Anyway … the other day I was speaking with my sister and we talked about going out one weekend to take photographs around the city. My sister used to be an artist but because of recent health problems she really hasn’t been sketching or painting so I suggested that she might be able to express herself through photograph and she seemed to like that idea.

This past weekend I pulled out one of my older digital cameras – a Sony Cybershot DSC-H5 and I discovered that it had a problem. At first, once I’d put in new batteries, the LED screen would flash on for a moment with the message – “Lens cap still on” – and I’d remove the lens cap and the power would go off on the camera. The lens wouldn’t extend out or move in anyway and the LED screen wouldn’t come on with the lens cap off and it wouldn’t do much with the lens cap on either.

After a lot of research on the internet I finally discovered a a page that suggested that I plug in the cameras AV connection so that the LED screen wouldn’t turn on when I pressed the power button and that that would give more power to the lens motor. I tried it and the lens extended but then the power shut off again and I couldn’t get it to retract! I’d read on several pages to try tapping the lens or gently twisting it to the right to get it retract so I tried that many times and after two days of trying the lens went back in .. but still, the led screen won’t work. Now I’m thinking that it might be one of the retaining rings or the internal battery in the camera.

OR … I just don’t know … maybe I won’t get this camera working again. I’d like to. It took great pictures and it was an expensive camera back when I originally bought it. It would be nice to get some more use out of it or at least to see if my sister might enjoy photography as much as I do.

If anyone has any ideas as to how to fix this cameras lens and led screen problem I’d love to hear your suggestions. I really don’t want to take it to a camera store or back to Sony as that would probably be very expensive.

One of the shows that I’m talking about is that one on TLC that shows people addicted to eating weird things like couch stuffing or hair. How can people possibly eat that kind of stuff and live? Really!

Then there are people that get high on bath salts. First .. I want to know how someone figured out that you could get high on bath salts? It had to be someone with a weird eating fetish that discovered this side effect, right? LOL .. well now these people can get bath salt abuse addiction rehab treatment if they really want it. I have no idea how you’d go about treating this kind of addiction, but I guess someone has figured it out.

I wonder what the next strange addiction or fad is going to be? So … have you watched any of these strange TLC shows? Where do they find these people?

Actually I don’t think I can really complain as we’re having a much warmer than normal winter here in Toronto than normal. They were actually saying on the news today that we might break a record for warmest January since the 1930′s or 1940′s! I can’t complain about snow either. I think it’s only snowed three or four times – snow that stayed on the ground for a few hours or a day or more I mean – or that had to be shoveled.

Still … right now .. I’m freezing … I’m eying some american eagle flannel shirts and seriously considering buying them and having them shipped next day. LOL Of course I could also just wrap myself up in my snuggie and see if I warm up that way too. Yeah .. that might work.

So what kind of winter are you having? Is it warmer than normal in your area too or is it cold and snowy?

Naturally once everything was updated I decided to explore all of the new features that were now on my cellphone. It’s a Nokia N8 BTW and it just got Symbian Anna. I know there’s yet another update that some people are getting but it’s not in my area yet.

The new maps are very cool so I decided to try them out when I was walking the dog. It was a very cold day so the gps was a little slow calculating my route when I made turns that it didn’t anticipate but otherwise it worked great. I really hadn’t used that feature or the maps for driving before, but I should because, well with this phone I don’t need a separate GPS navigation device.

Now I want to find new apps to download onto my phone. I was looking at an app that’s similar to Instagram earlier today that I might put on my phone. Watch my tweets for some cool pictures soon!

Have you investigated all of the cool features on your smartphone? There’s just so much stuff isn’t there?

Are you getting all those emails too? Or flyers in your door?

Now I don’t have much money these days to take advantage of the sales, but I’m keep an eye on them anyway. I figure that I might see something that someone else might be interested in and I was right. I saw an ad for kelty tents at RockyMountainTrail.com for really good prices and I sent the ad to my nephew because I know he’s been looking into getting some camping gear. I don’t know if he’ll take advantage of the sale or not, but at least he knows about a great sale now.

Do you take advantage of some of the great sales at this time of year too?

It seems like we bought more gifts for my family this year than his, but I guess in years past it’s often been the other way around so fairs fair. Now I have a dinning room table loaded with presents waiting to be wrapped – books, a nice blanket, tillman gloves, lovely skin care items, clothing, gourmet treats and many other special gifts. I’m pretty sure everyone will like what we bought.

Are you finished shopping yet?

Oh don’t worry I won’t be homeless … I’m thinking the house will end up sold. Maybe I’ll buy a motor home and just travel? Of course then I’ll need motorhome insurance and I’ll have to buy gas … but that still might be cheaper than keeping a house? Maybe .. I’ll be the Nomadic Diva?

Anyway I’m hoping things don’t change because I love my home, garden and life the way it was but who knows …

So for the last two months or so he’s been pulling out one of his gibson guitars and practicing with several other people from work – doctors, nurses and other hospital workers on a few songs that they planned to perform at the Christmas show.

I had thought the show was going to be on Thursday and I was going to go to it, but it was actually today! My husband came home from work this evening and told me all about it. He said everyone seemed enjoy their performance and that someone was video taping so I might be able to catch some of it on the hospitals website.

Actually it’s very old it needs a lot of things but the least I can do for it is take a look for some hp batteries and see if I can find one that works for that model.

I’d actually love to do an upgrade on that laptop and get it working properly again so I’d have two laptops that I could truly count on, but as I said that laptop that I’m talking about is kind of old and I’m not sure that it’s worth putting too much into it. Hmmm maybe Santa will bring me a new laptop?

While I was looking around online I came across some uniforms that I kind of like at Marcus nurses uniforms. Certainly if I do start back to work I’ll need some new uniforms so I’m sure I’ll buy a few new uniforms.

Have you ever had to take a medical leave from work for a long period of time and then had trouble getting back to work again? That seems to be what I’m going through. I’m still sick, but I think it would be a good think if I could go back to work … however working in the emergency department might be too much for me, I might just have to face up to that.