Nothin' ain't workin' nohow

Before I try to get into the intricacies of my computer's failing health, let it be said that I now find my own silly self on the horns of a dilemma. (I've always wanted an occasion to use that phrase, and here I am at last, with just such an occasion, just when I don't need it.)

Unfortunately, it is not a happy occasion. This dilemma has huge horns.

My computer is getting worse and worse every day. For instance, my husband's cute photo of our Bonnie-Belinda-dog with her nose in a peanut butter jar — I can enlarge it, but then it is fuzzy — even fuzzier than it is here, and yet it is sharp and crisp when my husband enlarges it.

Enlarged only slightly but fuzzy already.

Due to this and many other problems, I definitely need a new computer.

However, we also ( and also definitely) need a new dishwasher. 

What to do? What to buy, and which to buy?

Yes, dilemma. Horns and all.

Sigh.

Part of the problem: I have already booked and paid for a multi-stop hop over to my homeland, British Columbia, plus I've already paid a crew of arborists for topping and trimming our huge poplar trees. Definite deficit in the old bank account.

Re the trip, I am flying from Medicine Hat, Alberta, to Calgary (also Alberta) and then from Calgary to Kamloops, BC, to visit my mother's cousin Ian MacKenzie; from Kamloops to Vancouver to visit my family, from The Wet Coast to Kelowna, BC, to visit my friend Gloria and then, on my last day, from Kelowna back to Calgary, and thence a flight in a very slow teeny-tiny plane to get me home to Medicine Hat.
The very definition of a multi-stop hop.

Air Canada had a seat sale, and I couldn't resist.

Yes, booked and paid for.

Paid, however, before a large branch from one of our huge trees came down, hitting the power line between the garage and the house. The power line by then was hitting the metal frame of the hot tub gazebo, and the big branch was forming a link between the power line, the metal structure, and our house.

I came home to find my husband and a neighbour calmly de-limbing and cutting the fallen branch without a care in the world.

"Did you call someone about it?" I asked, but they hadn't.
I think I lost my temper.

My hysterics resulted in the requisite calls being made, followed almost immediately by the arrival of a firetruck ...siren and all... attracting several of our neighbours.

So, at the suggestion of these authorities, I phoned the tree-toppers, and now find myself in a dilemma indeed, re my upcoming trip to BC.

Since then I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to pack so that I can get by with one carry-on bag. Gone is the option of buying something to wear when I get to wherever I'm going. Even if the tree-faller-fellers hadn't cost me all my savings and all my credit, I would still need a new computer. And a new dishwasher.

(I'm waiting to see if my husband will offer to wash all the dishes by hand. I suspect it will be a long wait.)