Last week I had some challenges with my blog posts.  I try to write a post five times a week, but last week the computers here at the Castle were not cooperating.

As you know, we do not have cell service or internet where we live in Death Valley.  We are adjusting to that.  Don’t take your reliable internet for granted!  The thing I miss most is being able to call people and talk to them when they come to mind.  Especially in my prayer time, I am used to following up on thoughts, ideas, answered prayers by talking to people on the phone.  I can’t do that.  We only have access to our phones when we go into town or when we travel to mile marker 25.

But we are allowed to use the computers at work, so I have been enjoying being able to check my e-mail on days when I work.  Last week, however, was very busy and I didn’t have the usual hour a day to use the computer.  This also meant I didn’t have as much time to work on my blog posts.

When I did have time to work on my blog posts, my pictures wouldn’t load.  Tom and I have taken some wonderful hikes lately and I like to put plenty of pictures in the blog.  So I would stick the travel drive in the computer to upload my pictures and it would upload 99% and then tell me there was an error.  The error is in thinking that the work computers are going to work reliably!  I tried several times to upload pictures and couldn’t do it until yesterday when we went into town and actually had 4G cell service.  Then the pictures uploaded with no problem in just a couple of minutes.

The unreliable computers at work presented a new challenge this last week.  We had to take Federal Information Safety and Security Training (FISSA).  We were supposed to take it in January, but they didn’t have it prepared for 2015 until February, by which time we had forgotten about it.  Until we started getting e-mails saying our computer access was going to be shut-off unless we took our training.

We have to take the training online which means that we also had to apply for a password and wait for approval.  Then we had to change the password they sent us and get approval for the one we wanted to change to.  So that took a week by itself.

Now Tom and I were ready to take the FISSA training but the computers at work have a tendency to lock up and shut down on you without warning.  So I would read the information, be in the middle of a unit test, and the computer would lock up, shut down and delete what I had already done.  ARGH!

The training is supposed to take two hours with a short test after each of the five units.  It ended up taking almost six hours, which I had to fit in around my other duties.  So there went the rest of my computer time last week.

But Tom and I both passed the training before the deadline.  And now my pictures for my blog are all uploaded, so now I can write my blog posts and have access to the computer without any more challenges.  Yeah, right.

Challenges are part of our daily lives.  Every day there are challenges to overcome.  We have to keep our sense of humor and be kind to others – even computers.