Child-like happiness

No one least of all me believed I'd ever become computer savvy.  Yes, I know how to search the internet and am quite good at locating odd-ball stuff.  Just give me a task, and move out of my way.  However, don't ask me to add a link, image from another site, or as simple a task as forwarding an email.  Last week my response was, "Are you  kidding me?"  Not any more.  As of today, I  have accomplished all three without any difficulties and have recognized the ease in which I handled the procedures. Don't let my bravado get in the way. I was terrified and thought for sure that I'd lose everything on the screen or at least screw it up bad enough that it would never be right again. "That's what the undo button is for," my husband reminds me.

But in order to understand how I got into this predicament, let's take a trip back in time to when I was a middle school teacher. Funny as it seems, in order to qualify as" an above standard" teacher, you have to pass a computer test.  What a computer test has to do with your prowess as a teacher is beyond me, but a requirement it is. And so, my colleagues and I sat one Spring afternoon facing a computer screen for 2 1/2 hours with a proctor and timer and proceeded to guess A, B, C, and sometimes D while not falling into a ADD state of mind.

Not all of us were blubbering idiots, only me and a few others.  When tested in Word, the internet, and Power Point, I did fine, but in Excel and diagnostic definitions, forget it.  Excel is an alien form of communication that my husband clearly states I never need work with again. Poor soul, he learned the hard way after asking me to help type in new addresses in his work database.  Four hours later, I had made such a mess that he dumped it and reinstated the original.

The difference between those who get upset and find it a challenge to prove themselves smarter than a computer program and me is that I delight in the fact that I don't care. Now that I'm writing a blog and have been asked to write for the Charlotte Exclusive website, I find that I need to be more comfortable working on the computer. So, with that said, I have started taking baby steps and am doing pretty well. My husband and son find it amusing when I run into the front of the house and say with a huge grin on my face, "I did it. I actually lit up the web address." 

Russell, looks at me and says, "Hun, that's called a hyperlink."

"Well great," I say. "Okay, that's the specific term, but I did it," clapping my hands like a two year old. "It really turned blue!  Yeah."

Russell is used to my child-like antics and silly gestures of surprised happiness. He just rolls his eyes, smiles, and goes back to whatever it was I interrupted again.