Battling with Technology

I have not been around this place much (well, at all in fact) in the last week or so. I have been busy getting on with my life and the ever growing mountain of 'stuff' to do. And also my computer is really annoying me.

A typical evening's Internet viewing will go something like this...
7.30pm. Kids in bed switch computer on, wait fifteen minutes while it warms up, goes through all its checks, loads up my desktop, and settles down. I make a cup of tea.
7.45pm. I log into my emails to find I have 64 new emails, 62 of which are junk (and those are just the ones that actually got through), and the other two are friends being very jolly and fun. I am really knackered and have 'stuff to do' so I ignore them as I am too tired/busy to answer.
8.00pm. Have a look on eBay to see if any one wants to buy any of my stuff. Nope. Have a look at all the auctions I forgot to bid on because I was busy being a mum.
8.10pm.Search for some new stuff to bid on.
8.12pm. Internet connection decides to momentarily go to sleep. A page I am loading takes three minutes to come up.
8.15pm. Internet connection wakes up. Page loads.
8.18pm Internet connection goes to sleep again. I receive irritating 'This page cannot be displayed' message. Stress levels rise.
8.20pm. Internet connection given kick up backside. Page loads.
(this battle continues for approximately three quarters of an hour at which point my teeth ache quite a bit from stress gritting)
9.05pm. I decide to write an email to a friend.
9.15pm. I try to send email to friend.
9.16pm. Internet connection is lost again.
9.17pm. Email is also lost.
9.20pm. After screaming into a pillow, I try very hard not to bludgeon laptop into small pieces.

So you can see why I haven't been around here much lately. The idea of spending half an hour regaling tales of spending to you only to have it disappear into the 'ether' was not one of my favourite ways of wasting my time.

I am keeping my fingers crossed. (And my toes.)

Any hoo. I had a cunning plan to show you what it is I have been buying and why, so I kept all my till receipts to scan into the computer, which I have done. Anyway, in doing so, I have realised just how much money I spend and just how far it doesn't go. AND actually, for all my money saving talk, just how much rubbish I buy.

So here goes....