Birthdays

Yep. Another birthday is coming my way. The older you get, the less you pay attention to them. Well, your kids do, but all in all, I really keep my mouth shut about it. I mean, would I be bragging or complaining if I talked about it? If you weren't on Facebook with me (or reading this, which practically nobody does), only my children would know. I thought I even took it off my Facebook page, but someone (meaning my daughter) always says something and then we're off. Either that or Facebook, once it knows and no matter what you do, never forgets and sticks it up there at the top of the page.

Still, I never cared much about birthdays....everyone seems to get upset at the 0's...30, 40, 50 etc. I never did. Still don't. It's just another day. My ex hit the big 80 a couple weeks ago. We've remained on good terms, so I sent him a text. His response? "I feel like a spring chicken". Well good for him. That's the attitude to take and he doesn't give a damn about numbers either. He plays golf nearly every day. The thing is, we've both been blessed with good health. (Picture me knocking on wood here. You just never know.) What a difference that makes. My dad, who lived to his mid 90's got dressed (even put a tie on) and went to work every day until he was 92. So my words of wisdom are stay active, stay interested, stay busy. That's the ticket. Do something. Anything. And keep walking. Oddly, and this was a surprise to me, walking seems to be the one of the biggest problems as you age.

This isn't an "0" year for me anyway, but that one is creeping up really fast and I wonder how I'll feel about it. Probably the way my mother did in my very first post for this blog: "Who is that old woman in the mirror?"

Do you want to know my age? Do you have any idea what a skate key is?

I thought not. (That's my cousin on the ground....I probably pushed her. I was a little shit.)

And besides, my sister is 6 years older. hahahahahaha on her.

So.....Happy Birthday, me. 

Don't tell.

Thank you, Google

When I hear people say: what did you do before cell phones? (back in the dark ages of my youth) my first response is: never mind cell phones, what did we do without Google? And yes, we had encyclopedias and dictionaries, but I did something yesterday that would have been impossible 50 years ago. While it brought me pleasure to solve a problem so easily, I realized we take turning to Google to solve problems for granted and the computer generations that follow don't know any other way.
So this post is a little thank you for all the pesky problems Google solves. Sometimes even big problems. (And please, let's not get into invasion of privacy issues right now.)

I replace my foodie blog header jpg as the fall seasons change and yesterday when I switched from Halloween pumpkins to turkeys, the white background turned pink. What's up with that? I've been doing this for several years and never had that happen. I decided to give it a day or two to pull itself together, but it didn't change. I tried everything I could think of and believe me, I'm no slouch in the computer department. (Yes, I tried re-installing. I even took it into Photoshop to dump more white in the background. No dice.)

OK, so I asked Google. Wording the question to get the right response is always a puzzler. After several tries, I must have hit on the right wording as I found a page of other people asking the same question. Don't you love those forums? They make you feel less an idiot (most of the time anyway) and it's always a relief to read someone else gets as annoyed as you are and just as helpless to solve the problem.
I read through the forum  questions and suggestions and finally found the answer.
The problem? Google +.  Who'd have thought? The solution? So simple. There it was. I did as suggested, went back, but alas, the photo was still pink. Then it occurred to me to do exactly what my old computer teacher always said to do: when in doubt, remove it entirely and reinstall. Voila! A white background.

Google, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Why do these simple little computer problems create such havoc? Why am I thinking about this at night? Why am I even bothering to blog about this silly thing?
World Peace. That's what I should be worrying about. Not pink backgrounds. Oh well.

(And in the event pink jpg backgrounds ever happen to you, here's the advice:)

"I was going to suggest that Image Enhance might be the cause. I will give you that information just in case.

The Image Enhance setting in is Google +. (It happens even if you do not have a Google + account.) To rectify the situation, log in to your Google + account and find the setting for Image Enhancement and answer it with a no. 

If you do not have Google +, you will have to create a Google + account just to correct this.