So, Saturday morning while I was still asleep, Ed thought he would be helpful and install some new software on my computer. My laptop has been quite persnickety over the past few months, getting worse and worse and time went on. A few weeks ago, things got corrupted enough that Word stopped running and I couldn't print anything. It was frustrating. So, he gets started and next thing you know, the thing is crashed bad. He worked on it most of the day and then again in the evening. He was able to boot it up into safe mode so I exported my address book, Outlook Express folders, and a bunch of other stuff to be safe and then Ed reinstalled Windows. This is an old laptop--5 years old, I believe. So he upgraded me from Windows 95 to 98. But it took a long time to do it--it crashed a few times during the installs and he had to keep going and going. Finally this evening he got it all installed and reinstalled Word and Outlook and IE. I lost my Favorites (the exported Favorites floppy is bad, apparently) which bums me out but I got everything else back. Yay! And this is much better and more stable. Still, it was sad to be without my poor laptop for 2 days. ::sniff::

Yesterday we puttered around between cursing and trying to fix the computer. We went to the school fundraiser carnival where I got a $25 Bed, Bath and Beyond gift certificate for $17. Afterward, we went out for sushi for dinner. Oh man, it was so good. I wish AB could come here so I could take her to my favorite sushi place. She'd love it. :-)

This afternoon, we went over to the Griffins for dinner. It was interesting, actually. I brought all the food (except dessert) and cooked/prepared all the food at their house. I've cooked at their house often enough that I know where just about everything is. It's kind of funny. We played games a bit after dinner and then Ed left to work on the computer. I stayed behind and we chatted for a few hours. It was so nice to talk and talk and talk with them. They are one (two?) of our very closest friends and people I know I can count on for absolutely anything. They'd give us the shirts off their backs, I know. We have a great friendship of mutual good deeds for each other and I really love it. Joey had a wonderful evening playing with their boys. They jumped on the trampoline and then later built a fort in the upstairs family room and turned off the lights and played with flashlights. What fun. Reminds me of the game nights we used to go to with my parents when I was a kid--only those were gambling nights for my folks. We kids didn't care--we'd go play and play. I loved it.

Delyn made the most delicious dessert--a brownie topped with a cream cheese and pineapple mixture which was then topped with sliced bananas and strawberries and chocolate sauce. Oh man--DELICIOUS!!! It was called a banana split brownie. I'll be making that sometime. She also made a chicken salad with pineapple, chutney, curry, celery, almonds and a bit of mayo. Man, that was good, too. She has this great cookbook that I absolutely love and I'm going to have to get. Everything she's made out of it has been divine.

And now that little wedge of brownie dessert leftover is calling my name so I'm going to have to answer the call of the chocolate.

--L