Fingers Crossed...

We have had some crazy, busy, frustrating times in the last week and I will attempt to tell you all about them.

Monday we had the final 5 of our 15 crates delivered. Not sure how they got separated into a split shipment but they did. It is my understanding that they are not supposed to separate our crates. They are all "supposed" to go into the same shipping container. However, it did happen and we are none the worse for it. On Monday, we received the couches (yeah something to sit on) and bath mats for the bathrooms. (silly thing to be excited about but I am - my mats are so comfy when getting out of the bath or shower and they wash up so well - a towel just doesn't cut it. And when you have ceramic tile floors you really do need something to set your tootsies on...don't want to slip and fall). I digress...

As most of you know we have also been having internet problems. What? You didn't know that?? Well, we did, we do and we will for a while probably. Apparently this quaint and beautiful country of Italy is still a third world country and backwards in many ways. Internet is just one of them. (As I have typed this portion I have just lost my connection. Last night when I lost my connection I could not reestablish the connection until around 3:30 this afternoon. Went out after about 20 minutes both times). Hopefully that is not a sign of what we will have to continually deal with. I will have to become a much faster typer and reader and surfer. I know I can type things up and save it as a document and then load it up but man I still like my internet service. Still waiting. Okay, I guess I will continue writing this and just save it to a word document if I am unable to get my connection back. Back to what I was saying about this being a third world country...It seems that the ASDL box for my neighborhood is completely saturated. Not one slot left for anyone. As the phone tech was here to set up a phone connection (which we have since decided against) someone pulled up in their car to talk to him. Apparently this gentleman has lived in our neighborhood for a year and is still waiting to get ASDL. Dial-up here can be very unreliable. Even the ASDL goes out periodically for no reason. So they can put me on a waiting list but, of course, I am behind everyone else. The tech did say that they have a plan in the works to add more underground service for our area. This means that my wait for high speed internet service is around 6 months or so.

So because of this we purchased a wireless modem and sim card yesterday for the laptop. This is theoretically supposed to allow us inlimited wireless internet for 30 days. We have to add time every 30 days (like a pay as you go cell phone). However, last night it took about 5 hours to get it set up. We finally had connectivity and started to check emails, etc. I had just cleaned out my email when I lost my connection. I was in the middle of composing an email at the time. I started walking around the house to see if I could get a better connection. I couldn't get a better connection and even lost the power completely to the modem. This morning we still couldn't get the laptop to recognize the wireless modem. Started trying to set up the desk tops to see if it was just an issue with our laptop (not enough power to support the modem through the USB port) but don't have all the cables, adapters etc that we need to get that done either. So, on a whim I came back downstairs to the laptop and tried again to see if I could get connected. Voila! It worked but alas, only for 20 minutes. Even now, as I type, I keep trying to see if I can get my signal back. Nothing as worked so far. Don't like this 20 minute shut-off thing. And when you pay that much for something you really would like for it to work continually and not sporadically.

Okay, now it has been over an hour and now the modem has no power and the computer isn’t even recognizing it. I have tried rebooting twice and even powered the entire thing off and then turned it on again. Something is wrong with this modem. We either need to take it back to the shop we got it at or figure out how to make it work. The good news is I have a friend who literally lives 3 minutes from us and she is out of town for the rest of the week. She left me her keys and last week we set up the laptop to recognize her wireless internet. (She has many security features and needed to verify that it was all set up and that my computer would recognize her connection – it did). So this evening after we eat we will head over to her house and connect. Then maybe James can check google and see what the issue with our modem or sim card might be. I will load this up at that time and post it so you can all feel my pain.

I guess I will have to start typing a daily log and then upload it when I have the chance. Particularly if these issues are going to be so persistent.

Wanted to tell you about more things but this has grown rather long as it is. I will try to add a little more later in the week – maybe even tomorrow.

Ciao for now!

****update - still no internet on the laptop - at least not with our new wireless modem. I think James does have it working on the desktop but very slowly. We are at my friend's house using her internet so that I can post this to the blog.