The Family

There was a mantra Christina and I had…    Be Debt Free in 2004 2005  2006!

By the end of this week we’ll have paid off every credit card that we carry around with us.  The only line of credit we’ll have open with a balance is our bill for our washer/dryer set.  That one is still interest free so it is the last one to get paid off.   (beggining of May, that’s the payoff goal on that one)

I can now happily say that we’re soon to be full on deadbeats* and it feels good.  Not having a monthly payment to plan for is going to be a great thing.

* That’s the term I’ve heard (some) Credit Card employees give to people who pay off their balances in full/on time.  After all, they don’t make any money that way.

Just posted a comment on “Pat’s Hospital” to update.  He has a new room, #527.  Thinking I should have made that a new post…

Of course, you all know where Pat is and what his # is, but i looked up the hospital where he is and it does look good.  He is in  room 532…    I called, but he did not answer.  I will try again later.  Probably no new news till Monday anyway.

interesting article on migraines

Chris….   I ran across a bunch of free smileys….   i downloaded them expecting them to be somehow all set up to use or to come with directions, but of course they were just the pictures.  They also had speech bubbles which i thought was a cute idea.  The little bubbles, i suppose one would make appear when someone typed in, for example, (awww)  but how in the world do you tell the program to do that?????

I should search for the answer.  I haven’t done that.  I will.
Chris……   I am so fortunate to have you for my tech…   I talked to Nathan tonight and told him to get online and i would talk him thru getting on the message board.  I pointed out that if we were all using the message board, he could keep us posted there instead of having to make calls and have us call him.  He said that he could, but he would have to go get his laptop out of the truck and hook it up, and went on to tell me the troubles he is having with his desktop computer.  He said that when he gets online everything is fine.  He hooks up to his current internet provider.  He opens yahoo..  but when he tries to download anything or to send a message, the computer wants him to privide a password for his (something starting with V) connection.  Apparently they use V— at work and for some reason he hooked his home computer up to V— once, and apparently it reset something.  He does not use V—.  So he will type in his password and it will just pop the password window up again because, of course, it was unable to connect.

He says he has disabled everything he can think of, but the problem persists so they only go online with is work computer, which is hard because sometimes he works late and the kids need it for school.  :)  When he comes hom, his computer is sometimes more eagerly awaited than he is.

And all the time, i was thinking, that is just a setting…  Chris could find that in a moment because he would know where to look and what the setting should be.  But there is Nathan fumbling around in the dark, disabling things that probably should not be disabled and making changes that could be messing him up, and not able to find the offending setting…

Sigh…….  i did not volunteer you.  🙂    I fight that urge….      but every family needs their own techie!!!!!  How do people get along without one????

Nathan said that Pat failed his stress test…  The doctor told him he was strong as a horse, but that something was wrong and he could not figure out what it was from this test.  They are checking Pat in to the hospital and observing him thru the weekend.  On Monday they are going to do that test that involves radioactive dye and getting a 3d image of the heart beating before and after stress.  If that one does not show the doctor what he needs, he plans on a third test.  Nathan said next test involves making a cast or something.  :)   Somehow i doubt if they are making a cast…  but who knows.
It sounds like they are being thorough…   like the doctor is taking Pat seriously.  And hopefully, tomorrow i can call and talk directly to Pat.

The only update i have is that the number that i was given to reach Andrea, her cell phone, is not working. And i cannot reach her at home because they have changed their home number and Pat did not give me the new one because he is not there anyway, and it would be better to reach him on his cell. So i will just have to wait. They seem to be keeping us informed thru Nathan. I will call him tonight.

Just an interesting note. Carrie has been trying to get into the message board. She says the password does not work and she keeps getting messages about java something and other confusing things. Seems she has been following the link that i have on my geocities page to get there… only i did not put a link on my geicities page. She said, yes i did, and went to my page to tell me what it was called… and there it was, just like she said… whiteboard.  🙂   So we talked and Carrie is now a registered white family message board user.

I had thought about putting a whiteboard on the family site. Had forgotten about that…..

I’ve seen comments around here about not seeing updates on a website, waiting a while, coming back and seeing so many new posts it’s almost embarrassing. Well, I’m going to help you out by giving you a little bit of online education. MMmmmm…. edumication…Before we begin, I’m going to make a few assumptions. First, you use firefox. Internet Explorer 6 need not apply. (and, unless they make some changes, Internet Explorer 7 can go away too). Mozilla/Opera/Safari have things similiar to what I’m going to talk about, but I don’t use those browsers. Second, you know how to use bookmarks. If you don’t… wow. You must have a great memory. Third, you are ready to learn about the wonders of RSS Feeds.

Ready? Let’s go get some learnin on!

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Carrie just called….. said that Nathan called her to tell her that Patrick is in the hospital. He (Pat) thinks he had a heart attack. Pain in the chest, shortness of breath, numb left arm… sounds like a heart attack to me. Of course i can’t reach Pat. They make people turn their cell phones off in hospitals and i don’t know where he is (or if he has even been officially checked in). Apparently this happened about an hour ago.
It’s not unexpected, but it is still upsetting.