This is a battle that started last night. It was time to get rid of AVG Free and replace it with Avast. My reasons were simple: They’ve gone to a mostly paid version. It’s poorly reviewed by users.

What I didn’t anticipate was the sheer torture AVG would put me through in trying to uninstall it. You see, the usual routine of uninstalling through the “Add or Remove Programs” screen didn’t work. Not only didn’t it work, it froze up my computer so badly it wouldn’t even shut down when I told it to after canceling the frozen uninstall. I had to use the power button.

But I did it. I triumphed on the field of battle… err, successfully uninstalled AVG in safe mode. This after trying to figure out what to do with a partial uninstall that wouldn’t successfully let me reinstall it or complete the uninstall.

So far so good with Avast. It comes very well recommended and is still free. That certainly works for my budget! The one challenge was the big scan it does on the restart after install… about an hour and a half to two hours, I would guess. I didn’t time it.

This weekend was really something. Drove to the Bay Area to visit my sister and talk over a possible move in with her and her husband when they buy a home. She’s offering free rent in exchange for doing the stuff to keep the house up during the week and helping out with her 13 year old daughter. It’s not a bad deal since my husband’s job hunt has been so slow.

That doesn’t make it an easy decision, of course. Making this kind of a change in his job hunt and our living conditions is no small thing.

The idea is highly comfortable to me. My sisters and I get along well. She and her husband have been married for just about a year and while I don’t know him that well, overall he seems to be a very nice guy.

But then there’s moving my husband’s job hunt to a new market. He’s been networking heavily here, and moving would take him away from the people he’s networked with. My sister feels the job market is better there. With the public transportation system up there, many of the cities there would be within a reasonable commute.

Then there’s moving away from the hospital I’m near now. I was looking forward to seeing its maternity ward, which I understand is much more modern and comfortable than the hospital I had my first two kids at. And it’s so close! Add in the fact that I’m earning ALMOST enough to keep us here rather than having to move in with either my sister or my inlaws, and it’s tough figuring out what to do.

Much of the decision I’m leaving to my husband. I am quite willing to move in with my sister, and some of the things she wants done during the week, like cooking dinner, are things I’d be doing anyhow. But for him it’s such a difference in the job hunt. He’s checking things out online to see what there is up there for him.

We’ll be deciding soon, so my sister and her husband know whether to put an offer on the house we all liked.

The end of the school year took quite a bit more out of me than I expected this year. It’s not just getting used to having 2 kids in the house rather than 1… that’s easier some ways since they love to play together.

But my kids just had to throw in a stomach bug. And my sister-in-law is in town. And some other stuff I’ll tell you about another day. Gotta tell family first, after all!

So many little things conspired to tire me out so much that these past two weeks I’ve barely worked at all. Ridiculous really, but the combination of recent events has left me completely exhausted.

But I think I can get back to work now.

I found out from the CDC that this week is Hurricane Preparedness Week. While hurricanes aren’t a problem where I live, I know a lot of people do have to consider them. I get less warning for my natural disasters - earthquakes. But I still keep disaster supplies on hand for those.

Their website has a variety of tips on how you can prepare your family for a hurricane. These include preparing for a hurricane, emergency supplies you should keep on hand, tips on if you are ordered to evacuate, and more.

Hurricane season begins June 1, so they’re really trying to get people along coasts that get hit by hurricanes to prepare in advance. Much better to be ready than to have to fight the crowds when the warning is given.

Let’s all hope for a mild hurricane season.

My husband has been battling a clog in the kitchen sink all day today. Nothing will make that thing budge for him. We’ve called the landlord for a plumber but you know how that can take a while, especially since landlord’s do-it-yourselfer husband was out when we called.

But I really think these things are contagious. You see, yesterday we were at my mother’s house. Her bathroom sink is badly clogged. So it’s only natural that we would get a sink clogging too, although I hope our situation isn’t so bad. She’s looking at needing to replace a lot of her plumbing in the bathroom, and she’ll be checking to see how the rest of the house looks.

This isn’t a first for us, though.

Last time it was the washing machine. My in-laws washing machine broke just days before ours did. I had a lot of fun teasing my mother-in-law that it was all her fault for telling me about it over the phone. Clearly our machine overheard her.

For now, we’re trying to decide if we want to cook dinner at home. It’s about 96 degrees F out, so really, really hot for cooking, but with my husband not working, it doesn’t make any sense at all to eat out. But then what about dishes? Bathroom sinks aren’t terribly friendly to doing the dishes.