frustrated...!

Yesterday, I got another early Christmas gift!  I don’t know why, but this is my second early gift this year.  

On Thanksgiving, my sister got me a karaoke machine.  She knows I love to sing (even though I suck!)  And the reason she gave it to me early was because she knew it was going to entertain the kids on Thanksgiving and later on Christmas…and it sure did!  They had so much fun with it.  I actually had to fight with my kids to get a few words of a song in…!  

And now, I have another early present… my very own digital camera!  Yay!  I’m so excited!!!!  I’ve spent too much money already on disposal cameras, getting them developed and putting the pictures on CD that it just made sense that I spend that kind of money on a real digital camera.  I have wanted one for so long that my hubby finally got it for me.  He couldn’t wait until Christmas to give it to me and I couldn’t wait to open my present until then.  

So here I am taking pictures and loving it!  I tried it out… things look good.  I’m not very good at taking pictures, but I love sending pics to my family and friends who I connect with over the Internet and e-mail.  My son now wants one too.  He seems to enjoy taking pictures like me. I told him as soon as I feel comfortable enough with the camera, I will show him how to use it and let him take some pictures too.

But now I noticed one thing wrong… I cannot make it download my pictures.  I already installed the program, connected the USB cable to camera/computer and nothing happens.  I tried transferring from the computer and it keeps giving a “device not found”, or “device not connected”.  I read the instructions, I went into the website, and nothing seems to work!  I just don’t know what to do.  I don’t know if I’m missing something, or it’s the camera that doesn’t function.   But I have a feeling it’s my computer.  After all, it’s a few years old.  I do have Windows 2000 though so I would think there shouldn’t be a problem. But who knows…?  I’m going to have to try it out on another computer to see if it works or I’m the one with the problem!  Too bad…!

And of course, as I’m spending time trying to figure this out, cussing out my computer and my new camera, I start smelling something burning.  It smelled like melting plastic.  Earlier, my son had been making hamburgers on the stove.  He enjoys cooking (it’s a good thing because I suck at that too!)  So I had to get up and check up on him a few times to make sure eh didn’t burn anything and while there, I took a picture of him cooking.  So when I smelled something burning, I yelled out to him to see if he accidentally burned something.  He said, “No mom, I’ve already finished and I turned the stove off.”  The smell was getting stronger and stronger, so I had to get off my butt and check out the stove.  Nothing.  I asked my daughter if she new what may be burning and she said, “Come here, let me show you”.  I’m like, “What do you mean?”  “Are you burning something?”   She takes me downstairs to the basement where we also have an extra oven and she says, “I think the tray burned.”   “What tray?” I asked.  “The tray where I put the pizza on."  I opened the oven door and sure enough, she had used a plastic tray to warm up the pizza in the oven.  “Why did you use a plastic tray?”  “Don’t you know it melts?!”  My daughter answers, “I didn’t know it was plastic.”  Knowing my daughter, I think she just got whatever was downstairs instead of going upstairs to the kitchen to get a pizza tray.

So I carefully removed the pizza from the oven as it was too hot.  The good thing is that she had wrapped most of the plastic in foil so the pizza was still good but the plastic did melt and it dripped all over the oven racks and the bottom of the oven.  I took the racks out and proceeded to clean them out.  I had to use a butter knife to scrape most of the hardened plastic that got stuck on them.  I ended up with several burns, cuts on my hands and fingers!  I was so upset!  I told my daughter that next time if she wasn’t sure about something to ask.  I’m glad we didn’t leave the house or fall asleep!  

And as I was scraping off the bottom of the stove trying to get the hardened plastic off, I turned around to get a rag from the sink and there was my husband sitting on a chair watching me!  I let out a scream!  He scared the hell out of me!  He said to me, “You see, I’ve been here for a while and you didn’t even know I was here.”  “I could have been a burglar.”  

He was gone most of the day and I swear I never heard him come in.  I guess I get too involved with things.  I have to be careful.  First my daughter almost burns the house down and then, I could have had a burglar inside the house!  

And right now, I am totally frustrated that I can’t download my pictures to my computer!