Fried computer???

Okay, so I know fried green tomatoes, and my favorite meal is home fried chicken, but today, I found out about fried computers. Minor damage to my computer was a tiny piece of plastic that held a metal clip in place. Plastic breaks from plugging and unplugging the power cord. Metal clip dances around inside the computer and "fries the motherboard". Okay, so I don't know what that means. All I needed to hear is that all I have to do is buy the guy lunch to pay him for the work he's done. And, give him a credit card and he thinks he can replace the laptop with one just like it for ~$400, so we just pull out the hard drive and replace it with my hard drive and I won't be able to tell the difference...well, he pointed out that the new one wouldn't be quite so dusty (hmmmm, I sense a pointed comment from the IT guy). I can live with that.

My Mom comes to town today. No plans. Don't know when we'll be able to get together. At the mercy of the schedules of everyone else. So, I've made a few plans of my own. I'll work in the mornings, be off in the afternoons and available in the evenings, so long as I don't have to cook for everybody. Now, this kind of fly by the seat of your pants planning is not what we do. We live on a schedule because that's what makes our family work. We have a going to bed time and a getting up time and a brushing your teeth time, and especially we have regularly scheduled eating times. Because Sydney knows what's expected, she can meet those expectations. When she came to us, she wasn't used to the whole concept of expectations. No one told her what they expected, they just punished her when she didn't do it. So, the first thing we did was put expectations in place. You can expect to eat at this time every day, so you don't need to hide food in your room. In return, we expect you to keep your bathroom clean and make your bed. Hey, it worked then and it works now. My birth family doesn't have those kind of expectations. They're fine just playing it by ear. And, eating whenever. That's not even a luxury I wish for.

So, I'll do my best to both play it by ear and honor my family schedules. And, everyone will give a little and hopefully, we'll have a nice visit. And, then we'll get back to real life...except our house is very clean and that will be a nice addition to real life.

Y'all take care and have a great Tuesday. I'll see ya round the web. Lane