Writing history

Last night I managed to convince myself that Ian was in some sort Satanist coven as well. Also I knew I had all the proof:

• He was certain that the little sweater with the baby-devil were more suitable for our child than the baby-angel one.
  
• He made all kinds of develish sounds while he was sleeping.
  
• He listens to music of which the artists sounds as if they're in terrible agony and have lyrics like: 'There's no future.'
  
• He just got a raise at work and some more enjoyable assignments.
  
• The baby was kicking like crazy and I knew it knew it's father was nearby.
  

We just don't have elderly neighbours who are giving me some herbal juice they made themselves everyday. But my sister did give me some sort of pills with all kinds of vitamins and fibers in it, so she had to be in it too. The obstetrician told me I shouldn't believe everything I read on the Internet because every pregnancy is different and Ian agreed with her right away, saying I read to much which is only upsetting me instead of comforting.
The only thing left for me was to find out who he wanted to offer the baby to and why. Well, the why was obvious: He just got the raise and the more enjoyable assignments. Of course I ignored the fact that this raise was promised him about 6 months ago, but hey, I was to reveil some kind of conspiracy. Just left the question who was (or were!) after my baby.
I was really worried. If even my sister knew about this, then who could I trust?! Finally I fell asleep, only to have the weirdest nightmares ever.

This morning I was so relieved when the sonogram didn't show horns, claws, yellow eyes or a tail whatsoever...

The last couple of months I have been trying to get rid of as much MicroSoft software I could. I can’t remember why exactly anymore, but reading stuff on the internet and babbling with geeks made me realise that MS just isn’t one’s best friend. At the same time I tried some Linux distro’s to see if I could totally ban MS out of my life. Also around that time my notebook died, which came with Windows XP pre-installed, and I wasn’t able to re-install Windows on it. Even though I paid for it and even though I used all the original stuff that came with my notebook at that time. The only thing that DID work on my notebook was Xandros. Because I liked the way it worked, I’ve also installed it on my desktop, my ‘main computer’ so to speak.
I must say I prefer it over Windows, absolutely! The only problem is that I can’t get all the applications I need to work in Xandros, so my desktop still is a dual boot.

It might sound like I’m a geek-to-be or something, and I don’t think that is true. There are plenty of issues I have with Xandros, but on the other hand, I do have issues with Windows as well. Xandros has a great community of users who are willing to help n00bs like me 24/7. So far I have found the answers to all my questions, just by using the ’search’ functionality. Great! So when I found a post by zappz dealing with Windows XP as if it were a Linux Distro, it almost made me wet my pants. For everyone who doesn’t get along well with MS:

After using Linux for a few years I decided that it might be nice to try something new. I’d read alot of reviews and information about a very popular distro called ‘XP’ and decided “Right! -I’ll give it a go!”.
I could find no free download of this distro anywhere on the net and realised it was commercial release. “Fair enough, I’ll buy it- I don’t mind paying for distro’s, the developers have to eat dont they?”
So I went to the store and purchased XP Professional. It cost me $700 NZD - “WOW!” I thought, “this must be the BEST distro EVER if they’re charging that sort of money!”.
Onto the Installation.
Installation was fairly easy with XP, just pop the CD in, set the bios to boot from cd, and I was off!.
After some very simple disk partitioning questions (which I left at ‘defaults’), the installation began. I took a few hours to browse over the EULA, and, although a little technical, I gathered that I would probably go to jail if I copied any part of the cd, or installed it on any other pc’s, or did anything really without the companys’ express permission.
Installation went without a hitch -so thats a +1 for XP, unfortunately it failed to detect the other operating system I had on my pc, or even the filesystem it was installed on, and had in fact, installed itself to the entire disk. So thats a -1, cos all my other distro’s didnt have this problem. It could have been simply that I didnt partition properly, but I’m just average Joe, so I don’t know.
Xp asks for an admin password which I was able to leave blank, and then a username, the password for which I was also able to leave blank. Security is important, so thats another -1.
Hardare Detection.
Xp picked up my keyboard, monitor and USB mouse, so far so good, but then failed to pick up most of my other hardware. My chipset, a gigabyte nforce2 board was not detected, Xp also failed to find my usb printer (an Epson cheapie), failed on the Canon scanner too, and also failed on the Kodak USB digital Camera. Xp picked up that I had a graphics card installed but saw it as a ‘default vga card’. My Nvidia FX5900 is fairly new I’ll admit, but unlike my other distros’s, failed to install the Nvidia drivers.
Sound was also a no-go.
So far I have to say for $700 this has been extremely disappointing- other distro’s I have tried have picked up my hardware without problems, so why cant XP?. Thats another -1.
After a few hours finding drivers on the internet, I got my scanner, printer and video card working, although as an average user, I dont feel I should have to go through all this just to get a working system, and for $700 I expect things to work ‘out of the box’
The desktop looks quite nice, although very boring. To my dismay there was no office suite included for my money, just a simple text editor and a few simple apps like ‘Paint’. A browser, email and a few simple games were included. I’m still thinking “What have i just paid all this money for?”.
Then the problems start, I get a window that pops up that tells me something about RPC and the system will reboot in 20 seconds. There is no real explanation and no way to stop the reboot. This happens 5 or 6 times in 20 minutes. I later find out that this is a virus/worm thing that simply finds its way onto your pc, enabling the firewall helps stop the rebooting thing and then a patch fixes the exploit.
I couldnt find a firewall on the desktop or under the menu’s. It was hidden under system settings and some obscure properties box. Thats another -1 for releasing an immediately virus-prone system and another -1 for making the firewall hard to find.
After this I made use of the ‘Update’ feature and had to leave the PC on and downloading all night to get my new system up to date. I’m not sure what was downloaded or installed as I cant find a record of it anywhere.
Ut-oh, another box has appeared telling me I *have* to activate my operating system or it will stop functioning.
By now i am almost in tears, i have no really usable apps, except email and browsing, its taken me a couple of days to get the system working properly, im out of pocket $700. There doesnt seem to be any simple way of burning CD’s, my DVD’s don’t work because Xp’s media player doesnt support them. What a pile of Junk!
I guess I’ll be emailing the company and asking for a full refund, I’m sure they wont mind, they are a really big company and i’m very disappointed.
All in all, a dreadful Xperience and I’ll be sticking to a distro that supports, detects and configures all my hardware, comes with an office suite and a bunch of useful apps, detects that i have other O/S’s installed on my pc and allows me to get down to work straight away.
Something like Xandros…

Found it here.

It's only 365 days. 52 Weeks. 12 Months. It sounds like it is nothing and it also feels like it was over in just a sigh. But looking back I realise how much can happen in the life of just one person in so little time. And I know, I do say that every year and every year I just hope the next one will be better. Like I did last year. I hoped 2006 would be a fantastic year, but I knew from the very first second that I would lose somebody who I loved so much... She died in April, after knowing for 8 months it was cancer that had been causing the pain in her back for years. She was only 75 and one day, when she requested the euthanasia. What more can I say than that it is so weird... Knowing on Friday that your grandmother will die the next tuesday, around 8 P.M.
I don't know what is better... Knowing somebody will pass away, so that you have the time and opportunity to say goodbye, or somebody passing away unexpectedly like her brother did, after just 4 days of 2006. How weird was that... We all expected she would be the first to be guided to her final resting-place...

So, like I said, I knew I was going to lose her in 2006 from the very first second of that brand new year and I was convinced it would be the only really tough time. Unfortunately it was not. I already mentioned her brother, but both of them were in their seventies. Not that it isn't bad because of that, of course not. But when we got the news in september that Ian's brother in law passed away, only 35 years old and leaving two children in the age of 1 and 4... That was almost unbelievable...

As rough as these times were, as high were the peaks of 2006. My guy asked me to marry him, and so we did in November. Something I would not have believed when you would have told me on this day last year. The other very very very high peak was when we got two little stripes on a pregnancy test. I just can't describe the feelings when we saw that! I thought for months that our marriage would be the highlight of the year, but this one came really close. We weren't trying, I was taking the pill and we agreed that I would stop taking it after we had said 'I do'. We could not have been more surprised that Friday morning in September... And right away we were so happy about it!

Since the last years turned out to be so very different of what I had thought of them, I stopped making new year's resolutions. For 2007 I have just one: give birth. Apart from that I will just wait and see what 2007 will bring us and what I'll have to say about it this day next year.