Mother Nature is One Hormonal Bee-yotch.

We are on a roller coaster, from 80 degrees and blazing sun, better remember to pick up sunscreen, to 40s and rainy and utterly bleh. Today was the latter sort of day. Mother Nature must be curled up in front of the TV with a weepy movie and a box of chocolates.

Me, I'm not feeling terribly hormonal, but I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with a cold. It started with a gentle but unexpected "cough-cough" this afternoon - "Oh my, is that a tickle in my throat?" and has progressed to feeling wiped out and "Oh shit, did someone drop a hot coal down my throat?" Lovely. I haven't had a cold in a very long time so I was overdue, but it's still not fun.

But I was still productive today, before the hot coal stage. I've been retooling the electronic world of the Bossy Doghouse. My 7 or something year old router had developed fainting spells that would cause me to lose my internet connection whenever doing anything useful, and require me to unplug the router and restart the computer, so they would speak again. So I bought and installed a new, faster router - problem solved. I was very proud of myself for doing this, because though D-Link provided an "Installation Wizard!!" CD, the damn thing didn't run, so I had to install manually per the provided instructions - which was stupidly easy and involved unplugging from here, plugging in there, and restarting the computer, and makes me wonder why they felt a CD was necessary. Have we really gotten this stupid and dependent in the last 20 years?

Fixing their Support website would be a better use of their time. It took me quite a while to figure out where I was supposed to go to set my security stuff, because the directions "Click on this, and on the dropdown..." didn't actually lead to a dropdown menu. I found it somewhere else, and it's done.

This was the first step of my other steps to balance the cost of technology around the Doghouse.

My cellphone was hovering at death's door for at least the last six months. It tended to turn itself off at random, didn't work well indoors here, and was generally just doing its own death scene. So I made the leap to a smartphone. Not just any smartphone, but...a totally badass phone. Because I needed the GPS and email and all that stuff, and it has the best screen and camera evah. I can type - or speak - a text message, and read the damn screen without reading glasses! The latter was the real selling point - I really thought I wanted an iPhone until I saw this. My son has the Sprint version, which is slightly different but basically the same device. I fell in LOVE with it at Girlchild's wedding - the photos he took were stunning AND I could see everything clearly without reading glasses! It has the GPS I need now, and I can check multiple email accounts, and...blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I am no longer dreaming of an iPad, because this will be a viable substitute, and oh yeah, I can also make a phone call on it.

But a smartphone needs a data plan, and that costs some buckage. So I looked at my overall system and figured out what I could throw overboard to balance it.

I have not been thrilled with my cable system since I moved here. I'm annoyed with Charter's programming packages - stuff that was part of "extended basic" with Bright House is not included in extended basic but are in various "add-on" packages with Charter, and screw that. Meanwhile, my DVR has been filling up faster than I can watch the stuff it's recording, so obviously I'm not really THAT attached to a DVR. I've had ongoing issues with quality of service - just today my HD-DVR just shut itself off for no reason. The box has been replaced TWICE.

So I am giving them back their HD-DVR box and making another leap, to Apple TV. My son already has basic cable plus streaming from Netflix at his house, and when I babysat I realized I would be totally fine with this. He streams Netflix via the Wii, and I don't need or want a Wii, so I spent $99 on the Apple TV gadget, which was really highly rated in every review I read. I'm keeping basic cable for now, but may ditch that too if I find I don't watch it.

So I am upgrading technology with an eye toward higher efficiency and lowered monthly costs of functioning. I'm definitely getting more bang for the buck already.

And now I think I'll retreat to bed with a book and tea with honey. It's chilly and rainy and I feel this cold coming on, like the slo-mo experience of a car crash.