Please don’t new and improve me

Dear Software Engineers and Programmers: On behalf of administrative support professionals please don’t new and improve software without choice.

I want to be able to choose your new features or so called improvements. Not just the when of them, but the what of them. Because I have limited time to produce certain results, I rely on things to be where they are and do what they have always done. I don’t want to have to go looking for off switches or adaptations to make things run as usual.

It’s not that I don’t like adventure. I want to choose my adventures. Just give me a check box or choice to upgrade. And make it easier to change our minds.

Are you wondering what I’m talking about?

Recently there was a Tuesday update that took more than 90 minutes. That was on bootup. I only work 3 hours. If 90 minutes is taken up with no computer access, that’s a problem.

And Text Boundaries in Word. Why did that need to change? I still miss them. In the olden days only the margins showed, not the lines. It’s too messy looking with all the lines between paragraphs etc. Those aren’t boundaries. I’m guessing some millennial felt differently. I have yet to find a work around.

And WordPress? WordPress, why do you think this new editor is better or improved? It’s not fast. It’s not intuitive. Meh.

I’d go on with this rant but will stop for now. I just got a pop up that says Dell wants to update. I need the break so I’m going to say Yes. Dell is polite like that.

I stopped watching TV

Along with a lot of other people I pretty much stopped watching TV in 2016. I got more reading done, more sewing and crafting, and my garden benefitted as well. Oh, maybe my cooking did too. The winter of 2019-2020 I started watching YouTube on a regular basis. I think I only viewed stuff there if someone recommended a particular something I needed to watch. Or something that was required for work. I had no idea the magic happening there. Internet accessed video was a whole new world view of the world. And most of what I found to watch was through the eyes of someone who was doing. Not someone telling about someone who was doing. Or interpreting the view of how I should view the doing. Or MIS-intentionally-interpreting the view of the doing. Of which we should all be sick to death of.

I completely divorced all the real housewives. And, I totally stopped shopping all over the world for our next house. And really, Hallmark movies are not that real. Truthfully, I viewed cable television on a small TV the same size as my computer monitor with what was fast becoming an outdated cable box losing stations right and left. So, one day, wishing for something garden related to watch I found Roots and Refuge Farm on YouTube.

And then I found that my Amazon Prime account gave access to an entire flowing river of video! Whoa! Goodbye cable TV. Who needs you? Not me.

So what am I watching? Here’s just a few I’ve enjoyed.

Amazon Prime:

New Tricks, a BBC production about a retired cops who get enlisted to form a team who investigate open or unsolved crimes. There are 12 seasons. I loved the first 10. I’m on 12 now. I’ll be sorry to run out of episodes.

On YouTube:

Celebrating Appalachia, I can’t learn enough about the area I live and I found this lovely woman, Tipper Pressley, with a blog called the Blind Pig and Acorn.https://blindpigandtheacorn.com/ I have learned so much, and I could listen to her all day. And, I wish we could be friends.

Sheepishly Me, Sandi Brock raises sheep and we get to get snippets of her days farming in Canada with her husband and two college age kids when they are home. She also has two dogs. And she too has Internet friends, the same ones I’ve become friends with. I confess I’m not crazy about her sense of humor writing video titles but that’s probably just the church lady in me. I love farmers. All sorts.

I also love sewing. Today in Jen’s Sewing Room is one I watch nearly weekly. She’s not a fake sewist and is quite refreshing actually. She’s totally relatable. I also wish we could be friends.

And I have always loved paper and books and journaling, I had no idea it was possible to do them all. I adore Melanie Sullivan.

And two amazing women, one British, one American, take me back into another era of sewing and history which usually leads me to other things via the rabbit trails they introduce. If you don’t already, I think you’d enjoy Cathy Hay, and Bernadette Banner. They are both what seems to be known as history bounders. Bernadette has more than a million subscribers!

I’ll stop there. I stopped watching TV to stop the angst and anger that washed over me daily whenever there was a TV on. I don’t miss that feeling, and I love being in control of what media or entertainment options are before me.