A Love Hate Relationship

I've become quite dependent on my laptop. I'm on it every day, looking at facebook, blogging, reading blogs, reading about migraines and fibromyalgia, checking the weather, looking at the TV Guide, tweeting, checking the news, managing my Netflix queues... My laptop is my access to the outside world, it allows me to stay connected with family, friends and my fellow chronically ill peeps. The value this connectivity adds to my life is hard to even measure in light of my health limitations.

No matter how much I love the connectivity my laptop provides, I never have anything nice to say about the actual laptop. It is old, really slow, it randomly turns itself off, most of the programs I've installed (like Skype) have "fatal flaws" or have simply crashed, I frequently get locked out of internet pages when in the middle of using them and the only way to get back in is to restart the computer. Start up takes about 20 minutes (sometimes longer) and shutting down takes about 5. I can no longer watch any videos online without causing a crash. Honestly, my laptop drives me nuts. 

However, I've vowed to ride it out to the bitter end. Laptops are expensive and we don't have much extra money, especially now - after the big move. But the problems are getting worse and more frequent - I fear the end is near. As much as I hate my laptop, I hate the idea of spending money on a new one in the near future much more. 

Fingers crossed that it survives through 2014.