Collecting stats - for them or us?

 OK -- this new computer is pretty cool and YES -- I have gone back to an English keyboard. Good grief -- that was painful to write! The little camera that recognizes me instantly is amazing! No more passwords! Well, the passwords are there, but it looks for my face first. I love it! 

However, we do have one slight issue, and right now, it's a big issue. After all the conversions, it appears my contact folder didn't get brought over properly. I'm not sure if anything came over or if it's using an older file, but my distribution lists are NOT THERE!!! This is a big problem, as I need to send emails to my groups this weekend. 

NO contact groups!!

And I attempted to start a new contact group, and it's different, and I wasn't sure how to make it work! Of course!!! 

I'll fire up the old computer to get the emails out, and then I'll have to search for the file. This is NOT the first time this has happened. Thankfully, I don't have many lists, but I don't have printouts of them, so I'll need to find a recent email and use it as a reference. Not ideal. 

And that darn contact list isn't shared among my computers, which is a real hassle. I'll have to see if I can find a solution to that because it sure would be handy to have the distribution lists available on both computers. At least, it seems to be only one glitch, so I can find a workaround, and then I want a fix for it. 

And I have to deactivate EQ8 on the old computer anyway, so I'll fire it up this morning and see what progress I can make. 

And the way pictures get downloaded from email is a bit weird. It happens on my laptop (Windows 11 thing), but I saved them one by one, which can be time-consuming. I think I might have it figured out - an extra step, but that's OK. I'll hopefully figure it out better as time goes on. The bottom line is that the email syncing process is almost instantaneous, which is so much better than the old computer! 

I'll bet in a couple of months (weeks maybe), I won't even remember how I did things with Windows 10. I hate it when they change things, especially when the old version is much easier and more logical than the new way. Alas, the saying "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" doesn't always apply to computer people who are trying to find NEW ways to do things when the old way was working just fine. I guess they have to justify people moving to new software! 

I feel like I got beaten up yesterday. I started by seeing Brooke at the gym, and we agreed that I need to do more strength training, which aligns with my 2026 goals. Lots of arms, legs, and I was somewhat tired after the workout. Then I had a massage in the afternoon. It was not planned that way; it just happened. My body was so tender, I thought I was going to die! But I survived, and I need to drink lots of water to get all the lactic acid out of my body! 

I measured my BMI on the machine at the gym, and it's higher than the one I get from the manual calculation. Depending on the chart you look at, I'm either at the top end of normal or considered overweight! Yep --- it's not necessarily about weight or size, it's the fat percentage, and mine is not good at this point in time. Too flipping much sugar! Well, I'm on track to make that change, so we'll see what happens. At least I have a goal, and that's what counts. 

Speaking of goals, it's that time of year when everything you belong to that tracks your stats has a recap. Here's my recap stats for Geocaching. Yes—I still do it from time to time, but obviously not every day! I like the fact that the day with the most finds was when I was on vacation, which is usually when I want to geocache. Three countries this year!! 

And my stats on books. Sixty-two books read - some of those are non-fiction, as I include them all in this list. Others may read more or less. Guess what? Who cares how many books you read? We all lead different lives and do different things for pleasure! Me? I've always loved books. And reading a bit more than one a week works for me. 

But I got a chuckle over this - the most shelved book. What exactly does that mean anyway? Almost 6 million others shelved Verity. Good lord, I can't even remember what that book was about! But guess what|? I remember 438 days. That is non-fiction, and it was wild!!! But not very wide read, although I read Verity near the beginning of the year, and 438 Days was recently published. 

While I was having my massage, Misty and I were chatting about what was going on in the world. She's in the process of buying a new dishwasher and is finding it extremely challenging to find one that isn't Wi-Fi enabled. Can you tell me why I would need my dishwasher to be Wi-Fi enabled? My dishwasher, which we've had for a while, has a delay start, so it's a no-brainer to run it overnight. There is no reason for the dishwasher to be Wi-Fi enabled, except for the manufacturer to collect data on us. The same way those two companies collect data on what we read and what we do for activities. 

We sacrifice our privacy for pretty pictures and lots of stats. If you are handy with an EXCEL spreadsheet, you can do all the data collecting yourself, and it's totally private! I know several people who are very handy with spreadsheets. I guess I'm lazy that way. 

But a dishwasher, or even a microwave, with Wi-Fi? Why? BTW - she said they found one without Wi-Fi, but it's more expensive - go figure! 

I'm going to have to move the packing materials from the computer soon. But that doesn't distract Murphy from sleeping in her bed. I do not know why she insists on sleeping in this small bed. It's obviously way too small for her, but she loves it! Removing the packaging is a job for later today. I can't even put it in our recycling cart because it's full and there's more in the garage to probably fill it again! 

The new computer packaging

I finally got my squash soup made. Do I follow a recipe? What's a recipe? I just grabbed some stuff from the fridge and added it. I tossed in an entire huge onion and a whole heart of celery. Cut it up and sauteed it, and that worked for me. I threw in the remaining sage and rosemary from the fridge, and it is yummy! 

Squash soup for lunch!

For some reason, it was a lazy day AGAIN!!! I need to get out of my funk, or I'm never going to get any homework done on time! The real deadlines are next weekend, so I feel like I can coast!!! Good grief—why do I need pressure to make myself work?

Anyway, the next quilt is loaded on the long arm, and the plan is to quilt it today. 

And then I went upstairs to work on the next jigsaw puzzle. This is a 300-piece puzzle, so it's not that challenging. 

It took no time to get all the pieces laid out - I can't seem to use those trays, but once I move onto the larger puzzles, I'm sure they'll come in handy. I separated the border while positioning the pieces. 

The border pieces are sorted

In no time at all, I had the border done. 

And before I went to bed last night, the puzzle was done! This was super easy because you could almost work in rows from the top down. It's missing one piece. I'll mark it on a note in the box and pass it along or donate it back to the thrift shop. 

Puzzle done! 

The next one is a 1000-piece puzzle, so that should stop me for a bit. While the shapes of this one were much more regular, some of them were still wonky, but not nearly as bad as the Santa puzzle. 

I even managed to get some sewing done, although not nearly as much as I would have liked, but I'm OK. I think the issue was that I didn't prep these pieces like I should have, and I wasn't looking forward to dealing with the bits. But I'm over the worst part now, and it shouldn't take long to finish and move on!!

I really like listening to an audiobook while sewing, and that helps me to focus. I'm listening to a Jack Reacher book, and I love how the author (now authors as his son is helping him write) describes the logic of everything! I love logic, and Jack Reacher is a very logical character! 

I spotted this quote on the internet, and I LOVE it. 

Even if we don't accomplish a lot in a day, it's OK. It's the accumulation of all the little things that add up, like reading a book. If you wait until the end of the year to do anything, you won't make it happen. But if you read 20 pages a day, then yes, you can read 30 books in a year or whatever else your goal is. That's how I look at life. I don't beat myself up if I can't accomplish my goal that day. I look at why, determine whether the goal was realistic, and make changes for the next goal-setting exercise! I don't always learn, but I try! 

And now for the QUILTsocial post. I drew inspiration from a small pack of buttons I spotted online. And this is what I came up with. Enjoy!!!! Remember: let your hands do the work and keep your head out of the process. Our brains tend to overthink everything, and that's not good! 

There's one more project that I'll share tomorrow. |But the best part of all those posts is that all the projects are complete!!! Yeah!!!!

And on that note, I'm out of here to try and find some distribution lists. 

Have a wonderful day!!!

Ciao!!!