It took ages for me to get around to the actual wiring, but I did it, and it works!

This will be my “new” keyboard at work. Vintage 95-ish, it was filthy, and had a 5-pin AT connector, but it’s solid. C. gave it to me when we cleaned out the office equipment graveyard. She gave me a PS/2 keyboard as well to use for the cord because my work computer has only USB and you can’t rewire AT to USB directly. I got a good keyboard adapter for PS/2 to USB, and rewired the keyboard to PS/2 by searching for the pin designations and using a multimeter to determine which wire went to which pin on the keyboard and the PS/2 cable. I put off the wiring because I wasn’t looking forward to stripping those tiny wires, but I was bored tonight and finally did it. I soldered them, too, because I didn’t have any of that shrink-y tube stuff, just electrical tape.

The paint is Krylon for plastic in Watermelon Pink, covered with a matte clear coat. I think I have all of the keys in the right places, but the pictures are on my S3, which was powered off, so I winged it. The first word I typed was “gedit” in the terminal. I had it on the laptop because my desktop keyboard is PS/2 and I didn’t want to try hotplugging when testing a new keyboard that I wasn’t sure would even work. Anyway, it does work, so I’ll have a bright pink (and very sturdy) keyboard on Monday!

This is what $11.99 looks like in terms of handmade raw goat’s milk honey and oatmeal soap. If it works for my face, I believe I’ll find a recipe and make my own!

A little taller than usual yesterday after P got home.

I was up there to put a second seal on the…vent thingie. I did it with white on Sunday,  but P got black because there had been black…tar or something on it originally. I hope the goddamned thing is sealed now; I used nearly all of both cans!

I started last night and just now finished switching out my spring/summer clothes and shoes for my fall/winter ones. A task I utterly abhor, and P has to haul the totes back and forth to the garage because I can barely lift most of them and have to drag others because I can’t lift them at all, but I’M FINISHED! Free for the rest of October, all of November,  December, January, and February, and probably all of March. By April, I’ll be sick of winter clothes again, and it’ll be spring, so I don’t mind the switch as much. Anyway, for the forseeable future,  I’M FINISHED!

Oh, and I also climbed up on the roof to spray seal around the furnace vent thingies that was leaking the day it poured rain so hard last week. Go, me?

Actually took this one yesterday, but damn, Penstemon ‘Red Rocks’ is a trooper! In flower when I got them (July, I think), I deadheaded them and they bloomed again. Again, I deadheaded them, and they re-bloomed. Again, I deadheaded, thinking they couldn’t possibly do it again, but…

These I took today. I checked on Stephanie when I got up and she was still where I’d left her yesterday. I checked again later, after the sun had started to get some heat going, and she was still there, flapping her wings to get warm. I saw her again later, along with two more Monarchs.

It’s windy again today, but that didn’t stop two pretty Ladies from lunching at the Bistro!

I held the flower for this one.

This is 🙁 I cut/dug up the Mexican sunflowers and zinnias in that bed. Hope Hagatha is happy.

I pulled dead stuff out of the Honeysuckle Horseshoe, too, and found a “petrified” caterpillar. I have no idea what happened.

Here’s the 🙂 Happy birthday,  Stephanie!

I’m going out today to chop down the giant Mexican sunflowers that the rain mashed (again), but these are still pretty.

Something ate all the leaves off one of my hardy hibiscus!

The other one is still okay…so far.

Srsly!

They haven’t done much all year (in fairness, Charlotte did eat them once or twice), but they’re certainly pretty now, and soon enough, everything will be grey, brown and dead, so I’ll need to remember that it’ll be green again next year.

Random morning glory, zinnias, and one cardinal climber. No particular reason; they just looked pretty this morning so I walked down in my slippers to take a couple of shots.