It's funny how my patience gets thinner as I get older. I think I'm having a bad day and then I read some of the blogs from my friends and fellow authors and it really puts things in perspective.

Last year, I needed a new printer. My first book was in the process of being published and I wanted it to be perfect. Every stage of the editing, I would print it out to makes sure that I could see it. I painstakingly numbered everything and made sure I didn't miss a thing. My six year old printer protested and died just when my editor sent me the final copy for review. Augh! I rushed out and got an HP Officejet Pro 8600. Absolutely loved it. Since I've always had such good luck with HP, I didn't feel that I needed a warranty. This was in May of 2012.

Hence, my next book was getting ready to go through the entire editing process, due out in February of this year. This printer died right before Christmas. What? All I did was change the black ink cartridge and it made some really weird sounds. Then it flashed the error message: Print Read Error. Contact HP. So I did. They told me it was the Print Head cartridge and they would send me a new one that I could install myself. Well, I don't know about you, but I've had plenty of experience working with fixing printers from my old job working Help Desk. You don't want to mess with it. So, I packed it up carefully and took it back to Office Max. Since I'm there at least once a week, they know me. They very graciously swapped it for a new one and this time I did purchase a warranty for an additional thirty dollars.

Three weeks ago, I went to copy something and I got the error message that the paper was not the correct size. Oh, I forgot to mention that I let my daughter print out one hundred pictures of a concert she had gone to, on my printer. She exhausted my ink supply and I had to go back to Office Max and buy close to eighty dollars of ink. (She did pay for it.) So, I asked myself this question; did printing the photo paper cause the printer not to read the right size paper? Hmm...

I printed out the book I'm working on and everything worked fine. So, I decided to scan what I wanted to copy and then print it out. By this time, every time I would print something, the printer started making some really weird noises. I started to get an error message; Please choose to print in black because Cyan needs to be replaced. Really? Didn't I just replace it? So, from the old days at Help Desk, I unplugged the printer, took out and reinserted the brand new cartridges and booted her up again. Lo and behold. Print Read Error, Please contact HP.

After cursing like a sailor, I went up into the attic which is over one hundred degrees in the Dallas summer heat, to retrieve the original box. I packed it carefully again and debated. Do I really want another one of these HP printers? I mulled my options; I have over eighty dollars worth of ink that is sitting in a broken printer and it seems like I'll be getting a new printer every six months. Okay, I'll get the same one.

When I walked into Office Max with the printer, the clerk (he's the one who sold it to me) just shook his head. Without saying a word, he went to the back and got me a brand new one right of the truck. We both agreed that maybe the third time is a charm? We shall see.

Technology, don't you just love it?

It was a glorious week...filled with rain and cool temps for the month of July. I see a lower electric bill and also my beautiful summertime plants are very happy. Also, the weather forced me to concentrate on my writing which I did plenty.

Also, I read about three books and I am now very good about doing reviews. I try to find the good in things. I might not like a book, but that doesn't make the author bad. So, one of the books I read this week, I thought was really good. Romance, lots of angst between the hero and heroine, so I went to Amazon to write my review, I checked the other reviews only to see that they had only given this author one star...really? Did we read the same book? I thought it was really good.

Then I thought about movie reviews and such. One of the movies I want to see was rated as a D minus. Is that going to change my mind about going to see it? I'd like to make my own decision, thank you.

Then, I read the review about Beyoncé's Dallas concert where the reviewer just totally trashed her. Did he have to?

Then, I admit, I am addicted to TMZ as being my one hour of down time. This Friday's episode dealt with people's reaction to Harvey and Charles. I can't believe the hateful things people wrote about to them about them.

I guess I belong to a lost generation who tries to find the good in life. I think it's called, Pollyana.

It's raining! Yahoo! I can't tell you when the last time we had rain. The good thing is, this system will hang around for a couple of days. We are down over five inches for the year.

The news this morning has been relentless; Zimmerman acquitted, riots going on all over, Glee star found dead in Vancouver. I think I might go back to bed!

I am still dog sitting for my neighbor. Cute dog, but as usual, the dog isn't eating very well. Out of the three days I've been seeing her, she has had one bowl of dog food and maybe three carrot sticks? I know my dog didn't eat well when he was in the kennel, so I think it's their way of grieving of being left home alone. She hides in her kennel even though I've turned on the television to watch a show hoping she would come out. She will come out to look at me and then runs back to her kennel and looks so sad. I'm a sucker when it comes to animals.

I am getting close to finishing the draft of my book in progress. I am so excited! I actually got the idea of how to end it in the middle of the night. Two am, to be precise! I ran upstairs to my office and wrote for a good two hours until I started getting sleepy, but that's probably the best time to write. Of course my family thinks I've gone off the deep end. You know? They could be right!

Sunday, July 7

As I blogged last week, my office was in the process of being painted. It is finally done. Painted that is. My husband took a morning of golf today and it was well deserved. When he gets back, he will hang pictures, put my bookcases back and then I finally will have an office in working form. What has been most detrimental is I haven't been able to write since this started. While unpacking my bookcases, I stumbled upon an unused diary for writers that my sister in law had given me back in 2002 when I wrote my first book. Using that, I have been able to jot down ideas and thoughts that I would normally type on my laptop.

You ask, why can't you hang the pictures yourself? Well, you haven't met my husband. I have not mastered his skill of measuring the wall with a ruler and marking the center of the wall with a pencil mark. The pictures themselves are then measured and then marked exactly where they are to put on the wall. After the pictures have been hung, a level is used to make sure the pictures are hung correctly. God forbid the wall is crooked which we have found a lot of times is the case!

Well anyway, I'm back in business!