EEEEEEKKKKKKK!!!!!

I have a good eek and two bad eeks.

The good eek: I saw a woodpecker at my sunflower seed feeder tonight. A downy, I think. Dumb bird--woodpeckers don't eat seeds! But he sat there on the perch and pecked away. That does it: I have to get another pole and a suet feeder. And suet impregnated with hot peppers, to try to keep the squirrel out of it.

Bad eek #1: Remember I was so proud about installing the new hard drive in my laptop myself? Well, it won't turn on. It does turn on, but the hard drive won't engage. My computer-repairing person says he thinks something in the motherboard is fried and I should just give it up and get a new laptop. *sigh* I'm thinking about it. I can use the desktop, but I'd prefer to use a laptop for a number of reasons--floor space, ease of updating (I can tote it in to work and use the wireless), and ease of toting around--I'm thinking of doing some genealogical research at my mother's home town this summer, and having a laptop would be so much easier than hauling around a lot of paper. But I couldn't buy it with cash, I'd have to charge it, which I'm reluctant to do. So I'll have to think about it a little more. Tiger Direct has a nice Gateway with 4 Gb of ram, 320 Gb hard drive, Windows 7, AND a phone modem hookup for under $450--that's a pretty good deal.

Bad eek#2--I've been knitting a lace scarf for my outside knitting, which is madness of course, and tonight I dropped a stitch and have wound up unraveling about 3", trying to catch all the stitches in one row--any row! Argh! Very frustrating!

But I am pleased about the woodpecker. There weren't any birds at all, and then all of a sudden there were the two chipping sparrows, a couple of purple finches, 4 cardinals (in turns, not all at once), and the woodpecker. I love watching birds at feeders. I'll have to start keeping the camera closer to the window.