The new respite kid

So this morning my computer was running more slowly than ever. It was impossible. It took 15 minutes to boot up and then 4 minutes for Word to open.

I ran Spybot Search and Destroy. It ran for 6 hours...I swear. I turned it on at 7:00am. It was still running when I went to class at 9:30, when I came back to drop off books and head to a meeting at 11:30, while I ate my lunch. Finally it stopped, reporting that it had found 14 problems. Did I want them fixed? Yes, I did. It destroyed 12 of them and told me that it could only fix the others if I was willing to reboot. I did, and at 1:45pm I was finally able to do some work.

The good news is that the computer is now working.

So I can report that our latest respite visitor, "Jacke" is indeed a easy child to have around. She is seventeen and is spending all her time on the computer working on her on-line math class. She periodically asks questions like, "How many minutes are there in three quarters of an hour?"

She and Evan know each other from the teen shelter and get along fine. She appears to be quite responsible, organized and motivated.

The note from Mandy says, "She must be supervised at all times" and warns of what she might do if we fail to watch.

I think we have it covered. All the phones are gathered into our bedroom and the computer is where we can easily see it.

And speaking of keeping an eye on kids...I recently learned a new text message/IM abbreviation, POS.

It means "parent over shoulder."