We were suppose to go to Pennsylvania for the day on Tuesday, but when we woke up - it was raining. No point in going to a mostly outside farmer’s market - driving 3+ hours each way and paying over $20 in tolls, just for half the vendors not to be there because of rain, so we did not go. I had planned on going to a client Tuesday and put it off due to the planned trip.
So husband changed the plan to go on Friday. I sat down yesterday (Tuesday) and instead of doing things I should, I paid our bills and figured out how much we have transfer to our checking account to cover the bills - and making sure we had enough to do so. We went to the bank today and dealt with it all as I will be in NYC tomorrow and husband does not like to deal with our finances - he is always afraid he will do something wrong and checks will start bouncing. Normally we go to the bank on Fridays, but we hope to be away.
I needed to catch up on work that I am behind on for the two clubs of which I am treasurer as well as work on client’s income taxes. I planned to finish doing so today when we came home from running errands. I turned on my computer to check email. I was just finishing a rather long, complicated email and BANG!! The lights went off with the sound of an explosion. We know what this means - the transformer blew again. I called the electric company and was told that they know that 32 customers are out and the crew is on the way.
I unplugged my computer and related items - don’t want the electricity to come back on and spike and damage something. Now, what to do?
I pulled up the shade and pulled back the curtains. I sorted through some blank paper (sorted it by size) that I keep on the top of the folder holding shelves on my desk - I needed to do this for a while. Then I went through the papers from one of the clubs mentioned above. I had to do followup work on the annual renewals - pulled out the blank membership forms and put them in my “take to the meeting folder”, pulled out assorted papers from last year in the same file and put them together to file away. Still no electricity.
I went to the you know and on the way I noticed that there was a lot of light coming through the window into “the teddies room”. Hmmmm. I wanted to go through the suitcases on the bottom of the closet in there and donate most of them as we no longer use them. I moved the teddies and Cabbage Patch Kids still sitting in line to see Santa. So I could open the closet door. I found out that there was more in the bottom of the closet than I thought - an entire carton I did not get to after we had the bed bugs - I was wondering the other day what happened to my teddy bear magnets. Carton was put aside to go through another time. Tubes with posters in them were set aside for husband to look at - they must be his.
I took out the assorted suitcases. My idea is to come down to the larger suitcase on wheels (which husband likes to use), my shoulder carry suitcase, a backpack on wheels, and some of the smaller completely soft bags and 2 hangup bags. (The latter as they are hard to find.) When we travel now we travel in our RV and we bring the clothes into it in laundry bags, store the clothes in the closet, and then use a bag for the dirty laundry and the second one to carry the leftover clean clothes back into the house. We want the suitcases for emergencies or other oddities. We also have some small bags that we use when we go to quilt, woodworking shows, etc. to carry lunch and/or purchases, as well as some small bags we have received as donation gifts that are really nice, good bags and we use at various times. I had planned on putting all of the other bags in the rolling bag. Not big enough. I put all of the other luggage in it. I put all of the small bags into the rolling backpack. Okay, down to 2 bags. Better than it was.
The idea of this cleaning was to not only get rid of unneeded luggage (and get a tax deduction on it next year), but also to make room in the bottom of the closet for plastic boxes. Husband has a collection of articles about James Bond which are stacked and taking up room on book shelves. We will store the articles in plastic boxes - they will stop get dusty - and have more room for books. The boxes we bought to use for this fit perfectly where I planned to use them. The plastic tubes with posters will probably have to go back in the closet - they should fit behind the 2 suitcases. I will have to go through the carton and see what it is in it and what to do with it.
Oh, I also found 3 teddy bear ceramic craft items to paint. I knew there were more of them, but did not remember what or where. I still like 2 of them and will keep them and paint them. I need to think about the third one and decide if I like it - if not it will also be donated.
At some point as I was finishing up I realized that the lights were on downstairs and we had our electricity back. Only an hour and a half.
I finished the catchup work I needed to do. I plugged in my good laptop to charge and pulled out everything I need to go to work tomorrow. We picked up Chinese takeout for dinner.
On Wednesday nights I do laundry and write my blog post. I had planned to take a shower tonight, but fate again ensued. In the middle of writing this post - no really, between the second and third paragraphs to be exact. My husband came downstairs as he did not feel well. Nothing major, but he could not find the over the counter medication he needed. I looked. Unfortunately what happens is we buy OTC medications and then by the time we need them again - in some cases by the time we need them at all - it has expired. I don’t mean - “darn it was up last month”, I mean it expired years ago. I tend to toss them if I see them. Some items I will replace right away. Ones we rarely use I don’t. This apparently tossed when it expired and was not replaced. Husband was in a panic. Our Walmarts here are not 24 hour stores, except for the Neighborhood Market one (basically a supermarket only). So I left the washer running, shut down my laptop and off we went to the Neighborhood Market - 10minutes away. Of course nothing matched what he bought last time and it took awhile to figure out what to get. And as long as we were there and out of sugar free vanilla pudding, I ran and grabbed 2 boxes to have them. Then home again to finish this post.
Decision time - write post or take shower? Well, you are reading this aren’t you? I will wash myself well before going to bed. My client’s loss in my freshness is your gain in having this post to read.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Go with the flow. When all seems to be going wrong, take a deep breath and think, just go with what needs to be done. Anything which can wait - can wait. I could have panicked today, but did not. When I could not do what I planned to do - use the computer - I found something which has been waiting to be done for months and I could do. So now something which has been sitting is accomplished and most of what I was going to do is also done. I could have told husband I couldn’t go with him to get the medicine, but I knew it was important and that he would have a problem if he went alone (and I would be worrying about him) so that was done and I will deal with no shower.
One can go crazy when one is sidetracked or deal with it and see what can be done as a result of the sidetracking or what can be eliminated or delayed to deal with it.
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