Ash Wednesday -- Lent Starts. Good and Bad...
Today was a good -- and bad -- day. Both with accomplishments and frustrations...
I spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing -- something I want to do more of in 2014. Now that I'm not webmaster for the festival, I should (at least in theory) have more 'free' time to do other things -- and I want to use this time productively.
I cleaned out a number of drawers in the desk that's located in our home office. And I also started to clean out some of the drawers in our file cabinets, too. We have three four-drawer cabinets, plus another two-drawer one (all against one wall). There's an empty drawer in the two-drawer cabinet, which was previously cleared out for Marilyn to use for her papers that are located downstairs in the family room. (We have a couple of two-drawer cabinets down there, as well.) Paperwork is just one of those things that seem to overwhelm our lives. We've done a LOT of clearing out of paper in recent years, but have a lot more left to do...
I'm pleased to say that I did get rid of a bunch of stuff, both from the file cabinets and the desk. I really don't have trouble organizing a drawer, once I get rid of enough stuff to be able to actually organize the space. Actually, I'm rather good at this and have been asked to help others many times in my life (both at work and away from work).
My goal is to PUT THINGS AWAY -- and to do that, I need to make ROOM for things in closets, cupboards and drawers. (And on shelves, too. But this is more difficult, when things are still exposed to view.)
Anyway, that was a good portion of my day.
But part of my day was spent on an IT issue from work: Remote Desktop access (yet again). This is an on-going issue that I've been dealing with since I took over IT Management back in 2007 -- so for close to seven years. And the issues have been varied and constant during all that time. Suddenly we've lost the ability -- YET AGAIN -- to be able to Remote to the office from desktops or laptops. Carol can't do it. I can't do it. When phoned about this (Tuesday), Kris COULD do it -- and when Donn tried on his laptop that day, so could he. But as of TODAY, Donn could no longer Remote on either his desktop or laptop.
I was able to get in earlier today. Then after doing some updates on my computer and restarting (part of the process), I no longer could Remote normally. HOWEVER, I could get in using an 'old' rdp document that was saved to my desktop. (It's hard to really explain all this, unless you're really familiar with using Remote Desktop...) Anyway, I was all over the internet trying to learn more about it -- for hours today. It's so frustrating!
I should have contacted John from FISH to find out if they migrated our two files when they moved the website over. There's a possibility that we need these files to be at the website in order to have access -- but of course I'm not certain if that's true, or not! Nor is Kris, apparently...
Plus it might have been a coincidence -- which is ALWAYS a possibility when dealing with IT -- that I had installed the certificate again today when I appeared to actually have access (however briefly). I tried it many, many times in the afternoon without success...
Then Donn and I went back and forth and back and forth. And had an amusing time when I was trying to send him a zip file as an attachment that contained the certificate (as you can rarely ever send an .exe file). All the email addresses I had for Donn forwarded to his gmail account -- and I got several messages that made it clear that gmail does NOT allow you to send zips! What a comedy of errors!
Anyway, I promised Carol I'd get her Remoting again on Friday, but I'm not sure if I can do that, or not! I'm personally able to get in to my own computer -- but I wanted to try and go into Rich's computer as HIM, and that wouldn't work. In fact, I don't have an .rdp of his computer, period, so it's doubtful I could get in as myself, either... (sigh)
Rich? He accidentally deleted a large file in his Outlook -- and I want to try and fix this right away, if possible (before we get beyond being able to fix it). No, I'm not sure I can fix it -- but I do want to try. But he'll be using his Outlook between now and Friday (when I plan to go in), so...
I see Leslie, my nurse practitioner, tomorrow at 4:30. I don't expect good news about my lab results. I guess we'll see. It's frustrating when we try so hard to watch our diet to discover that my diabetes is more out of control. I do think my anemia is far better, at least. I've no clue about everything else.
I suspect she'll be upset I went off Atorvastatin (Lipitor), but the memory loss and confusion were BAD. And I really can't afford to risk more of either one in the future. I NEED to retain my memory as much as possible for my work, which is quite detailed. And that's a frustration I just can't live with.
I'm also sure she'll kick up a fuss over my use of Naproxen -- but even using it I've been having some really BAD DAYS with my arthritis. Last night I could hardly sleep for the pain in the forefinger of my left hand. Today it was both hands plus my right hip (my 'bad' hip). No, dealing with arthritis is hardly NEW for me -- I've had it in my hands since I turned 30. But I've been taking Naproxen for years and years to help with the pain. Plus taking more pain meds on top of that, sometimes. I don't know how she expects me to FUNCTION without something to help the inflammation and pain -- I really don't. I hate whining about pain -- and I know it makes me sound pathetic, but seriously, pain makes it hard to do what I need to do. And to get enough SLEEP to do things, too. And though it might not sound like it, IT work really requires a lot of physical activity...
Today is Ash Wednesday, so Lent started. We had roast beef hash, cottage cheese and kale -- plus fresh celery and carrot sticks -- for dinner. Marilyn was home a bit later than she has been, partly because she had to take Leslie home on her way, and partly because they were in such bad traffic.
Instagram was apparently down (at least in part) for much of the day. Rumors are flying that people will be expected to pay for an Instagram account, which I frankly don't buy. (I've heard these rumors before.) We're so spoiled these days. We don't ever expect online services to go down!
That said, I've got on-going issues with my Yahoo email account. I guess most people do. I don't understand WHY they can't seem to get control of things. And there's absolutely NO SUPPORT from Yahoo! -- even if you have a PAID account (Marilyn and I have had paid accounts for years now).
I remember all the issues we used to have CONSTANTLY here at LiveJournal. While things are far from perfect at LJ, they are much better than they used to be. At least in some ways. You used to be afraid to ever just type an entry directly into LiveJournal, for fear of losing it! Now that hardly every happens, thankfully!
Wow, we just lost the Exchange (for Outlook) at the office. All hell is about to break loose! Damn it anyway. We've been having some weird crap with the exchange on and off, so this isn't an entire surprise. Kris really needs to show ME what to do when this happens!!!!!!!!
That's all. I just can't stand to type another work that's IT related today! It makes me so crazy...