 2025

Sunday Stealing




Let's Do Our ABCs

A. Auto - Toyota Camry

B. Bed size - Queen

C. Cats - Allergic

D. Dogs - Allergic

E. Essential start to your day - A shower

F. Favorite color - Blue

G. Gold or silver - Silver

H. Hand you favor (righty or lefty) - Right

I. Instruments you play - Guitar and I can manage to get a tune out on many others

J. Job title - Retired

K. Kids - None

L. Live (rural, suburb, city) - Rural

M. Meal plans - People plan those things?

N. Nicknames - Sweetie Pie

O. Overnight hospital stays - Multiple

P. Pet peeves - People who whine on Facebook.

Q. Quote from a movie - You shall not pass! (From Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings)

R. Regrets - I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention.

S. Siblings - 1

U. Underwear - I wear it.

V. Vegetable you love - Broccoli

W. What makes you run late - Oversleeping

X. X-rays you’ve had - Loads. I probably glow in the dark.

Y. Yummy food - Chocolate

Z. Zoo animal - Panda

 
Thank you for playing! Please come back next week. 

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I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday, August 09, 2025

Saturday 9: Shout




Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

This month we're going to recall Summer Songs. These will all be records that topped the charts during August.

1) Number 1 on the charts in August 40 years ago, the lyrics to "Shout" encourage us to "let it all out." When is the last time you raised your voice?

A. Well, it hasn't been lately. I've had laryngitis for a week.

2) This week's featured artists, Tears for Fears, were a duo -- Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith -- who met as teenagers in Bath, the largest city in Somerset, England. Bath has been named one of The Great Spa Towns of Europe. Popular spa treatments include massages, facials, body scrubs and wraps, mineral baths, manicures and pedicures. If you could treat yourself to a spa treatment today, which would you choose?

A. A massage.

3) When they first met, one of the things Roland and Curt bonded over was that they were both raised by single mothers. Who was your best friend during your teen years? What did you two bond over?

A. One of my closest friends in my teen years was Beth. She played piano in the band I was in, and we ran around together at other times and were great friends all through high school. We went our separate ways after I graduated. I only saw her a few times after that. She passed away in 2018.

4) Curt's wife, Frances Pennington, has had a long career in marketing, beginning in the record business and transitioning to fashion. Which industry do you think you'd enjoy more -- music or fashion?

A. Music. I have no clue about fashion but I do know a little bit about music.

5) Roland married his childhood sweetheart, Caroline Johnston. They were together for 35 years, until her death. Do you know whatever became of your childhood sweetheart?

A. One of my sweethearts from elementary school passed away this spring. The boy I went to prom with I lost track of. I don't know where he might be.

Let's look at the summer of 1985.

6) That summer, Chicago teenager Balu Natarajan won the National Spelling Bee. Are you a good speller?

A. I used to be.

7) Tinker Bell took her first nightly flight at Walt Disney World in Florida. Do you recall which Disney movie introduced us to Tinker Bell?

A. Peter Pan.

8) Derek Hough was a baby in the summer of 1985. In 2007 he became a regular on Dancing with the Stars, acclaimed for his ballroom dancing. Are you good on the dance floor?

A. I dance a bit like Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Seinfeld.

9) In 1985, Michael J. Fox became the first actor to have the #1 movie at the box office and the #1 TV show in the ratings. The movie was Back to the Future and the TV show was Family Ties. Have you seen the movie? Were you a fan of the show?

A. We watched it. I don't know that it was must-see TV, though.

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I encourage you to visit the posts of other participants in Saturday 9 and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however. 

Friday, August 08, 2025

August Happiness Challenge Day #8

 


Today I got myself up and went through the pantry and tossed out the cans that were past their "use buy" date.

Most of them were things we'd never eat anyway. Pandemic purchases, I suspect. Things I bought when the shelves were looking sparse. Anyway, they went on to the landfill. I was glad to get the space back so I can use it for things that we might actually eat.

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About the August Happiness Challenge

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

Thursday, August 07, 2025

Thursday Thirteen



I took a long time to get both my bachelor's degree and my master's degree. My bachelors took me eight long years to obtain. It came from Hollins College, and two years later, the college changes its name to Hollins University.

I began working on my master's immediately after graduating with my BA, but then decided I needed a break. I went back to it in 2002 and finally finished it in 2012. I took it a class at a time, as I could afford it and as my work and my health allowed. They were long-term goals, and I met them.

So, without further ado, here is what my effort to obtain both degrees taught me.

1. A degree is not a finish line, but a conversation with time. The degree is just a piece of paper, but it represents the culmination of many hours of work.

2. Eight years can be a pilgrimage, not a delay. While I was at the college for a very long time, that allowed me to seek out different professors and also to become personal friends with some of the professors that I saw from year to year. In a way, I became a fixture at the college because I was there off and on so much.

3. Learning is not linear, and neither is becoming. It took me a long time to find my footing when I went back to school. I was an older student at the age of 22 and married. My life experiences were different from my classmates, who were younger (and generally not as dedicated because they weren't paying for their degree, their parents were).

4. Returning to the classroom, especially years later, is its own kind of courage. It was hard to go back for my masters, but the experience was incredibly rewarding. And there was a great change in the way students interacted from 2002 to 2012. In 2002, I made friends of my classmates during breaks. By 2012, everyone veered off into their own little corner to check in on their phones with family and friends. The classroom experience changed in those 10 years.

5. A BA earned in 1993 and an MA in 2012 are not endpoints, but waypoints. They are markers in my life, ways I can remember what happened when. 

6. The voice you find at Hollins may take years to fully claim. Hollins has a strong creative writing program, but it also could be snobbish. Hollins may not be the place for someone who really only wants to write Nancy Drew books or romances. Hollins is the place to write the Great American Novel (think Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard). It took me a while to find myself and make sure my voice was my own, and not the reflection of my professors or some other writer.

7. Education is not just what you study, but what you survive. Hollins had a major flooding event in 1985, my first year there. The Flood of '85 wiped out the school library and classes ended up being cancelled for at least a month. It was an abbreviated semester, for sure. I personally had to survive many surgeries and health issues that forced me drop out for several semesters. Yet I kept going.

8. The institution may change names, but the imprint remains. I was not all that happy with the name change from Hollins College to Hollins University, but I understood it. The college didn't change with the name change, but it has certainly changed over time as the world has changed. One big difference? When I graduated in 1993, the cars around the campus were BMWs and Mercedes. When I graduated in 2012, the cars were Toyotas and SUVs.

9. Some lessons wait patiently until you’re ready to hear them. One of the courses I took, Imaginative Thinking, stuck with me for a long time. But it wasn't until I was in my 40s that I realized what the professors were trying to teach me - that I could be freer in my expression and less controlled.

10. Your story doesn’t need to match anyone else’s syllabus. I did the lessons, but my homework definitely was different, thanks to my age. Some of my professors appreciated having an older and quite dedicated student in class, others, not so much.

11. That persistence is a kind of artistry. Honestly, if anyone had told me I'd stick to working on my BA for eight long years, I'd have said no way. I used to think I didn't do things long term, but that was definitely long term. (And this blog has been here since August 2006, (19 years!) happy birthday, Blue Country Magic!)

12. That time itself can be a teacher. I learned so much about myself during my journey at Hollins. I learned to think, to understand, to be empathetic. I learned to give myself grace when I was ill and do the same for others. And I learned that eventually, with enough patience and dedication, I could do anything.

13. I wasn't late. I was layered. I took a different route, one I never expected, toward my degrees. I hadn't anticipated marrying at 20, getting a two-year AS degree in 1989 (I took classes concurrently at Hollins and Virginia Western Community College, transferring credits back and forth) and finally my BA in 1993. Nor had I predicted that I would spend so much time in the hospital or have so many surgeries. Lots happened to me. It all made me who I am.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 919th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.