When I was in college, the Internet was a much smaller place. I went to a college that had a healthy community of computer geeks. I found my way into their lives on a whim. I was taking a required basic computer class when our teacher told us about the campus BBS. My first thought was, “that sounds like a great way to keep up with what is going on campus.” While BBS did stand for Bulletin Board System, the computer version is way different than the one posted in the school student center. So I logged on my first time expecting to see a virtual bulletin board with events and such but what I found was chat rooms, subject boards(think early forum posts), and some files you could download. I also found many wonderful friends from that BBS – so I’m glad I was curious enough to log in and brave enough to stay logged in after realizing this was totally different than what I had expected.

Many friends I met were into computers – which make sense that you would find those interested in computers logged onto and chatting with other computer users. One person I met was a guy who was in grad school at the time and super good with computers. He already had a high tech job and had written his own BBS. It was through him that I conducted my first security test – hacking into another friend’s fake BBS account.

One friend had an alias – well he had several but he had one I really liked. Her name was Ginger and she was flirty and fabulous. Females on the BBS system were a rare thing – so chances are if you were talking to a sexy, flirty female, that was really a guy who probably had some deep-rooted issues. But back to Ginger. She was cool and fun. It was also an account he would log into a lot. So I thought it would be fun to log in – pretending to be Ginger when he was on his real account. He would have no idea who it was. at one time I knew Ginger’s password but he had changed it without telling me the new one. So my other friend helped me pull this off by cracking Ginger’s password. I remember he used some software (maybe password finder…who knows) to get into the account. The program seemed to run through many different password options and it took about 30 minutes to break in. Oh but what a feeling of accomplishment! It was a lot of fun. Some days I think if only I had been more interested in the technology behind the BBS and not just chatting for hours then I would know all this stuff I am trying to learn years later.

So to begin learning, I am reading a lot of books. Then I hope to work through the exercises and then move onto more books. Then maybe I can get some real-world experience. If only I had paid more attention back then, I could be some sort of Software Testing Superstar today.

Me: Oh look Rae! They have a small commode just for kids. You should use that one.

Rae begins to use the bathoom. I continue to speak. See look how cute!

Rae Take my picture

I take picture with camera and then show it to her.

Rae Don’t put that on Facebook

Me Oh I’m not putting that on Facebook..I don’t put everything on Facebook..this is going on the blog..(heh..I didn’t actually say the last part..I just thought it really loudly..)

Rae is six and a half years old. She has definitely reached that age where I can’t (or am asked!) not to share everything about her life with the Internet-at-large. It’s bittersweet because on one hand she is growing up and that’s great to see her develop into her own person. It’s sad because I’ve lost a lot of my blogging material.

At least some things she still does she wants me to put in Facebook. Still there seems to be more and more that she wants to keep private. Guess I will need to read a book or something for new material.

It all started off innocent enough. Class began and we went through our lesson. As I was getting the craft ready, one little boy(the quiet one for the first part of the year) hits the other boy. It was in a playful manner but we just can’t let such things go. So my husband asks the little boy to apologize to the boy he hit. He refuses. What? You can’t apologize? Are you serious? How do we handle this? So after a few minutes my husband put him in time out. Then once that was over the little boy didn’t want to come out of time out and was quiet the rest of class. This behavior isn’t like him – so I’m chalking it up to something happening outside of class that we do not know about. He was playing when he hit as he has brothers and is likely they play rough. I think each week he gets more comfortable around us. I have seen him outside of Sunday School and he is pretty active -doesn’t like to sit still.

Or at least I hope next week is better. After this year, we are taking a break from teaching as we have killed the attendance for any class that we have ever taught. Last year we had two – that is including our daughter! When we taught high school, we would have three – five would be an almost full house.

So the Sunday School incident was enough to unnerve us but then our daughter was really defiant about attending church. Thank God for Children’s Church though. Next Sunday will hopefully be better. It seems some Sundays you can tell when the kids have had something sweet to eat for breakfast. Maybe that is what happened. What a terrible idea to give your kid a doughnut before they go to Sunday School to sit and listen for an hour. Just don’t do it. We don’t give your kids sweets right before you pick them up.

Only a few more weeks and we will be civilians again. No more Sunday School for a good long time.

One show I recently started watching is Shameless starring William H. Macy who we both love as an actor. He will always be James Sandecker to us as we love Sahara. But anyway, back to Shameless. It stars Macy as a father of five who stays drunk or high most of the time. It is up to his older kids – especially Fiona- to provide for the family. His character really is shameless.

So we both watched three episodes – it was a marathon of shows since they were getting ready for the season finale. My husband seemed to watch it but didn’t seem to care for it. So I thought I had found a show I can watch by myself. Well the finale rolls around and we miss it but it re-airs later in the week. I set the DVR to record but wound up watching it in the bedroom. My husband watches something else that he is not that interested in because the DVR is set to record two shows. I tell him he could watch this and he is like “not without you..” Well at first I took this as Shameless had become one of our shows like Game of Thrones – one we watch together and get mad if the other watches an episode without us. But he might have meant it as he didn’t want to watch it if I wasn’t in there since I would enjoy it. But I really think he meant it the first scenario.

It is so hard to find shows that we both don’t like since our tastes are so similar. Sigh. Maybe I will have to find some chick flick movies to watch. He won’t complain if I watch without him – well at least for most chick flick movies.

Now I am ready to make another change and I am seeing that I cannot make a change until I update my skill set. This is where it gets tough – deciding which direction to go. Do I go back to school to learn or do it my own? I think I will compromise and learn online. I won’t be going for a degree but there are so many websites with good information either for free or a nominal price. It will take me longer to do it this way since I have to overcome my procrastination tendencies. That is one good thing about school – it helps you keep a steady pace.

It is frustrating to know a lot but that the knowledge is so dated it’s really useless. This shows me that you should never stop learning. Hopefully I can regain my collegiate learning ability on my own. It will be cheaper and work better with my schedule. If I take too long, then I may have to go back just for the discipline.

Each day she watched one disc. There were only three. When the third disc finished, she was very disappointed. Apparently the show ended without Link and possibly others finishing a quest to somewhere. I’m not sure exactly what was left undone but I do know that Rae was very disappointed. She doesn’t want to even watch the series again calling it stupid. I think she is mad that it is unfinished. It reminded me of her Daddy and the movie City of Angels with Nicolas Cage. In the movie, Nike Cage is an angel who helps a woman find a reason to live. (SPOILER ALERT) He then falls in love with her, gives up being an angel for her and then dies a horrible death. My husband hates that movie. Well he loves it because it is so sweet but the ending just sucks.

So now Rae has Zelda and her Daddy has City of Angels. They now have something they can discuss – how stupid endings can ruin a show for you.

Bought a New TV. Hubby’s bonus came in so we got a huge television for the living room. So very nice.

Sorted many, many L5R cards L5R stands for Legend of the Five Rings – a collectible card game. We bought a case of cards. We are part of a local gaming club and supply cards for it. Also we plan to see cards on eBay. Luckily we had friends who helped sort. It still took some time and was tiring.

Cleaned up My husband and I gave up laziness for Lent. So this weekend we both tried to push through the desire just to veg out and got up to do something. We did some cleaning outside and cleaned the vehicle. We also got some cluttered cleared inside although there is still much to do.

Bought a laptop I have been wanted a new laptop for a while and have been saving my money. I finally had enough for one so I picked one up this weekend. I blog a lot more(and I think better!) on a laptop – maybe it’s being comfortable that does the trick? I don’t know. But I can also use the laptop in my software testing – so that is a plus. The more devices – the more opportunities to test.

That was basically our weekend. It rained most of Saturday but Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. This week I hope to tackle some clutter and have less to do on the weekend.

We bought The Lorax since we are going to see the movie this weekend. I thought it would be fun to read the book and then see a movie – something we always try to do. But there are several Dr. Suess books that are available for the Kindle Fire as an app. Most are $1.99. The Lorax was $2.99.

About a year ago, I went back to work full-time. The stress of getting behind on bills and seeing no way out was getting too much to bear. Landing a full-time job helped us get back on track financially while relieving a lot of my stress.

Now that I have been working, I am beginning to feel more stress again from several sources. Money will always be a stress but now I feel stress from work. My job isn’t very challenging and I have a lot of down time. Maybe too much down time as I daydream of all the things I need to be doing at the house. While working has helped us financially, I have gained back nearly all my weight I previously lost. Eating out and little time at home has left us getting fatter and our house messier. I would much prefer just the money stress than all of this – hence the reason I really want to earn money at home.

I was earning money at home but when you work for yourself, you are always searching for the next opportunity. It can be frustrating because you will apply for many jobs but only get a few. We will make it work – we did it before. This time will be different with less bills and a money plan that is reachable on just one salary.

So working has been a blessing but not a complete one. There will always be life stresses. I’m happiest when I’m at home even if it stresses me just to have to depend upon myself to make money.

I was beginning to wonder if we would have any kids – so I’m thrilled we have a girl finally after many years of trying. My fertile years are fewer so I have little hope that we will have another child. But you never know – it could happen.

Before using Raesmom, I had another nickname that was not common at all – hence I could usually register on forums pretty easily. It seemed to grow in popularity and was harder to use. Sometimes I do run across Raesmom that is taken but I can usually find something I can use that is similar.

But let’s hope that if kid #2 (and who knows..kid #3!) ever come along, they will not take it my choice of username personally.