Can you believe it?  I had to reformat my computer!  I have been having a few problems that have slowly gotten worse.  I thought that cleaning out the old files might help.  That's what I did when I went to visit my in-laws' two weeks ago.

First my printer died right in the middle of a print job.  I finally was able to figure out that it was the power supply.  Lexmark had none in stock.  I found one and ordered it, but was in desperate need of a printer.  I found a decent one for around $100 and got it.

When I went to install it to my computer I had an interesting thing happen.  My computer told me that I had to get the permission of the system administrator (of my computer) to install any programs.  WHAT???  I AM THE ONLY SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR MY COMPUTER HAS EVER HAD!  I checked under my user name and, sure enough, I had administrative authority.  Nothing had changed.  Then why???

So, there I was, a stranger to my own computer.  It had viciously turned on me!  How awful.

So, I backed up the few things that I hadn't already backed up and got out my computer disks that came with the computer.  When I went to reformat I was offered two choices, neither of which was a complete reformat.  I went with the more aggressive choice and reinstalled Windows XP.  It left all my data files intact and left large portions of the programs I had installed intact.  What it did do was remove a lot of the files that my programs needed to be able to run!

I had to reinstall most of the programs.  The dumb thing was that most of them required me to uninstall them and then reinstall them.  I'm still finding things that need to be fixed or changed!  I figured on two full days of work to get things done after a reformat.  Instead, I've spent almost four!

Now for the good news.  While installing the new printer (yes, my computer now recognizes my authority!) I figured out how to network it!  Like I told you before, we have switched to high speed cable Internet and I got a router so I can go wireless and so my youngest son can access the Internet from his room.  So, I figured out (on my own, thank you very much!) how to get all three computers to print off the same printer!  Plus, when I finally figured out how to do that I figured out how to network our shared folders.  I always wondered why computers came with folders that were named "shared".  Now I know.  I can put things in my shared folder and the other two computers can access them.  Pretty cool!

I have to go pick up my camera.  I had to take it in to get it fixed.  My son had accidentally shoved it off the kitchen counter onto the floor!  When I heard it hit the floor I knew it was a bad thing.  The sound it made was very solid and yet very sick sounding.  When I turned and saw it was my camera with my recently replaced brand-new zoom lens I got sick.

The good news was, when I got my new zoom lens (the old one had gotten ruined when I fell into quicksand) I added the camera and lens to an insurance policy that would cover them for anything bad that would happen to them.  So, I will get reimbursed for the damages.

It took less than a week for them to be repaired.  Yay!  I want to get some pictures of some red-tailed hawks that are building a nest in a tree in our back yard.

Today I also need to put together a letter for my son so he can send a settlement demand to the insurance company for the bodily injury portion of the accident he was in.  I made a few charts showing all the expenses he has had including mileage, postage, and more.  I divided them up into property damage and bodily injury categories to make it easy for them.

I have a feeling they are going to fight the loss of earnings.  It has been 27 weeks since the accident.  Had they paid his medical bills in the first place then he would have probably been back to work after only seven or eight weeks.  Yet, over and over, the adjusters lied to him and told him that they were paying his bills. 

It wasn't until AFTER I cashed in a life insurance policy and I loaned my son the money to pay his bills that someone (a regional vice president who had called in response to the letter my son sent to the CEO of the insurance company) told my son that they would give him the money when he was all done with all medical treatment to pay the bills and not any sooner!

When this is done I'm going to put together a page describing the horrible tactics of that company as a public service in case anyone wants to find out whether or not it is a good idea to get car insurance through Coast National Insurance Co., a division of Bristol West.

As you can see, once again I have yet another good excuse for not updating this on time.  The truth be told, I don't want any good excuses.  I just want things to go smoothly so I can get things done around here.

I've got plenty of things to keep me busy without extra things messing me up!

I think I wear too many hats.  I am my son's "accident attorney", the homeowner association's "do everything", my husband's secretary, my family's:  maid, cook, gardener, computer guru, and all sorts of things.

I have one hat that I love.  No, it isn't a hat, it is a crown.  I am the daughter of the King of Kings.  That makes me a princess!  Oh, look, when I am focusing on the crown I can't see the other hats!  Wow!

I'll be doing the Bible study in a minute.  You'll have to excuse me while I climb up into my Daddy's lap and snuggle with Him for a while.....

SURPRISE!
How do you like the new graphics?  (The graphics were changed to an eagle theme on the Weekly Word page from a flowery theme.  I made a new flowery theme for the old welcome messages as you can see.)

Did you think you were in the wrong place?  I was informed by my doctor that he had visited here at the Clarion Call, but didn't stay because he saw a bunch of flowers!  Good grief!  The old Weekly Word had a marble-like background I had made.  I had used some flowers that were color-coordinated with it.  It wasn't sissy-looking at all as far as I could see.

(It is now 2009.  I am correcting some coding errors on my pages and was reading what I wrote.  We got rid of that doctor.  Him not being able to see past a color scheme was just a sign of his mindset.  He turned out to be more interested in making money off of us than actually finding out what was wrong with our health.  Good riddance!)

So, I took that to heart and thought there might be others with the same attitude.  So, here we are.

Don't look now, but I'm getting pretty good with my Paint Shop Pro program.  I got the picture of the eagle flying over a river from baldeagleinfo.com.  I cut it down and created the water background for the right side of the page using another picture I found of some rapids.

Then I added the bar that separates the eagle from the right side and added the shadow.  Then I made the gray and green bars that separate text.  I had the eagle head at the top of the page from before and just made a mirrored one for the right side.

I enjoy making unique graphics.  I just wish I had more eagle pictures.  Most of the pictures I find are copyrighted and I would have to pay money to use them.

When I first started putting together everything here at the Clarion Call I decided to kind of have an overall theme.  When God first laid it on my heart to make pages for Him they were individual pages.  Some were on AOL and the weekly Bible study (which started out as "Jesus Lives Here") ended up at what was Geocities but is now Yahoo.  Because they were all independent of each other it didn't occur to me to have them resemble each other theme-wise.

God had given me the name, Clarion Call, when He told me to sound the Clarion.  As I pondered that name I could see an eagle calling out.  I didn't hesitate or question it, I just knew the theme would be eagles.

It was about a year later that I realized something.  Other prophetic-based web pages had eagles on them.  I found another web page called the Clarion Call and there are eagles there, too.

He had given me a Word once that was plain and simple:  Are You Called to Be an Eagle?

So, God was also in charge of the graphics here.  Over and over I am fascinated by the completeness of God's plan.  He has all the details worked out down to the very last little bits!

I'm bummed.  Somebody stole our path lights from our front yard.  We had five solar lanterns that were spaced out along the driveway and the sidewalk going toward the front door.  We don't have any street lights near our house so we bought those so nobody would trip in the dark.  We used to have the low voltage ones, but they died.  This is exactly what they looked like.  They were bright, too.  Most solar lights are real dim.

The nice thing was my sons could unhook them from the post and move them when they were playing basketball.  May the  Lord reward the person who took them--according to his works.  (2Tim 4:14)

Well, the rain has slowed down some.  Last Thursday we had a torrential downpour and more hail in the middle of the day.  I had gone to a neighbor's house and got stuck there until the hail stopped.  When I left I had to jump a two foot wide river that was running down the gutter in the street.

The last couple of days have been very very foggy in the mornings and then hot and sunny in the afternoons.  It's a weird feeling to have sun every day.  Funny, it used to be a weird feeling to not have sun almost every day.  The sun is why I stay in Southern California and someone has stolen it!  Maybe it was the same person that took my solar lights.

Wait, this is starting to all come together... 2Cor 11:14 tells us, "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light."  So, if all the "light" is disappearing around here... does that mean satan is running out of his fake light and is stealing it from other places?  Hmmmm....

SURPRISE!
(This was a surprise because the Bible study page got a new background.  So, it isn't a surprise any more.  So ignore this part.  Maybe I should just stop typing and let you go on reading.  Yeah.  Good idea.  I'm stopping.)

It's hard being a webmaster (webmistress?).  I found out that my new background on this page created a problem for people with screen resolutions set to 600x800.  The text overlapped the picture on the left.

I finally figured out how to fix it (I think).  You'll let me know if you see a problem, won't you?  Oh, didn't I tell you?  You are in charge of letting me know if something is wrong with any alignment, if pictures are missing, if links don't work, etc.  It is your job to let me know if there is a problem.  (Well, you didn't expect me to do ALL the work, did you?)

It's too bad I had to make it a little more difficult for people to email me.  When I had an email link on every page I started getting spam.  I didn't just start getting spam, I started getting
SPAM!

All of a sudden I was getting over 300 pieces of spam a day and it got steadily worse!  I actually had to discontinue that email address altogether.  I'm assuming that people designed programs that collected email addresses from web pages in order to sell them to spammers.

I still get spam, but I think now it is because of computer viruses.  People who email me get a virus that collects email addresses out of their "sent mail" folder and spams those addresses.  I think that's how it works.

I had to close down my old guestbook, too.  People figured out a way to spam them, too.  What a shame.  I want to get another one set up but want it to kind of run itself instead of me having to do it manually.  What is necessary is that it give me the option of posting an entry or not posting it prior to it showing up on the guestbook.

I used to have one that was supposedly run by Christians.  Yet, when I had a problem with it and emailed them they were rude and smarty-pants.  So, I closed that one, too.  Sad sad sad.

(I later got a good guestbook.  The link is on my contact page.) 

Don't look now, but I caught a cold.  Why is it called "catching" a cold?  It's not like I was chasing it or anything.  My son got it and then he handed it to me.  My son went to the doctor and found out he has bronchitis.  Ugh.  I'm trying to take care of mine so it doesn't get worse.

The bad thing is that I am getting farther and farther behind on doing things around the house.  All the rain we are having (and we are getting even more!) has caused more work for me and hindered me from getting things done that I had planned. 

I took that week to go to my in-laws and my niece came to visit last week.  There is one bit of good news.  I have been able to get some things done here at the Clarion.

Speaking of which, there is a surprise in store for you.  There is a new area coming.  All I can tell you right now is that it is going to be great!!

I've had enough of leaks.  Our patio is leaking big time!  Every time it rains there are new leaks.  It has been leaking for quite a few years but we normally don't get much rain and it was bearable.  This year.... it has been horrible.  I've had a line-up of buckets out there and have been emptying them over and over and over.

So, I hope my husband realizes how serious I am about getting that roof fixed.  He has tried, but now we are going to get SERIOUS and figure out what the problem is and FIX IT!  Next year, when it rains, I will be sitting on a dry patio!  I will, I will, I will!

Speaking of leaking (poetry!) now my nose is leaking.  You ever have to stuff tissues up your nose to keep it from running?  If I keep wiping and wiping my nose will rub off after a while.  Here's a picture of me and my best friend when I have a cold:

In case you couldn't figure it out, I'm not the box of tissues, I'm the nose... with legs... that run....

(Jesus is really my best friend whether I have a cold or not.  I guess the tissue box would be my second best friend.  Should I stop now before I ramble on any more?)

I've got to go shopping and buy a bunch of the candles I like.  I buy the Yankee candles and the "flavor" I like is on sale this month.  I don't like candles that smell like cookies and baking bread.  Well, actually, I do like them, but they make me hungry.  So, what I end up getting is the fruity ones or flowery.  The one I like the best is called Honeydew Melon.  It isn't too overpowering.  So, during the month of April it is on sale.  I need to stock up!

I live with three men and all male animals (or could I have just said I live with all male animals?) so, I need to burn candles to knock the "man-stink" out of the air!  LOL!