Yep I'm still here and with a new release! As for the lack of updates...I have been having trouble getting signed into my blog on my husband's laptop. Why am I using his laptop instead of my own? Well let me tell you...warning though this could get a little long. lol :)
The last couple of months have been one thing after another with my laptop and unfortunately it's still not over. It all started back in April... I was busy designing a new kit when my screen went dark. It was late at night so I decided to just shut it down and deal with it the next day. Plus I was hoping that would be all that it needed to clear up the problem. Unfortunately it was not that easy of a fix. :( When I got home from school the next day and started up the laptop the screen was fine for a little bit but then quickly darkened again. So I hooked it up to my desktop monitor so I could try to see if I could "google" a solution for it. I found several ideas to try but none of them worked. It stayed lit for the rest of the night until I was ready to call it a night.
The next day when it still wouldn't stay lit I decided to bite the bullet and bring it in to the computer repair place in town here. This was on a Thursday. I finally got a call from them on Friday afternoon telling me my screen was shot and it would need a new one, which would be about $100 and he would only charge me for the screen since it would only take like 5 minutes to install it. He also said he would call me if it was going to be more than that. He also said it would take about 3-5 days for it to ship. So I said to go ahead and order it because well let's be honest here...I'm completely lost without it! Besides without my laptop I didn't know how I would be able to get anything done for iNSD, which was only 3 weeks away! A digi-designers worst possible time to be without their design stuff. :P
I was patient and waited until the following Friday to see if the screen had come in yet. The high schooler that I got on the phone thought he hadn't even looked at it yet. (This is where the warning bells should have been going off...) The next Tues I again called to see if it had come in yet. Nope still not in. :( Checked again on Thur...same answer. Friday I finally went into the store and told him I needed to have the laptop back so I could hook it up to my desktop monitor to get the church's power point slides done, since it was my turn to do them. I only have PowerPoint 2010 on my laptop along with Dropbox. I got my laptop home and hooked up to my monitor again. I knew the battery was almost dead when I had dropped it off 2 weeks ago, so I connected the power cord and did somethings around the house while I waited for it to charge. By the time I got back to the laptop it was early evening. When I pushed the power button, there was nothing! It would not start! :o It was too late to take it back in and we were not going to be around on Saturday when they were open. So I had to convince my husband to use his laptop to try and get the slides done. Good thing you can download things from the Dropbox site and that later versions of PowerPoint are compatible with the newer versions.
On Monday I brought the laptop back in and told him that it now would also not start. He didn't seem to concerned about it and miraculously the new screen had just shown up that day. So I left it with him to put the new screen in and said I would be back to pick it up when I came in with Hunter for Tae Kwon Do. When I got back to pick it up and pay for it I got nasty surprise #1...The screen was $149.99! So much for calling it was going to be more than $100. At this point though I was so desperate to get back to designing for iNSD I just paid for it and didn't put up a fight. So after Tae Kwon Do practice and dinner, I was back to happily designing my kit for release that Friday. I knew there was no way I'd get my grab bag done that I had wanted to do, but at least I'd have something I figured.
Everything was going good on Tuesday, too. That is until later that night...suddenly my screen started jumping all over the place. I decided to shut it down for the night and give it a bit of a rest and hope a restart the next day would solve it. (That tends to be my hopeful solution when something goes wrong with my laptop...most of the time it has a positive outcome. lol. ) Again that didn't seem to solve the screen problem, so I called the computer repair place to tell him what was going on, but he wasn't there. So I left a message for him to call me back. Wed afternoon came and went without a phone call. As did all day Thursday. Friday afternoon I finally decided to try again to call. Once again...he wasn't there. So left another message for him to call me back. Again Friday afternoon came and went without a phone call. So did Saturday.
I took my laptop with me of Monday, so I could stop in with it after school. Thankfully he was FINALLY there when I stopped on Monday. When I told him that the screen had went out again after only 24 hours of using it, he said it was probably my video card that had a short in it and it blew out the new screen. If it was that then the laptop was basically shot because the video card is on the motherboard. It was either that or it could just be a lose wire. He said he would take a look at it, so I went back out the car to grab it. When I got back in the store, he was gone again! I decided I didn't feel like waiting for who knows how long for him to look at it again and just took it back home. Hooked it back up to the desktop monitor and decided to just use it that way until I had a chance to take it somewhere else for a second opinion.
I managed to be able to use it that way long enough to get through the rest of school before the monitor stopped registering that it was hooked up to the laptop. So then it was back to using my husband's very slow laptop with the distorted screen from where he dropped a CB on the lid when his truck came to a sudden stop. Not very conducive to digital scrapbook designing...which is why the new releases have been in short supply the last couple months. It took only lasted a couple weeks hooked up to the desktop monitor before the monitor quit recognizing it.
In the meantime, I sent my laptop to the guy my parents use to fix their computer. My dad forgot to tell him the problem that I was needing fixed was the screen, so he cleaned up the hard drive and got rid of some nasty things on it (viruses, malware, etc.-didn't know those were on there so that was great to get them off). I had it back within about 48 hours I was so excited because I thought it had been fixed...only to find out when I turned it on, no such luck. :p So my dad gave me the guy's number to call and explain the problem and see if he had any idea of what to do. He asked if the other repair guy had replaced the converter when he did the screen because he said he never replaces a screen without also replacing that since it would also go out soon. I said I didn't think that he had. So my dad took it back to him again. It took about a week for the converter to arrive, but when he went to put it in I received nasty surprise #2! Apparently he thinks that the other guy never actually replaced the screen in my laptop!!! He said it still looks like the original screen and when he replaced the converter it still didn't work. Plus half the screws were missing! So he ordered a new screen for it again. That was about two weeks ago and we still haven't heard if it is fixed yet. I'm getting so tired of being without it! :( Not only that but I am starting to get a very stressed out bride on my hands...forgot to mention earlier that not only do I have all MY stuff on my laptop, but I also have my sister's wedding invitations on there! She wanted to have them sent out last week already.
So there you have it. My extremely long saga of my laptop troubles. Hoping they will finally get resolved once and for all this week and I can get things back to "normal". I have so many things that I want to get designed and a laptop that is not fast enough to keep up with me. lol.
Now on to this week's new releases! I have my Pretty as a Peacock kit and alphas for you this week. They were inspired by the colors of a peacock's tail feathers. I just love how beautiful and majestic they look when they have their tail feathers fanned out. Our local zoo has several male peacocks roaming free and it's always a treat to come upon one in it's full fanfare. These are also the colors of my little sister's wedding this summer, so I'm sure it will be getting put to a lot of use to scrap her pictures afterward. I had previously designed this for the DSA Designer Apprentice contest this past August, but I have added a few things to it for release at ScrapMatters.
I'm also releasing the three alphas that I did to go with it.
Here is a page that Dawn scrapped using both the kit and alphas. I just love how classy it looks.
Well that is all I have for you this week. Here's to hoping it won't be too long before I'm here with another fun release. :)
Until next time...Happy Scrapping!
