Bon Scrapatit Designs: MODERN DAY SANTA??? HO, HO, HO, WHAT DO YOU KNOW!

And what before my failing eyes should appear? Uh, uhm ..... well, it surely t'was not a jolly 'ol man dressed up in red, nor was he driving a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer! How about the DHL delivery "young" man dressed in blue, driving a BRIGHT yellow van powered by eight, somewhat smallish, GAS guzzling cylin-DEERS!!! ROFL! WOO HOO, YEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW, my computer IS here!!!

Sorry for the blurry photo. I was walking towards the gate while keeping my fur babes behind me and trying to snap a photo of Santa!!! I told the gentleman that he forgot to wear his Santa cap and he nicely apologized while explaining to me that they are, unfortunately, issued dress blues! ROFL! So nice to know the OVERWORKED delivery people still have their senses of humor intact!!!

I've had to hold onto this since my "un" birthday, which was on the 11th and the VERY day that my new computer arrived! It was a LONG hard decision, but Robert said, "you need it, get it!" as I spent all I had and more on just a new CPU (no monitor)! I am EVER thankful as I can finally begin to become productive once again and, hopefully, not suffer too much of a setback from being SO far behind!

I wanted SO badly to share with y'all, but I knew that box would have to sit, untouched until Robert could bring me an extra monitor from work. He had to ask his boss, which he figured would bring a positive outcome as there are THREE 17-inch monitors just sitting and collecting dust! Hey, they can do that over here at my house just as well!!! ROFL!

SO, my sweet man brought the monitor home the following evening MINUS the VGA and power cords!!! He just knew he was forgetting something! *big grin* Robert ALWAYS looks forward to his Friday and the weekend to be at home. He offered to take a trip back to his office Saturday morning and I replied, "Honey, I do not want you going ALL that way when I can VERY easily wait for your arrival home from work Monday evening!" So, wait I did and I spent the next several days trying to figure out HOW I was going to get my CU files onto the new computer since I did not have the resources to purchase a transfer cable or upgrade to a NIC card. Hmmmm .... what IS a girl to do? It would take hours and days to burn to DVD all I needed.

Well, as I was just preparing to start a burn session, only to find Nero being completely uncooperative and even more so than ever, a LIGHT went off in my little pee brain and I thought, if I have both of these computers hooked up to my DSL router, why can I not somehow share files between them?

My dear friend, OSTEN WILKINS, was on Yahoo and has been working hard preparing DELIGHTFUL goodies for ALL of SCRAPLAND, so I VERY quietly sent him a message asking if I could ask him a QUICK technical question. He, of course, graciously accommodated me and within a matter of several minutes, I was setting my old computer up as a host machine for my new computer to share files with!!! WOO HOO! I was not only feeling GOOD because I could finally, and within a reasonable amount of time, start moving files to my new designing machine, but I had learned to network two computers together!!! THANK YOU OSTEN!

Now, the LIGHT that went off in my head was after I GOOGLED how to connect two PC's and was unable to find a good "how-to" but did come away with the idea that the safest and smoothest way to do this was with Ethernet cables which is EXACTLY the setup I already had via my DSL router! I looked at a couple of diagrams, listened to an audio tutorial built into Windows XP (have NEVER used any of them before now!) and I was GOOD-TO-GO!!! VOILA! Here is my new working arrangement with which I am MOST pleased at the present time. I hope to eventually get a larger screen since my eyes are "older" and a new EHD for the new system as I don't wish to risk transferring the older ones over for a number of reasons. Don't wish to rock the boat any more than it has been if you know what I mean!!! He, he ...

LOL! Now the two mice side-by-side are NO problem, but I do have a good juggle
with the two keyboards and tryng to make sure I am typing on the correct one at
any given moment!!! Yes Vicki, now you can get a good visual of my clamoring
around when you and I start chatting on Skype!!! Or any of you that I chat with on
Yahoo! My goal is to one day move my computers to their own room and back to
my dearly missed L-shaped desk setup. My space is VERY limited here in my
corner of our bedroom, however, it has been a MOST convenient spot for all of
us as our bedroom sits right off of the great room, so I am never far from view or
out of hearing range! A rather convenient arrangement for Robert and the boys!

And, yes, of course, there is the fact that I am now using Vista!!! So far, so good and I am LOVING Vista. I did have to update software so that it could handle my digital camera and I may have to do that with other hardware once I start moving it over, but it was an EASY fix!

I am a self-learner and I remember thinking I was not going to like the move from Windows 98 to XP, but took to it like a duck-to-water and the same is happening with the move from XP to Vista. Vista really has simplified a lot of things I think and since one of my BIG troubles with my other computer was Nero crashing my system every time I used it (even after several uninstall and reinstalls), Vista has it's own DVD burning capabilities which I am fixing to try later on tonight AFTER I finish decorating! *giggle*

I have some VERY exciting things coming about in the new year and I shall share those with you AFTER Christmas as I know we are all gearing up for the BIG day and I just wish the rest of the days to be filled with small gifts for y'all! Today, I leave you with the final two acrylic frames in both RED and GREEN! I am SO happy that y'all are enjoying them so much! Thank you! They are being added to my *Dreaming of a Bright Christmas* folder, which is part of the *Walking in a Scrappy Wonderland* collaboration with Vicki Parker, Mel Hains, Dawn Mills and myself. You NEVER know what might be added to this already INCREDIBLE collection of scrapping delights!

I was hoping to see the guestbook filling up with layouts, greetings and/or Christmas cards, however, this girl TOTALLY understands that this time of the year brings about TONS of goodies to be had ALL over SCRAPLAND, which calls for LOTS of downloading and organization, along with your preparations at home, so I am hoping that you will begin to share YOUR masterpieces with me in the coming new year!

Love to all and I will see you again tomorrow, God willing!

BIG HUGS,
Linda :)

P.S. I am WAY behind on e-mails and comments and hope to get going with those ASAP. I have decided, for the time being, to leave my e-mails and IM's on the older computer and to use the new one mainly for designing. I have to tell you that after becoming accustomed to getting up and going out of the room to do other things while waiting for Photoshop to open, files to open and/or close and running actions, I was jaw-droppin' SHOCKED to watch the first action run on my new system!!! WOWEEE! No wonder I was ALWAYS behind! Kind of like a putt-putt car that won't do more than 45 MPH and it taking what seems like FOREVER to get one to their destination!!! And I've been there before too! LOL!