Thanks to all for the suggestions. It would seem that some have similar problems and others do not, so I am a bit puzzled. I think that the server was upgraded a while back and I thought that things were working better. Sometimes when I try to get onto the site I just get an hourglass and then I timeout with a message that the connection can not be established. I would attribute that to either bandwidth limits or the server refusing the connection possibly because it needs a re-boot.
Gargoyle's thought that I may be getting a low priority may be correct and I can live with that. However, sometimes when I am already connected to the site I may try to respond to a thread and it also refuses to send the message for the same reason, so it seems that the server has dropped me while I was logged on.
I don't usually participate in a lot of discussion , but I have learned a lot from you Catters and from time to time I find that I may have the information that someone requests as well.
         Thanks and best wishes!
                     Sandy