I know a lot of people who are looking for new and better jobs at the moment. The economy is rough and it’s hard to find work, especially work in your own area, or that’s in an area you’re familiar with. I remember our friend Jer who did our water treatment system was saying that they had people from all walks of life showing up at their office willing to do reception work even if that wasn’t something that they normally did.
I’ve been giving several friends some pointers on their resume lately, mostly just spell checking, and I was reminded that it’s important also do cover letters, and to write thank you letters for people who have interviewed you and things like that, which help keep you fresh in their mind and remind them about you so that you’re more likely to be selected.

Best of luck to anyone out there who is job hunting.

Here’s some pictures from the munchkin’s birthday and the morning after.

This one is from first thing in the morning when he was opening the presents that Great-Gran from England sent while Mum had her on the phone.

Paddington Bear is apparently better read upside down.

Here’s the amazing cake that Becka made, it has Sarah from LBT on it, and then Clifford, Elmo and Curious George all having a party.

Blowing out the candles (not that you can really see that portion of things)

The fire pit in action

The next day Mum came over and the munchkin took her outside and patted the bike and told her “Seat! Seat!” so she had to sit down and show him how the bike worked.

It was a good time had by all, as I said before. Munchkin keeps asking me to sit on his bike too, but I can’t bend down that low…it’s been so tiring lately that my limbs are too achy thanks to the fibromyalgia. Stupid illnes.

It’s coming up on Sunday. I was really out of touch with the days and nearly had a heart attack when it finally connected that it was THIS Sunday. Wow.
My Mum had been talking about having a day out at the beach. We’d been debating about finding one of those cheap hotels to stay in, but with her work and hubbie still recuperating that’s not an option right at the minute. It’s going to be a while before he restocks any vacation time.
We might be able to do things while he’s on sick leave, but I’m leery about going too far a field for too long in case something happens while he’s healing.

I’m not sure what we’re going to do for Mother’s Day. Hubbie had been wanting to go and see “Iron Man” but I’m not sure if we’ll be able to do that. Plus his Dad wants to come up and see the place now that we’ve had time to fix things up. I guess this means I actually have to finish my cleaning project which I keep starting and then flaking out on.

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XII quite a bit lately trying to relax. I had to restart the game almost, from about ten hours in, which is rough as I was over a hundred hours in.

Hubbie is recovering fairly well. He’s still in a lot of pain, but he’s recovering well, and is able to eat solid food.

Another thing that I’ve been doing is writing quite a bit. I started a new FanFiction.net account: at this place so that I can re-write and edit my work without as much issue as I was having, and that’s going well. I’ve already re-submitted several pieces and they’re getting some hits, and I’ve been receiving some encouragement from reviewers, which is nice.

I had a flat tire over the weekend but was able to get it patched yesterday and didn’t have to replace the whole tire. My mechanic told me that in another 2000 miles they’ll rotate my tires again and then I should have another 10000 or so before I have to replace them, so that’s good to know as that’s going to be about $300-$350 to replace all the tires.

Today I have therapy, we’re doing weekly appointments now. I have to drive to a different office this week, but it’s only about fifteen minutes from my friend who is babysitting’s house, so that’s going to work out fairly well.

It may be similar on the other Gateway laptops but I figured I should clarify right off the bat that mine is a slightly older model a 450-ROG, but I know it has similar parts as other Gateway models given what came up when I was looking for the replacement part in the first place. I have to thank PC Partners for the keyboard. Not only was it a very cost-effective price but they had it to me in just over a day, even though I didn’t pay for expedited shipping. It was greatly appreciated as I’d been without a keyboard for almost two weeks by that point even though I ordered one from another company the day the laptop broke and it never came. Thankfully I got the money back on that, otherwise there would have been a LOT of trouble, that company had initially charged me triple what PC Partners did and never contacted me or anything.

Anyway, on to how I did it:

First, here is the poor disheveled and broken laptop:

Note the lack of attached space bar. I had tried to just clip the space bar back on but the hook pieces were broken and so they would not reattach.

Here is the nice shiny new keyboard:

First you pop off the clips that cover the screws which attach the monitor to the base. You don’t need to disconnect the monitor, it just makes it easier to do the next steps if those are off.

After the clips are off, use the flat of a screwdriver to pop the flat piece off that has the power button and all the shortcut buttons off, leaving the computer this.

There are several screws attaching the keyboard to the laptop base. The first of which is seen in the photo. Keep the screws because the new keyboard doesn’t come with any.

After the screws are undone, you can start to lift the keyboard out. It’s still attached to the base via a pin plug which has to be popped out to disconnect the keyboard fully.

Behold the semi-naked computer:

Attach the plug on the new keyboard into the slot you just took the old one out of.

Then put the screws back in, and you can replace the protectors.

And the power/shortcut button panel.

Then the computer is once again ready to use.

So, that’s how you can replace the keyboard of a laptop for relatively cheap. I paid less than $20 including shipping and handling for my replacement keyboard. A great deal given the laptop cost me $2000 when I bought it new, and we don’t have the funds to replace the whole thing.

I’m pleased to report that our house is tonsillitis free.

It’s been a long day, but right now we’re making the most of down time.

I was up at 4:30 a.m. because the munchkin woke up having a royal fit about something, and decided just to stay up given we had to have my husband to the hospital at 6 a.m. He got home from work and we did a quick turn around and were out of the door. I loaded the car last night and I’m glad we did.

We got in and I was shown to a waiting area with the munchkin while they prepped hubbie and got him set up and then we were allowed to come back to see him until they took him down for surgery at 7:20 a.m.

Munchkin and I went “off-campus” to get breakfast and when I came back it turned out hubbie had come out of surgery around the time we had been getting our food, and was “doing well” unlike last time at the other hospital where they then lost him for almost an hour and found him again only to tell me he had not in fact had surgery when they’d previously left me a message saying that everything was fine, this time he actually was doing pretty well. They were getting his pain managed and then after another twenty minutes and two munchkin escapes we were allowed to go back and see him, and while he was still in some pain he was feeling wonderful because he knew the tonsils were gone.

We were able to come home around noon, after I explained to the nurse that hubbie works nights normally and is used to being asleep during the day and that’s why he was having a hard time staying awake, not entirely the anesthetic lingering.

So, we were home by 1:30 after we stopped and picked up his prescriptions for pain killers, which is a lot better than last time, given last time even though he didn’t even HAVE the operation we didn’t get out of the hospital until almost four.

Seriously, they make life SO much easier.
When we first decided to get this place I had several friends comment that the tile floors would be horrible, but I love having them. They’re so much easier than carpet.
The previous owners left us steam cleaners, and a Swiffer wetjet so I didn’t even have to buy anything special to clean them with, and especially now that we have a cat AND a two-year old, they’re a Godsend.

Any time the munchkin whips off his diaper and marks his territory or the cat decides she wants to puke up a lizard on the floor while it’s gross, it’s not a four hour repeat dab/clean job, just wipe and wash.

I remember when the munchkin was a few months old and I had carelessly left barbeque sauce out within his reach we were cleaning that carpet stain for MONTHS and it was still there when we moved out, the other day he spilled twice as much barbeque sauce and you can’t tell!

It’s great. I don’t think I’m ever going back to carpet.

For the longest time I’ve made it a habit to avoid certain things, especially the celebrity gossip magazines and shows, but since I’ve been going to therapy regularly I’ve been catching bits of gossip via the magazines that they have in the waiting area, and also I tend to find that I catch TMZ in the evenings when my husband is at work given it comes on right before “The Simpsons” and “American Idol” (which is something else I never thought I’d be watching).

I’m turning into such a house wife.

I mean what do I care who is in drug rehab? Who is divorcing who? Who slept with who? Who waves at the camera and who flicks it off…but apparently I do.

Augh! Save me from myself!

I’ve been seeing the CommentLuv plugin on several of my friend’s blogs for a while now, but finally got around to installing it on my own. So, from now on when you comment on a post, provided you’re not an evil spammer type person you’ll get two linky-love for the price of one, as the plugin will find your last blog post and link it to the entry when it’s approved.

Thanks for commenting!

This was taken this morning but I keep forgetting to post things. If I look tired it’s because I was still recovering from the munchkin’s party. It’s part of Self Portrait Sunday meme. See what everyone else is doing this week by checking out the Self Portrait Sunday entry of the day. I had a pretty relaxing day though which I needed after the hectic week. The munchkin had fun running around the yard naked and bouncing in his paddling pool, and actually had a nap today because of that which was good too.

I’ve been editing and reworking some fanfiction that I wrote a while ago, and can hopefully now finish some things up. I can’t post anything until Tuesday though because the new fanfiction.net account is frozen for two days to prevent spam.