OK I'm next ....

......first day of leave from work and I've spent the whole day here - I need to get a life.

Only managed to tick off one poster today but I spoilt Mariner's dinner - is that a plus?

Oh and if you need to pronounce my name it's like this ........... LIZ, THE DRINKS ARE ON THE BAR

After a few weeks of daily use, I still hate XP. OldGuy and Mariner posed a new problem - having to run anti-spyware on each profile - what a pain!

So tempted to ditch this and go back to 98, I bet Bill Gates uses Linux

Gave harpman1 a fix today that Bulldog gave me first time I ever came here. Seems like a lifetime ago but it was only December. I've met some really great people in the last four months. Wonder where we'll all be this time next year?

Solved my "I hate XP" problem. Have installed ME on another drive, sorted out internet connection and updates yesterday so I can just wander over there when XP starts getting me down.

Also d'ld Tweak UI, gives me some small feeling of control over my nemesis. Must check out parputt's links today, he's a huge fan of XP so it must have something going for it.

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people may accuse you of selfish motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable.
Be honest and transparent anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People who really want help may attack you if you help them.
Help them anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt.
Give the world your best anyway.
--Mother Teresa

Just thought this needed saving, it's amazing how true these words are to me today, in more ways than one.

I've made some big mistakes this week and learned some valuable lessons. Lessons I'll remember and, hopefully, learn from. Hey isn't that what lessons are for?

Don't ever assume that you know what another person is thinking or feeling just because they appear to be cool and together.
Don't let your own insecurities affect your judgement of them, they will be how they will be, not how you expect them to be.
Be proactive, not reactive: if you think something is wrong work to fix it, don't just sit there complaining about it.
Never let communication fail, whether it's positive or negative, it's necessary.

....and, most importantly, learn to trust and be trustworthy.

Good morning world! It's Monday morning, the start of a brand new week. Let's see if we can get through this one without causing too much damage.

I don't know about Hurrican Ivan but Hurrican Lilliebet sure did plenty. No wonder we Brits complain about the weather

Why do I continually fail to communicate? I have an excellent command of the English language, my grammar and diction are superb but for some reason I just can't get my message across to the people who matter.

Maybe I just have to accept that communication isn't my strong point and, no matter how strongly I feel about the subject, they're never going to see my point of view.

At what point do I give up and accept the situation? At what point do I concede?

OK we're all human, yes? We can't like everyone, of course not! But did you ever meet someone who's so stuck up their own backside they make you scream? (Yes, I know I started a sentence with a conjuction but, tough!!)

So how do we deal with that? Am I being fair to myself by not addressing this with him/her? Am I being fair to them? Yes, I know this is my opinion and, it's just possible, I'm wrong but, in this case, I don't think so.

I know we all have our faults, there's plenty to dislike about me I'm afraid but there are certain traits that just don't sit well with anyone. Sycophancy springs to mind (I so hope I spelled that right). If I believed in God, I'd be praying for the serenity to deal with this in a professional manner. As I don't, I'm kind of venting it here.

Anyone reading this, forgive me, I'm not being a nice person here but sometimes we have to admit to our humanity. This is one of those times for me. I'm trying to deal with it!!

I recently came to a jaw-dropping realisation about a very close friend of mine (with a gentle nudge from a mutual friend of ours it has to be said.) The upshot is my feelings for this guy have changed and suddenly I became aware that I was falling in love with him. Now I'm a very passionate person, what I feel, I feel very strongly. Whether it's love or hate, it's powerful in me and it scares me to death sometimes. So my first reaction was to panic and try to run from the way I felt, this just made things 10 times worse but, thankfully, he's a very understanding guy and things got pretty much straightened out. Still though, the situation's far from normal and communication (or the lack of) has caused several flare-ups in the last few weeks. Now, me, I'm the type who, faced with a problem needs to deal with it. Talk it out, fight it out, cry it out, whatever. If it's broke - fix it, learn from it and move on. He's not like that, he retreats into his shell and refuses to budge while the situation degrades around him. There's no blame in that statement, by the way, we are all different animals after all.

To my mind the root cause of our problem is while he knows how I feel about him and says he's OK with it, I'm not convinced that he is. Now he tells me I'm wrong and I probably am (for probably read usually) but I'm a bit dense when it comes to reading other people sometimes. If you don't hit me over the head with a hammer, it doesn't sink in. I know he loves me as a friend, he uses the phrase "love ya" all the time but when things flare up and we come back to this whole business of who feels what about who, he then tries to tell me I know how he feels. Trust me, I don't! That tiny difference between "love ya" and "love you" speaks volumes to me (maybe it's a girl thing).

Anyway, the last few weeks have been wonderful and terrible as is probably evident from my previous ramblings. Currently, I'm back in the doghouse for..... well, actually, I'm not entirely sure what I did and I'd say he's pretty much given up on me. Cant blame the guy whatsoever, it just eats at me that I'm not allowed to say everything I feel needs saying. In fact, that's probably why I'm not sure what I did this time, I think he went into protection mode before he was actually attacked. Normally, in a situation like this, I throw my hands up and accept the blame immediately then torture myself with guilt for an eternity. I'm not going to do that this time because, quite honestly, there is no blame here - on either side. It's another case of a failure to communicate, another misunderstanding, life's like that.

Is there a moral to this tale? Yes, I'd say so, don't assume I know what you're thinking, any more than you know what I'm thinking. If you have something to say, say it. Whether it's good or bad for me to hear it, it needs to be said and it's part of the learning that will shape my life. I welcome even the bad things I have to hear in life because it feeds my need to understand.

Harddwch Dysg Doethineb - The Beauty of Learning is Knowledge

Suddenly all this seems trivial. I just had a call to tell me my Grandad has had a heart attack and is in a critical condition in hospital. He's a whole country away and I feel so helpless. I've just had to break the news to my kids and it breaks my heart that they are having to hug me and hold me and I can't be strong for them.

Right now I feel like a little girl again and I miss my Grandad, I want to be with him and make him feel safe but I'm not able to. Tomorrow I have to try to get to Wales to be with him. Suddenly life has turned a corner and everything has changed. I want to go back to yesterday.

I was too late. I'm still here, still useless, still impotent and I've lost a very special person. My grandad died at 5 o'clock this evening and his favourite grandaughter wasn't there to say goodbye. To those who sent me prayers, thoughts and love, thank you, I owe you so much. To those who kept me smiling, thank you too.

We buried my grandad today and it brought home to me the bizarre thing that a family is. Some thirty or so members of my family travelled to Wales today and so we met and talked, shared memories, laughed and cried together. I talked particularly to my cousin David, I haven't seen him for more than 20 years, when we were still kids.

Eventually we said our goodbyes, wished each other well and got back in our cars. Then, almost as one, we all headed East through the Mersey Tunnel back to our homes - in the same city. You see those 30 some people all live in suburbs of Liverpool, no more than 12 miles apart and yet most of us only ever meet on occasions like this, some we don't see for 20 years.

Now I'm sitting here contemplating this and every one of us has sworn today that we'll get together or keep in touch but we all know that won't happen. Tomorrow we'll go back to what we did yesterday and plod on exactly the same. Is it just us or are all families the same?

You know David works in a large bookshop in town, not 10 minutes walk from where I work. Maybe I'll take a wander up there next week, I could do with something to read.