Two Birds, One Stone

My new computer is slow. As you may remember, I bought this shiny little laptop when I quit my day job to stay home and write. I thought it would be great and had visions of me writing on the deck, writing on the couch, writing in bed. Well, little of this has come to pass. Writing has indeed occurred but my laptop, for the most part, has stayed parked on my desk.

So, the laptop is running Windows Vista (you may begin laughing right now) and it is sooooo slooow. At first, I was very zen about it. (Or perhaps my mother was visiting and I was trying to be mature instead of whining.) Now that my mom is back in Maine, snuggling in for the winter, my throat is sore from whining. If I wander away while waiting for the-little-laptop-that-could (to do something revolutionary like open or close a program) to say, wash a cup and come back into the studio and it is still loading (that annoying little blue circle spinning) I’ll go wash two plates before I come back, stomp, and say WTF.

But, my friends, I have solved my impatience problem without resorting to a faster processor. I just brought my knitting in to sit beside my laptop. Now, when it looks like it’s going to be awhile before a program opens or a page loads, I knit. Most of the time, by the time I get to the end of a row and look up, the little blue circle is gone. (While I may complain about the circle, it is less frustrating than the little hourglass which might as well be screaming that TIME IS PASSING. Who needs that kind of pressure?!)

This has helped me immensely. My jaw is no longer sore from grinding my teeth. My foot is no longer bruised from stomping, and I’m making excellent progress on the Christmas presents I’m knitting.