Flat packs and frustration

I am drowning in flat packed furniture! Since last year we have had an IKEA just 15 minutes away. I like IKEA, but a trip there always seems to end in a pile of flat packs. Yesterday's trip produced a computer desk and chair (very pink!) for Angel's room and a pile of green cushions for Star's. Why is it that assembly never goes smoothly? Angel and I struggled attaching the chair to its frame until a hefty kick finally clicked it into place. I have spent two evenings at my Mum's assembling a table and four chairs ... which went well until I got overconfident today and missed out a vital piece of metal ... then couldn't understand why the chair fell to pieces. And there are five bookcases still lurking in her garage, waiting to be put together and have boxes of books emptied into them.

Then added to the assembly difficulties is the need to save the planet. Our rubbish (garbage) disposal system is based on large wheeled bins (known rather obviously as wheelie bins) for non-recyclable waste and orange bags which we fill with an eclectic mix of recyclables. Over the past two days I have stuffed six large orange bags with cardboard packaging, all of which had to be torn up small enough to fit into the bags ... thereby simultaneously achieving environmental brownie points and aerobic exercise.

When not battling furniture and packaging I have spent the rest of today trying to set up the latest replacement laptop. It is pre-loaded with Windows Vista. With few exceptions Windows Vista does not like my software, or my software does not like Windows Vista - at least without a lot of effort and coaxing. I discovered I had backed up old Outlook files instead of the current ones, so have lost the entire contents of my inbox and all my saved emails. Among those emails was one with a registration code for Angel's maths program, which I can no longer open without the code. At least I hope that is the problem, as I can at least email to ask for a replacement code. It could be Windows Vista.

I now know one thing for certain ... I love my Mac! I have had to reboot the new laptop more times in one day than I have had to reboot the Mac since it arrived. An hour after getting the laptop out of the box, it had just about managed to complete its set up program. An hour after getting the Mac out if its box, the girls had finished making a movie. It took me a while to acclimatise and stop using Windows shortcuts out of habit, but the Mac operating system is far more intuitive than Windows. Admittedly some programs won't run at all on the Mac, but all those that do run without a glitch. If I have my way this laptop is the last Windows machine I will buy.

After today, I just want to escape from the assembling and configuring and get back to homeschooling!