Saturday, August 8, 2015

Hidden charges

It's been about 8 years since I bought my laptop.  This time we purchased an all in one desktop computer.  Boy have things changed.  The laptop came with Microsoft Office but now you have to purchase it separately.  What a bummer.  It will be an additional $139.00 dollar purchase.  They really do get you coming and going.
I'll have to talk to my daughter to see about the best way to go about this.  She is the computer tech for the school where she teaches and knows a lot more about this stuff than I do.

Well, it is Saturday and we are waiting for our lawn boy to come and mow.  He has been away at band camp for the last 2 weeks and our yard is a mess.   Once that is done we are going to my daughters to swim this afternoon.  It's too hot to do anything else.

We have all joined Weight Watchers as a family.  Jamie lost 5 pounds already but Ron and I are just getting started.  This will be interesting.  Men lose so much easier than women so I hope we don't make this a contest.  I've lost 40 pounds over the past year but have been stuck where I am for the past 4 months.  Ron constantly fluctuates with his weight.  He is a compulsive weigher....On, off, the scale and he weighs every day.  I don't do that because weight normally fluctuates anyway.  I'd get discouraged if I did that.

Ron is now worried that we can't be away from Mike long enough to drive to N. Carolina.  Mike is already getting anxious about the whole thing.  I may have to stay here and let Ron go without me.  It's important that he see his daughter and I don't want my responsibility for Mike to keep him from going.  It's not making Ron very happy but I don't know what else to do about it.  There are no respite programs for people with mental illness.  I can't afford to hire someone to look after him and he wouldn't do well with a stranger anyway.  My daughters will be back in school by then and they don't feel equipped to handle Mike if something happens.  It's hard feeling trapped in the middle.  But what do you do?  Make the best of it.

3 comments:

Deb said...

Hi Dani,

Try using one of the open source Windows Office programs, "Open Office" or "Neo Office". Both give you the same features as Windows Office for a very reasonable price. I have used both for 15 years and have no complaints. NeoOffice for MAC is $34.95. I can't see what they are asking for the Windows version but it will probably be the same. I use NeoOfiice (www.NeoOffice.org) for every function Windows offers.

It looks like Open Office for Windows (http://www.openoffice.org/product/windows.html) might still be a free download. They have a very spiffy interface that I prefer to NeoOffice, but I started with NeoOffice and a lot of my documents are in NeoOffice, so I go back and forth with them.

I write up a lot of patient's documents with these, both will export your documents as pdfs, which I like since they are not easily altered after they leave my office.

You can access your documents written in any Windows format using either NeoOffice or Open Office.

Cheers,
Deb in Canader


oklhdani said...

Thanks for the info Deb I'll give it a try!

Olga said...

Yes, I think the computer companies took a page from the airlines over charging for every "extra."
I think it is such a heartache that there are no respite services. I am sure Ron wants to see his daughter but he also wants you there with him. So hard.