A couple weeks ago, my work computer got some sort of upgrade. After that, every time I opened a new window in our web browser (Microsoft Edge), it brought up this “home screen” of sorts from Microsoft. (It used to bring up some sort of hospital menu page? I don’t know why this changed.)
Anyway, I usually just go straight to the address bar to pull up a website or google something, so I mostly just ignore it anyway.
But it was getting hard to ignore, because this Microsoft home screen basically = a BIG BAD NEWS portal.
It is this sort of ugly, busy page with news headline boxes, from all different sources and apparently, all different places around the world. (Why am I seeing news from local stations in Florida or California??)
The headlines usually are all terrible. Usually most or all include something like “SOMEONE YOUNG DIED OF SOMETHING HORRIBLE”.
Words like “TRAGIC”, “FATAL”, “DEATH”, “CANCER”, “ACCIDENT” kept splaying across my screen when I just wanted to google something quick!!
This was really bothering me!! I am not trying to bury my head in the sand and ignore reality, but seriously, I don’t need to know about all of these bad things. It was quite disturbing! And then it would like, refresh, so that the next time I accessed a page, an hour later, it would be a whole new set of bad news!
So today I took a minute to actually look more closely at the settings. I found that, DUH, with a quick click, I could minimize the screen so that only the “headings” are available. (Headings are just like Money, Sports, Local, Weather, way down at the bottom. I can handle that.) The main screen now shows a lovely mountain range with snow on top. Ahhh. Much better.
Before:
A picture of a poor paralyzed woman!! Headline about the way-too-close-to home 4th of July shooting in IL. A father/ son homicide-suicide. A sweet German Shephard K9 dead. Oh, and an ad for Cruises.com. Because maybe while reading about death, I’d also like to book a cruise!
All tragic, very sad, and heartbreaking. Also, none of it actually relevant to my daily life. I think I will PASS on seeing these headlines anymore!
New layout:
MUCH MUCH BETTER.
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for this Neutrogena hand cream I picked up last week. I’ve been keeping it at my desk, and it feels and smells really nice.
GRATEFUL KAE 
OMG that page! So stressful! I could not look at that either! I really try to limit my news intake. I look at my city’s newspaper but it’s not super click-baity like that landing page was.
Every time I see the word Hyaluronic acid, I think of the commercial w/ Eva Longoria where she shows how the words is pronounced. Very effective marketing since it has stayed with me for probably!
PS – we will watch the last episode of Ted Lasso tonight. I loved Nate’s character in the first season and HATE it in this season!! 😦
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AHH NATE!!! I couldn’t believe he turned like that!!!
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I don’t read news for the same reason, mental clutter of bad news. What a difference right? starting with positivity vs. negativity.
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If you sign up for their newsletter you get a monthly desk top picture that is beautiful (for free). I love how happy I am when I get the email and when my desktop looks like art work.
https://1canoe2.com/shop/free-downloads
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That’s so awesome!!! Yeah, the news feed option was not working for me. HA.
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Oh wow. I’m so glad you changed that!
I’ve avoided the news for years. Don’t watch it or read it unless I’m doom scrolling like I did in the early COVID days and Ukraine days.
Still get to learn everything important… like our Prime Minister resigning yesterday. Someone messaged me about it. I hear what I need to hear and am sure you will too!
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Yeah, that wasn’t even really a true “news source” for me- I have other places I’ll get real news…this just seemed like the death notices or something! So much was really click baity type stuff, too, not even really current events/ important to know headlines. I heard that about your Prime Minister! My Iphone actually sent a special news alert about that one yesterday morning! haha.
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These kind of news landing pages are THE WORST. I am glad you found a way to change it (should you be able to just change your starting page altogether (to Google or something)?
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