Thanks to the wonderful generosity of many of you and others who are not blog readers, I was able to order my new booster a couple of minutes ago. If I had had to cover the purchase entirely on my own, I would have had to wait till another cheque landed at the end of the month. I really need that new booster now because my internet connection is getting worse as the days pass and I finally have confirmation on why.

Because of the local topography, I can only connect to a tower that is located quite a distance aways in a popular vacationing spot where people camp and have cottages. We are in the heart of holiday season and SaskTel has confirmed that my especial difficulties this past week have been due to the tower being overloaded and my weak signal not being able to get push through the interference. Of course, the congestion on that tower would be diminished if folks in my area could connect to our local tower, something I will bring up with the president’s office when it finally gets back to me.

Shipping for the booster was 95USD/125CAD to my hamlet or Assiniboia or free within the United States, so I’m glad that I’m so close to the US border and have several places in Montana I can ship to. I was nervous about shipping to my usual destination, the bar in Opheim, because they just leave packages out in the open and unsecured. A bit of Googling found a package service in Plentywood, which makes sense since it is directly due south of Regina.

I just called them to make sure that they are still operating because they website hasn’t been updated in a while and they are! I am so glad to know of this service! Plentywood is 163KM from me, versus 100KM to either Opheim or Scobey, so it won’t be my first choice of location to pick up things, but it’s good to have the option for valuable packages. I’ve been trying to plan a touristy trip just northwest of Plentywood on this side of the border, so I’m going to combine the two trips and spend less on fuel than if I did the tourist thing one day and a border run another day, and definitely much less than I would have paid for shipping!

It’s been a financially exhausting month, another case of taking a leap forward financially and another giant one back. Thanks to your help, I’m back on track. It’s been so stressful the last few weeks dealing with a failing computer and increasingly poor internet. I’ll have my new computer and booster by next week and should hopefully be much less stressed in my last couple of months here this year. Thank you again so very much!