Lately in the news there have been reports of computers being “hijacked” and people being told that they had to pay a ransom to get the use of their computers back and if one pays, one may or may not actually get their computer use back. The amount asked can vary from a few hundred to over ten thousand dollars depending on whose computer it is and who has hijacked it.
There has also been - as I am sure you know - those who will send a virus, worm, or other malware to others’ computers.
In all of the above cases having a good, up to date firewall, virus protection, and malware software is important. Also one should be careful about emails and who they are from. Never open an attachment in an email if you do not know the person or if you do not know that the email is validly from the person you know. I have on a number of occasions received an email from someone or other, people well known to me and who I correspond with by email, and the subject line seems odd. I don’t open the email, but instead send an email to the person asking if the email is really from them. Often it is not and the person has had their account hacked - I then delete the email UNOPENED. I hate to cast aspersions, but in most cases, requests from Linkedin, saying that someone has invited you to join are dangerous and not from the person - delete them UNOPENED! You can contact the person separately to double check if you want, but there is a good chance it not from the person. All of these steps will help protect your computer from being hacked, as well as from viruses, worms and other malware.
Something which is very important to do is to back up your computer - often. If this is done it will help restore your computer if something does happen to it. I back up my data after each session of working on the computer (if I work on the computer in the afternoon I back it up and then if I come back in the evening and work again, I back the data up again). I also back up my data once a week and then once a month I back it up to keep it “offsite”. On a different date once a month I also back up the entire computer - or in my case - all 3 computers.
I keep almost all of my data off the computer on USB thumb drives (also called stick drives and other similar names) and use them for most of my back ups. They are rather inexpensive. (I will just call them drives to save time and space in this post.) I know about “the cloud”, but prefer not to put my information out in same, another place for it to be hacked so I use the drives. The ones I use vary from 4 to 16 gigabits, with some smaller ones, which used to be used for backing up and have been replaced with bigger newer ones, being used for things such as the drive on which I keep my copy of my blog posts, temporary use, or moving info from one computer to another if it is easier than sending it through the central drive on our router.
I have a drive for my data - I organize it into folders. It holds my letters and other such, my financial information, my spreadsheets, and so on of regular data. My calender data has to be on the computer, so it is not on the drive. I also have a variety of other drives for different data purposes - one for each business client (I take the drive to the client when I work and use it in my business laptop and on my desktop at home, this way the data on it is always the correct data to use), one for my current project of scanning in instructions and warranties, one for information I need in our RV when we are traveling, etc.
I also use the drives for backups. I have an A and B drive for daily backups of the data drive, calender, and clients. I use the A one and next time the B one, and then the A one again. This way the most data I can lose is the just completed session of work (or fun).
This worked well until I had a problem. There was a problem with the computer and the data and by the time I realized it, I had overwritten the backups several time and had to go back and redo my work. So, I came up with the idea of a weekly backup. This is another drive. I have 6 folders for my data, 6 folders for my calender and 3 folders for my clients (I generally only work once a month on each client’s info). I back up one week to each of the folders and then go back and over write them. So the folders on this drive read, for example - Backup, 0408 Backup, 0415 Backup, 0422 Backup, 0429 Backup, 0506 Backup - and the one without a date would have been backed up on 05/13 and I will change the name on it when I go to backup again to include that date and the 0408 will have the date removed and become the backup to be written over. The other folders are similarly named for their various purposes. If I find that problem has been continued - I have 6 weeks of backups to go back to for reference.
Once a month I copy the data drive, calender, and other data I need to be sure of, to another set of 2 drives for offsite storage. Sounds complicated? I used to send one of the drives to work with my husband and he would bring the old one back - off site - away from our house. When he stopped going out to work I was stumped. Then I had the idea to keep the offsite drive in our safe deposit box and I go there once a month and take the last one and leave the newest updated one in the box. Simple to do and if (God forbid) something happened to my house there is a backup. These drives also have a copy of my last archive disk - more about that later.
For all of the above backups I use a freeware program called Syncback.
When I do this I also burn two DVD disks (I use a rewritable disks) of the data on the offsite drive as DVDs are more stable than the USB thumb drives - just in case. One DVD is available at home for me to use. The second DVD goes into my emergency “grab it folder” just in case there is a disaster coming so I have a quick way to grab information to take with me. (I will talk about this folder some other time.)
I also have an external hard drive and once a month - in the middle of the month - I back up my computers to it. (Desktop, work laptop, and kitchen laptop) This will allow the restoration of the entire computer if needed. I recently had to get a larger one, and I now back up to the new hard drive monthly and the old hard drive quarterly - just in case. I use a commercial program for the backups to these drives. I keep a few years of the backups on these drives.
This is a lot of backups - daily, weekly, monthly, and computer monthly, and there are other unusual ones but it allays my fear of losing data. Early in our use of home computers we had an electric surge on our Commodore 128 and we lost the hard drive and all the data on it - this is why I keep as little data as possible on the hard drive and back it all up - a lot. We also disconnect our computers when they are not in use - we have them plugged into surge protector boxes which are plugged into regular multiplug boxes and we unplug the surge protectors from the multiplug boxes so the computers and peripherals are not plugged in when not in use for protection.
Now, the archive. One accumulates a lot of data over the years and decades. Too much data in every day use can make the data cumbersome. I have another USB thumb drive that use as an archive. Each year I move last year’s data to the archive drive and add it to the data there. I do this about a month or so into the year, as I like to do the bank reconciliations on the December statements and post interest (such as it is these days) received, so it is usually done in late January or early February. Sometimes I will do a second update to the archive of business items related to the prior year, later in the year. When I transfer these files to the archive I back up the archive to, yes, 2 DVD disks, which are kept in the same places as the monthly offsite DVD drives. I also will copy the updated archive to the off site drives - (first the one I have in the house waiting to go to the vault, and then when I bring the one in the vault home, I copy the new archive to it also).
I delete everything which has been copied to the archive drive from my assorted data drives. I then do a backup of everything to one of the daily backup drives. I then format the OTHER one of the daily backup drives and back up the data drive, etc to it, so it no longer has what has been transferred to the archive drive - just the current data. I then format the FIRST daily backup drive and run the backup. This way each of them has a clean version of the backup and the items moved to the archive drive is no longer on the daily backup drives.
I am sure by now your brain is swimming. I use my computers for work as well as personal and I don’t want to chance a client being audited and not having everything I need, nor do I want to look for a letter I wrote to a craft show about our doing the show, and then the following year be missing the information I need for the new show. Also, well, in case you have not figured it out, I am a bit crazy and don’t want to lose any information. I have had times when I make a mistake doing something on the computer and as I try to fix it I get into more and more of a problem. I know that I can always pull out the last backup and replace the what I have messed up and start over.
The important thing is to make sure you backup your data and your computer on a regular basis. This way if anything happens to your computer or your data, you have not lost the work you have done, the photos of your children etc.
I just remembered - I have tried in the past to backup my email and it has not worked as it is too cumbersome - I will try again to do this, but in the meantime I leave my email in my account and on my computer so it is in two places.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Thursday, May 19, 2016
I HATE SHEETS
I have a secret. There is one thing I really, really hate in housekeeping. SHEETS! I hate washing them. I hate folding them. I hate making the bed with them. I don’t know why I hate them, but I do. I don’t mind cleaning the toilets - I don’t consider it a fun activity, but I don’t mind - but sheets!!!!
One thing is that I am short just over 5 feet tall and therefore have short arms and I have to stretch them waaay out to hold the sheets. Our bed is a queen size, but I don’t like twin size either. Pillow cases are fine. Mattress pads are fine. Strangely even blankets and quilts are fine, but not sheets.
Growing up mom made our beds for us after we left for school - we usually used a quilt on the bed and mom would also put a bedspread on the bed. When we were older mom went back to work and we were expected to make our beds - the bedspreads were no longer used, but a quilt is easy to spread out and mom still changed the sheets.
Then I got married. We got an apartment. We bought two sets of sheets and pillowcases and blanket. It was up to me to make up the bed before we moved in - as well as after. My husband grew up in a home with a top sheet and a blanket tucked in - we did not have a top sheet when I was growing up and we agreed to a compromise - we would get a blanket and top sheets and when the blanket was replaced we would get a quilt - and use a top sheet with it. Our bedding has changed over the ensuing 37 years and we used a quilt for quite some time, until we had bed bugs - we then read that it was hard to heat a quilt in a dryer enough to make sure that any bed bugs died and we switched back to a blanket - in winter 2 blankets. Early on we had something to do and it was change the bedding day - and the other set was in the laundry (I had to go to a laundry up the road to do the laundry then and had not gone.) So we bought a third set - and have remained with 3 sets ever since - 1 on the bed, 1 in the laundry, and 1 waiting to be used.
Because I hate sheets I would plan to change the bedding in the morning and then not do so and plan to change it at night. At night we were too tired, so the bedding did not get changed as often as it should. . I finally came up with an idea - I strip the bed in the morning, the bed gets to air out, and I make it up before we go to sleep - I have to or we can’t go to sleep. This has worked well and also lets the mattress air out that day.
I was changing the bedding on Mondays for decades. Then, after husband was home full time, we started going to a classic film showing on Mondays at 1 pm ($2 each, popcorn and soda included if one wanted same - we were among the youngest there). This made a problem with Monday bedding change, so it was moved to Tuesday where it remains, even though the films have since been discontinued.
Weekly I change the sheets and pillowcases. On the first change of the month I also change the mattress pad (we own 2) and the underneath pillow cases - you know, the ones with zippers that are inside the nice looking cases. Since the bed bugs our mattress and box spring is each sealed in a bed bug proof case and our pillows have a 3rd pillow case inside the zipper cases which is also bed bug proof. The bed bug covers on the mattress and pillows are not normally changed, but I have just bought new bed bug pillow case covers as several years of use and summer sweat have made them unpleasant to look at. They have been heated in our bed bug heater and will be washed with this week’s load of sheets and pillowcases to be used the start of next month.
The reason I thought of this subject for today is that I tend to wash the bedding as the last load for the week and, once again, I did not get around to folding the sheets for an entire week - just in time to be able to do the laundry again.
I have figured out over the years that sheets do not have to be perfectly folded as if they are to inspected. If there are wrinkles in it - I don’t care. If the edges don’t meet perfectly - I don’t care. The fitted sheet - I match the corners (trying hard to figure out which way the sheet is long and which way it is wide so I will unfold it as needed to make the bed), then fold in thirds as well as it folds and then in thirds the opposite way - again just as well as it folds - to be stored. I fold the top flat sheet by finding the corners of the larger hem and matching them, following the sides to the bottom and matching those corners and then gripping all 4 corners with one had and following the sides to new middle fold and then on from there. When I make the bed it all - more or less - unfolds to match how it has to go on the bed.
The bedding is kept in a linen closet just outside our bedroom door in the hall. I have a hanging wire shelf which holds the pillowcases and a second one which holds older pillow cases which are still good from sheets we no longer use in case spares are needed - we threw out the sheets we had when we had the bedbugs as there was evidence of the bedbugs on them. Next to the stored sheets is a roll of paper towels (unrelated to this, but it is there and should be mentioned) and then the spare mattress pad is on the shelf with the spare under pillow case, zipper covers on top of it. Our sheets and pillowcases are now white or off white since the bed bugs. The shelf with the pillow cases hangs just below the sheets. The mattress pads are the type without sides and with elastic on the corners.
We also own a set of twin bed sheets and spare pillowcase as we have a twin bed in our spare room (I may have mentioned “the teddy bears’ room”) which was intended as guest room for our moms, but has not been used other than by niece and nephew once when they were young and two more times by my niece when she was junior high age. Some of the teddy bears and dolls do enjoy sitting on it. I keep a thin quilt (what we called a summer quilt in my family) on the bed over the mattress pad and made it up when someone was using it and then stripped the bed and washed the bedding - then stored it in the same linen closet as our bedding.
Several years ago when we bought our tiny RV I had to buy bedding for it also - more sheets. That bed is very unusual and has to be assembled to be used - it takes a minimum of 45 minutes to make up. It makes up into a short king size bed, but I make it as 2 twins immediately adjacent to each other. I will post at some future point (probably when I make it up the first time this year) about it and the heck of doing making it up - it is like a comedy routine.
There is another use for sheets that also makes work for me they can be used as fairly cheap fabric. We have cut them up and made table covers for our tables for craft shows. We needed some extra curtains for our RV for quicker use on the road (so no one can see in our windows when are stopped and not in the RV) - black sheets worked very well. Older sheets are used as covers over tables which are not ours at craft shows and demonstrations and also to cover over the items on tables in situations such as this when the tables are left for the night.
So, despite my hatred of sheets I have to spend part of my life dealing with them and have resigned myself to doing so, trying to make it as easy as possible.
Do you have a chore you hate to do? What is it and how do you deal with it?
One thing is that I am short just over 5 feet tall and therefore have short arms and I have to stretch them waaay out to hold the sheets. Our bed is a queen size, but I don’t like twin size either. Pillow cases are fine. Mattress pads are fine. Strangely even blankets and quilts are fine, but not sheets.
Growing up mom made our beds for us after we left for school - we usually used a quilt on the bed and mom would also put a bedspread on the bed. When we were older mom went back to work and we were expected to make our beds - the bedspreads were no longer used, but a quilt is easy to spread out and mom still changed the sheets.
Then I got married. We got an apartment. We bought two sets of sheets and pillowcases and blanket. It was up to me to make up the bed before we moved in - as well as after. My husband grew up in a home with a top sheet and a blanket tucked in - we did not have a top sheet when I was growing up and we agreed to a compromise - we would get a blanket and top sheets and when the blanket was replaced we would get a quilt - and use a top sheet with it. Our bedding has changed over the ensuing 37 years and we used a quilt for quite some time, until we had bed bugs - we then read that it was hard to heat a quilt in a dryer enough to make sure that any bed bugs died and we switched back to a blanket - in winter 2 blankets. Early on we had something to do and it was change the bedding day - and the other set was in the laundry (I had to go to a laundry up the road to do the laundry then and had not gone.) So we bought a third set - and have remained with 3 sets ever since - 1 on the bed, 1 in the laundry, and 1 waiting to be used.
Because I hate sheets I would plan to change the bedding in the morning and then not do so and plan to change it at night. At night we were too tired, so the bedding did not get changed as often as it should. . I finally came up with an idea - I strip the bed in the morning, the bed gets to air out, and I make it up before we go to sleep - I have to or we can’t go to sleep. This has worked well and also lets the mattress air out that day.
I was changing the bedding on Mondays for decades. Then, after husband was home full time, we started going to a classic film showing on Mondays at 1 pm ($2 each, popcorn and soda included if one wanted same - we were among the youngest there). This made a problem with Monday bedding change, so it was moved to Tuesday where it remains, even though the films have since been discontinued.
Weekly I change the sheets and pillowcases. On the first change of the month I also change the mattress pad (we own 2) and the underneath pillow cases - you know, the ones with zippers that are inside the nice looking cases. Since the bed bugs our mattress and box spring is each sealed in a bed bug proof case and our pillows have a 3rd pillow case inside the zipper cases which is also bed bug proof. The bed bug covers on the mattress and pillows are not normally changed, but I have just bought new bed bug pillow case covers as several years of use and summer sweat have made them unpleasant to look at. They have been heated in our bed bug heater and will be washed with this week’s load of sheets and pillowcases to be used the start of next month.
The reason I thought of this subject for today is that I tend to wash the bedding as the last load for the week and, once again, I did not get around to folding the sheets for an entire week - just in time to be able to do the laundry again.
I have figured out over the years that sheets do not have to be perfectly folded as if they are to inspected. If there are wrinkles in it - I don’t care. If the edges don’t meet perfectly - I don’t care. The fitted sheet - I match the corners (trying hard to figure out which way the sheet is long and which way it is wide so I will unfold it as needed to make the bed), then fold in thirds as well as it folds and then in thirds the opposite way - again just as well as it folds - to be stored. I fold the top flat sheet by finding the corners of the larger hem and matching them, following the sides to the bottom and matching those corners and then gripping all 4 corners with one had and following the sides to new middle fold and then on from there. When I make the bed it all - more or less - unfolds to match how it has to go on the bed.
The bedding is kept in a linen closet just outside our bedroom door in the hall. I have a hanging wire shelf which holds the pillowcases and a second one which holds older pillow cases which are still good from sheets we no longer use in case spares are needed - we threw out the sheets we had when we had the bedbugs as there was evidence of the bedbugs on them. Next to the stored sheets is a roll of paper towels (unrelated to this, but it is there and should be mentioned) and then the spare mattress pad is on the shelf with the spare under pillow case, zipper covers on top of it. Our sheets and pillowcases are now white or off white since the bed bugs. The shelf with the pillow cases hangs just below the sheets. The mattress pads are the type without sides and with elastic on the corners.
We also own a set of twin bed sheets and spare pillowcase as we have a twin bed in our spare room (I may have mentioned “the teddy bears’ room”) which was intended as guest room for our moms, but has not been used other than by niece and nephew once when they were young and two more times by my niece when she was junior high age. Some of the teddy bears and dolls do enjoy sitting on it. I keep a thin quilt (what we called a summer quilt in my family) on the bed over the mattress pad and made it up when someone was using it and then stripped the bed and washed the bedding - then stored it in the same linen closet as our bedding.
Several years ago when we bought our tiny RV I had to buy bedding for it also - more sheets. That bed is very unusual and has to be assembled to be used - it takes a minimum of 45 minutes to make up. It makes up into a short king size bed, but I make it as 2 twins immediately adjacent to each other. I will post at some future point (probably when I make it up the first time this year) about it and the heck of doing making it up - it is like a comedy routine.
There is another use for sheets that also makes work for me they can be used as fairly cheap fabric. We have cut them up and made table covers for our tables for craft shows. We needed some extra curtains for our RV for quicker use on the road (so no one can see in our windows when are stopped and not in the RV) - black sheets worked very well. Older sheets are used as covers over tables which are not ours at craft shows and demonstrations and also to cover over the items on tables in situations such as this when the tables are left for the night.
So, despite my hatred of sheets I have to spend part of my life dealing with them and have resigned myself to doing so, trying to make it as easy as possible.
Do you have a chore you hate to do? What is it and how do you deal with it?
Thursday, May 12, 2016
DIFFERENT METHODS OF ORGANIZING FOR DIFFERENT PEOPLE
We are all different. A statement of fact. As a result our problems with organizing and clutter as well as how we try to deal with them are different. Our “stuff” is different.
What anyone says to do to deal with organizing/decluttering problems may or may not work for you as a result. I read one book which gave “what one needs to keep” and one should get rid of everything else. As I read the book I thought of the expensive of going out and buying the items the author, a noted professional organizer, said I should have. Yes, if I followed this book I would have to go and buy things I did not have or want because the author listed these items as what one needed - she never did get around to dealing with anything I have excess of and I certainly would not go out and buy more clothes and shoes or pots and pans to match her list!
Those of us with organizing and clutter problems did not get these problems overnight and will not get rid of them overnight. What I have is the result of almost 37 years of marriage plus 26 years of my life before that plus 27 years of my husband’s life before our marriage. 60 plus years of stuff is not going to be resolved in a month!
I tend to work in fits and starts. I get one section of the house finished and when I am ready to move on to the next part of the house, something comes up - family illness, death, bed bugs, vacation, cold weather, hot weather... Or something causes an excess of stuff to accumulate for a particular project. Currently projects which are all first on my list is to finish organizing our studio - it was pulled apart for the bed bug treatment in 2009 and I finally started putting it back together, better than before, but then we needed a new dresser for storage (this is craft supplies I am talking about storing) and it took a while to find one which fit the space available and the items to go in it, almost immediately after we found one, we had mice in the adjacent kitchen and all sorts of items were stored in front of the new dresser in the studio - but I finally got most of the kitchen stuff back in the kitchen and need to work on the studio - right away - priority one. Oh, but then I have to finish a tax return for our business, clean out the folders from last year which had items only needed related to that year - which means I have to go through a box of papers from 10 years ago and shred what it is in, so that I have a box to store last year’s papers in - priority one. Oh, and I had to pull out a few folders of instructions and warranty papers to look for something for my husband and rather than try to fit it all back in, I am scanning in much of the papers as I have been planning to do and tossing out what has been scanned - I will only keep large instruction manuals and major (such as the siding, windows and roof) warranties - priority one. Plus of course one has to keep up with day to day matters.
People also work differently at projects. Some people like to do a project all the way through and work on nothing else. Others do part and then return to do the rest - often in more part sessions. Still others try to do everything at once (the dreaded multi-tasking)
I, myself, work in a combination of these techniques depending on what I am doing and my time constraints. My latest crazy idea is to scan the warranty and instruction papers into the computer, while simultaneously working on regular matters on the computer. I wondered why I never used my laptop for scanning - then I remembered, I had no scanning software in it. I went to download a freeware program which I use on my desktop and my laptop decided that it’s firewall and it’s virus protection both needed to be, separately updated. I finally got all that done and downloaded the scanning software.
I have an “all in one” and to load pages into the flat top to scan I need to get up and walk around the back of my computer to the scanner. This means that I run around, put in a page, run back to my desk, hit the button to scan and then turn to my desktop computer and work for about 2 seconds and then repeat. What I did figure out after the first day of doing this (yes, there has been a second day and a third day of doing this) was to put my laptop on an adjacent printer next to the flat bed scanner - I have to go there to put the page to be scanned in anyway and this way my desk is not taken up with the laptop and I have room to do other things - in 2 second bursts.
Does this work? Sort of. I have managed to scan in a good deal of papers. I also managed to do a number of bank reconciliations for us and organizations I am treasurer of, check email, deal with renewals for a club I am in, make a revised membership list for another club, pay 2 bills and post them to Quickbooks, help husband with something he uses Quickbooks for on his computer, and do my regular backups - and backup the drive with the papers I am scanning after I finish them for the day. If I did the stuff separately would it be done in the same time? I don’t know, but I do know that if I was to sit and scan stuff in I would be bored, this way at least I am not bored. I am also getting exercise running back and forth around my computer desk. I also am doing some of the work on my desktop computer standing up and that is suppose to be healthier.
How do you prefer to work on organizing and decluttering?
What anyone says to do to deal with organizing/decluttering problems may or may not work for you as a result. I read one book which gave “what one needs to keep” and one should get rid of everything else. As I read the book I thought of the expensive of going out and buying the items the author, a noted professional organizer, said I should have. Yes, if I followed this book I would have to go and buy things I did not have or want because the author listed these items as what one needed - she never did get around to dealing with anything I have excess of and I certainly would not go out and buy more clothes and shoes or pots and pans to match her list!
Those of us with organizing and clutter problems did not get these problems overnight and will not get rid of them overnight. What I have is the result of almost 37 years of marriage plus 26 years of my life before that plus 27 years of my husband’s life before our marriage. 60 plus years of stuff is not going to be resolved in a month!
I tend to work in fits and starts. I get one section of the house finished and when I am ready to move on to the next part of the house, something comes up - family illness, death, bed bugs, vacation, cold weather, hot weather... Or something causes an excess of stuff to accumulate for a particular project. Currently projects which are all first on my list is to finish organizing our studio - it was pulled apart for the bed bug treatment in 2009 and I finally started putting it back together, better than before, but then we needed a new dresser for storage (this is craft supplies I am talking about storing) and it took a while to find one which fit the space available and the items to go in it, almost immediately after we found one, we had mice in the adjacent kitchen and all sorts of items were stored in front of the new dresser in the studio - but I finally got most of the kitchen stuff back in the kitchen and need to work on the studio - right away - priority one. Oh, but then I have to finish a tax return for our business, clean out the folders from last year which had items only needed related to that year - which means I have to go through a box of papers from 10 years ago and shred what it is in, so that I have a box to store last year’s papers in - priority one. Oh, and I had to pull out a few folders of instructions and warranty papers to look for something for my husband and rather than try to fit it all back in, I am scanning in much of the papers as I have been planning to do and tossing out what has been scanned - I will only keep large instruction manuals and major (such as the siding, windows and roof) warranties - priority one. Plus of course one has to keep up with day to day matters.
People also work differently at projects. Some people like to do a project all the way through and work on nothing else. Others do part and then return to do the rest - often in more part sessions. Still others try to do everything at once (the dreaded multi-tasking)
I, myself, work in a combination of these techniques depending on what I am doing and my time constraints. My latest crazy idea is to scan the warranty and instruction papers into the computer, while simultaneously working on regular matters on the computer. I wondered why I never used my laptop for scanning - then I remembered, I had no scanning software in it. I went to download a freeware program which I use on my desktop and my laptop decided that it’s firewall and it’s virus protection both needed to be, separately updated. I finally got all that done and downloaded the scanning software.
I have an “all in one” and to load pages into the flat top to scan I need to get up and walk around the back of my computer to the scanner. This means that I run around, put in a page, run back to my desk, hit the button to scan and then turn to my desktop computer and work for about 2 seconds and then repeat. What I did figure out after the first day of doing this (yes, there has been a second day and a third day of doing this) was to put my laptop on an adjacent printer next to the flat bed scanner - I have to go there to put the page to be scanned in anyway and this way my desk is not taken up with the laptop and I have room to do other things - in 2 second bursts.
Does this work? Sort of. I have managed to scan in a good deal of papers. I also managed to do a number of bank reconciliations for us and organizations I am treasurer of, check email, deal with renewals for a club I am in, make a revised membership list for another club, pay 2 bills and post them to Quickbooks, help husband with something he uses Quickbooks for on his computer, and do my regular backups - and backup the drive with the papers I am scanning after I finish them for the day. If I did the stuff separately would it be done in the same time? I don’t know, but I do know that if I was to sit and scan stuff in I would be bored, this way at least I am not bored. I am also getting exercise running back and forth around my computer desk. I also am doing some of the work on my desktop computer standing up and that is suppose to be healthier.
How do you prefer to work on organizing and decluttering?
Thursday, May 5, 2016
A MYSTERY ARISES - HAD I CHECKED THE SOFA OVER THE YEARS ...
Another week gone by already?
Whenever we have a problem finding something I tell my husband when I clean up, I will find it. No matter how good a schedule I set up, sooner or later I am going to fall behind for one reason or another. The secret is to catch up as soon as possible, even if it is in baby steps of a few minutes here and there.
It really is true that when I clean up I find items we haven’t been able to find, as well as items we didn’t know we were missing. An organizing book I was recently reading (at Barnes and Nobles - there you have me - one way to keep from having more of a mess is that I read organizing books at B&N and do not buy them and bring them home) talked about finding lots of cash in sofas - hundreds of dollars in some cases. This greatly confused me as I have never found any cash in any sofa or chair. I could not imagine anyone losing money into a sofa or chair and not realizing it.
No, I did not find cash in the sofa. Tonight I was talking to my mom on my cell phone. I try to call her when I can - our lives do not sync she is a morning person and I am a night person - and have found Wednesday evening a good time to call - I don’t like what husband is watching on TV and she is still awake and not watching anything. (I learned a couple of years never to call when “Downton Abbey” was on any channel in any form or any show about it as she loved the show.)
I also never keep change in my pockets - it weights them down. Today I had lunch out alone and had the coins I received in change in my pocket and had not yet tossed it into the change keeper upstairs (periodically we bring the change to the credit union and change it into “real” money). As our 2 hour conversation was winding down (mom talks like I do and I talk like I write) I felt the coins slipping out of my pocket - see, who could lose coins without knowing about it.
I slid my hand in between the cushions to get my change back and I felt something much larger and hard. I pulled out a phone. At first I thought it was the cordless phone from the house as it was about that shape and black like the one we have. I was going to walk it into the kitchen - perhaps mom or one of my sisters called me on our landline and I had sat on the sofa to talk to her and left the phone and it fell into the crack?
I looked at the phone again and it was an older Nokia cell phone. It did not ring a bell. I had a Nokia but it was not this big. I set it aside and pulled the coins out of the sofa - hey, 31 cents is nothing to sneeze at.
When I was done talking to mom I walked into the kitchen and handed the old cell phone to my husband. He looked at me, I shrugged. He did not recognize the phone either. He thought it was my oldest one. I told him that mine was much smaller - it fit in the front pocket of my jeans as all my cell phones have. I then had a flip phone of unremembered make, and then a Razr, followed by my beloved Palm Centro and now my Blackberry. Not my phone.
He kept looking at it and trying to remember. Perhaps it was his first cell phone from work? He had the case he made for it in a drawer in our studio (we keep charging cords and other cell phone related items in this drawer) - but the case was much too small for the phone. His second cell phone from work was turned in when he left and then he also had the Razr followed by the Centro and since then, being a normal person as opposed to me, an Android.
So we have this strange cell phone. We have no idea where it came from. Could someone have been visiting back when the phone was new and we still had never thought we would ever have bedbugs and we still had people in the house? I guess it is possible. But then wouldn’t the person have called and tried to track down their missing phone when they realized it was missing?
I just did a quick search of Nokia phones online (amazing how one can waste time when one is curious about something - not exactly a “ripping good” mystery, but it is a mystery). I now know that it is a Nokia 918 and came out in 1997 - almost 20 years ago. I hope it has not been in the sofa that long.
So where did it come from? Here’s a thought - I think 1997 is before we bought the sofa - or just around when we did. Maybe it has been there all along and was left by someone from the company we bought it from?
Well, of course it could be left later than 1997 as that is when it came out and it could be any time after then. Perhaps one of the few children we have had in our house sometime after 1997 was playing with mom or dad’s old phone and left it? We did have meetings for a craft guild we belonged to in the 1990's and some meetings were in the living room - maybe one of them? I am pretty sure this is a mystery which will not be solved.
I guess if I had thought to check between the cushions of the sofa years ago, we would have a better idea.
Have you ever had a mystery item such as this?
Whenever we have a problem finding something I tell my husband when I clean up, I will find it. No matter how good a schedule I set up, sooner or later I am going to fall behind for one reason or another. The secret is to catch up as soon as possible, even if it is in baby steps of a few minutes here and there.
It really is true that when I clean up I find items we haven’t been able to find, as well as items we didn’t know we were missing. An organizing book I was recently reading (at Barnes and Nobles - there you have me - one way to keep from having more of a mess is that I read organizing books at B&N and do not buy them and bring them home) talked about finding lots of cash in sofas - hundreds of dollars in some cases. This greatly confused me as I have never found any cash in any sofa or chair. I could not imagine anyone losing money into a sofa or chair and not realizing it.
No, I did not find cash in the sofa. Tonight I was talking to my mom on my cell phone. I try to call her when I can - our lives do not sync she is a morning person and I am a night person - and have found Wednesday evening a good time to call - I don’t like what husband is watching on TV and she is still awake and not watching anything. (I learned a couple of years never to call when “Downton Abbey” was on any channel in any form or any show about it as she loved the show.)
I also never keep change in my pockets - it weights them down. Today I had lunch out alone and had the coins I received in change in my pocket and had not yet tossed it into the change keeper upstairs (periodically we bring the change to the credit union and change it into “real” money). As our 2 hour conversation was winding down (mom talks like I do and I talk like I write) I felt the coins slipping out of my pocket - see, who could lose coins without knowing about it.
I slid my hand in between the cushions to get my change back and I felt something much larger and hard. I pulled out a phone. At first I thought it was the cordless phone from the house as it was about that shape and black like the one we have. I was going to walk it into the kitchen - perhaps mom or one of my sisters called me on our landline and I had sat on the sofa to talk to her and left the phone and it fell into the crack?
I looked at the phone again and it was an older Nokia cell phone. It did not ring a bell. I had a Nokia but it was not this big. I set it aside and pulled the coins out of the sofa - hey, 31 cents is nothing to sneeze at.
When I was done talking to mom I walked into the kitchen and handed the old cell phone to my husband. He looked at me, I shrugged. He did not recognize the phone either. He thought it was my oldest one. I told him that mine was much smaller - it fit in the front pocket of my jeans as all my cell phones have. I then had a flip phone of unremembered make, and then a Razr, followed by my beloved Palm Centro and now my Blackberry. Not my phone.
He kept looking at it and trying to remember. Perhaps it was his first cell phone from work? He had the case he made for it in a drawer in our studio (we keep charging cords and other cell phone related items in this drawer) - but the case was much too small for the phone. His second cell phone from work was turned in when he left and then he also had the Razr followed by the Centro and since then, being a normal person as opposed to me, an Android.
So we have this strange cell phone. We have no idea where it came from. Could someone have been visiting back when the phone was new and we still had never thought we would ever have bedbugs and we still had people in the house? I guess it is possible. But then wouldn’t the person have called and tried to track down their missing phone when they realized it was missing?
I just did a quick search of Nokia phones online (amazing how one can waste time when one is curious about something - not exactly a “ripping good” mystery, but it is a mystery). I now know that it is a Nokia 918 and came out in 1997 - almost 20 years ago. I hope it has not been in the sofa that long.
So where did it come from? Here’s a thought - I think 1997 is before we bought the sofa - or just around when we did. Maybe it has been there all along and was left by someone from the company we bought it from?
Well, of course it could be left later than 1997 as that is when it came out and it could be any time after then. Perhaps one of the few children we have had in our house sometime after 1997 was playing with mom or dad’s old phone and left it? We did have meetings for a craft guild we belonged to in the 1990's and some meetings were in the living room - maybe one of them? I am pretty sure this is a mystery which will not be solved.
I guess if I had thought to check between the cushions of the sofa years ago, we would have a better idea.
Have you ever had a mystery item such as this?
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