I’ve had a headache for going on two days now, but the closer it gets to the holiday break, the better I’m feeling. Yesterday I picked up the new glasses I’d ordered earlier this month and was planning to work from home the rest of the day, except I could not because my remote connection to the office was not working. It had been working on Sunday; sometime between then and Tuesday night when I checked it, things changed, and not at my end. That night, I sent an e-mail to one of the guys listed in the troubleshooting document, the guy who’d been sending e-mails out periodically over the last few weeks regarding changes he was making to the VPN. Wednesday morning I checked before I went to the eye doctor and saw an e-mail from the chief system engineer that he was having the same problem I was, and I was hopeful that meant it would be solved very soon. Not so much. The guy I’d e-mailed forwarded my mail to the users group and suggested a couple things to try but ignored the part of my mail where I’d said the connection was working for me until he removed an option in the applications list. After getting back from the eye doctor, I loaded up my laptop and drove the hour to the office, where I connected to the visitor wireless network and spent way too much time upgrading everything I could think to upgrade, installing a new browser, uninstalling old versions of things, and so on, trying to connect through the VPN after each change and reboot. Eventually I got rather snippy in e-mail and asked the guy who’d taken away the option that had been working for me to put it back, even though he firmly believed the root cause of the problem was the Java install on my laptop (and the chief’s PC). He put the option back and boom—I was able to connect. Coincidence? I think not. I wish I’d pushed the issue earlier in the day but really didn’t think I’d get too far if he was brushing off the chief, too. Of course all that screwing around meant I had to stay late to work on my real work, so I was not a happy girl.

I’m also having some trouble adapting to my new glasses, which surprised Mr. Karen since he had no trouble at all with his last year. Yesterday I felt just a little queasy at times as things went in and out of focus as I moved my eyes around. It’s better today, but I think it’s going to take me a while to get used to having to move my head to do things like see the map screen in my car instead of just glancing in that direction. I’m definitely not speeding the process along by going back to my old glasses sometimes, but it was either that or not work because my head hurt too much, so I chose work. If that’s the biggest problem I’ve got in my life, I’m doing pretty darn well.

On this date in 2009: True Then, True Now, in which I shared a drawing I did when I was small.

2008: Pastel Jungle Quilt, in which I shared a finished quilt, back when I finished quilts.

2007: Contented, in which I was having a happy holiday moment.

2006: Mr. Toasty, in which I was very amused by a hangtag, and One Glove, All Alone, in which I was not at all amused by my own failure to pay attention to my belongings.

2005: Winter Count—September, in which I remembered being bruised.

2004: Snow Day, in which I went to work when I probably should have stayed home.

2003: Rail Fence Baby Quilt, in which I shared another finished project.

2002: Quilting Outside the Lines, in which I wrote about improvisational quiltmaking.