the last 3 days have been annoying. time lost, various levels pain, computer problems, very little writing done much less anything else, and a class got canceled because the people who signed up didn't show. i am not so much an unhappy camper right now as a real frustrated one. i'm 3 days behind on everything i had planned to get done this week. i could probably let most of this go if it weren't all happening at once, but with everything coming on at one time, it's hard not to be a little ball of irritation (well, okay, considering my size, make that a big ball).

the computer, however, thing is really getting on my nerves right now. my sound keeps going out and i have to keep reinstalling the damn sound card. not that sound is majorly important on a pc with a cd-rom that needs to be replaced, but it's nice to hear when i get email and i'm away from the machine. and my norton's isn't updating anymore for some reason. i've run every check i can think of and nothing's wrong. i finally broke down and purchased norton's utilities 2004, even though it apparently isn't as good as previous versions and apparently is causing problems on other people's machines. i'm hoping i'm one of the lucky ones and it doesn't trash out my machine. if it does, i don't know what i'm going to do - i need to be able to update my virus definitions. i realize my machine and my version of norton's is 4 years old, but jeeze, i PAID for the damn subscription updates and they SHOULD last till june. to make matters worse, my husband's machine DOES update and he's running the same version of norton's i am, but i can't call to ask what the deal is because they long since stopped providing support for my version.

add to that the machine is just plain acting more sluggish than usual. i did try to uninstall, but it couldn't find some uninstall folder and wouldn't install. so i used the disk and it did an uninstall and reinstall for me. now everything is listed in the updates window (whereas before all it had listed was the live update), but it still won't update. hubby's machine just updated with new virus definitions today, so i'm at a loss and don't know what to do next. there's an online virus checker, maybe i better go there and see if there's a virus that got through somehow. wouldn't that just suck? (wouldn't that just be my luck?) i've also considered uninstalling all my "extra" programs and reinstalling one at a time, but that's an awful lot of work and i really don't want to do that unless i absolutely have to. (anyone know how to clean up the start up window in msconfig for win98 s.e. in case i do uninstall and reinstall everything?)

ever feel like someone is just out to make your life tougher than it needs to be? i swear.

as for the rest of the week, a lot of running around combined with a lot of standing around. the two main things were to get linnorm's and my signatures on our child support agreement notarized and an official copy of our ssi income for the housing people. income contingent rent requires verified income, and i have to go through this certification process every year, and provide documentation for every change of $100 or more. we tried to get the child support thing notarized on friday but the place we usually go to has been closed down and the nearest local one we saw was closed on friday's. we went in and told them we still had to get that and the ssi paper thing done, they told me to bring it in this week.

ssi is a freaking pain in the butt (and, in my case, the back). the paper i was supposed to get filled out and turned in says on it that the person verifying the income is supposed to mail or fax it back to the hud office. would social security do that? noooooooooooo. could i just drop the stupid piece of paper off and leave. you guessed it, noooooooooo. i had to stand in a line. we were fortunate in that the line was shorter than usual, but that's not saying much. we had to stand there for an hour instead of 2 or 3 hours. at least they had most the windows open this time. i get so sick of seeing these long lines and 3 out of 8 windows open and a huge group of people standing around in the back conversing and doing not much else. by the time we got our of there, my back hurt so bad i could barely stand straight.

then we were off to find a new notary. the hud office gave us another place to try so yesterday we went looking for that, but they gave us the wrong address. we eventually found it, but i think we'll be looking into another place for next year. it was a bit farther than we really should have had to go. the good note, it cost less than it has in the past (well, probably comes out to about the same when you consider gas).

fortunately, taking in the finished paperwork wasn't any big deal. i did have to go and stand again, but was able to lean against a nice counter and was taken care of right away. she looked it over, made sure i didn't need anything back, paper clipped it all together and sent me on my merry way. i'll get another letter when the rental agreement is ready to sign. unfortunately i'm sure out rent will go up since my son's ssi went up $30. it really doesn't take much. we'll still be paying a nice low rent for a 4 bedroom townhouse, especially for our area, so i'm not complaining too much.

all this running around took us almost 3 hours and by the time we were done i was exhausted, hurting, and sick to my stomach (more than likely the pain combined with not eating before we left). i came home, ate, and collapsed on the couch for the rest of the day, taking some hefty pain killers to help with the back pain. so, no writing. heck, i barely even managed pay attention to email. monday and tuesday were wiped out from a storm headache. and today, some of the tiredness is lingering, but i'm determined to get some things done, especially since i have some lectures i need to work on for the classes i teach, but i've always found it hard to get motivated when i've not really done much of anything for a few days.

but at least i'm trying. trying is good. i'll build up some momentum (hopefully), get something done, and tomorrow will be a better day for it. i'm a little unhappy that my writing goals for the week will probably not be made because of a bad start to the week, but at least i'm getting somethingdone. gotta celebrate that forward progress, even if it's only a little bit, because even little bits add up.