Sunday, December 4, 2016

Shared Computer

My home-schooled  kids have both started attending college classes. Some folks congratulate me on getting my kids to the point where I no longer have to teach them myself. There are benefits to having the kids in college classes. There is a really easy formula for converting college credits to Carnegie Units to figure out when they will graduate from High School. There are drawbacks to having two people in college. For example, when you have a desktop and laptop in your house and two college students, you get little access to either internet port,  you can't keep the printer in ink, or paper. And the desk is always a mess!

But the thing that drives me the most crazy are the files and shortcuts that spring up on the computer. The downloads folder is full of things I don't recognize. There are file names I think I recognize, but when I click on them they are something else entirely.

And then I visit mom and think she must feel that way all the time. I was at her house today, and hung curtains I made for her bathroom. She picked out the fabric at the fabric store, but today she didn't recognize it when I brought it over. And when I put the curtains up she remarked "its odd to make curtains for your vacation home." Two hours later she called me upstairs to show me the curtains she'd made for the bathroom.

For mom, her mind is a shared computer and all the files are not quite what she thinks they are. I am the teenager that clicks my tongue impatiently at her and takes over the mouse. I try not to be that person, but her file access sometimes makes me impatient.