Thursday, January 25, 2018

DOES TIME EXPAND TO FIT THE WORK TO BE DONE - OR IS IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND?

Well my client was not there when I telephoned her last week.  I will be going to her on Thursday.   Due to not going to her and a few other bills that popped up I started to go into a panic about paying our bills on time.  We pay every bill, every month in full - no payouts, with two much discussed before we did them, exceptions, in the almost 40 years we have been married and we each did so before.  This was a timing error - bills were due out and the money was coming in too late to pay them.  So we had to raid my tiny IRA for $1000 to carry us through.  We will need to make a regular scheduled  withdrawal from husband’s IRA next month to pay our quarterly real estate taxes and our semi-annual car insurance payment in February.

I packed up the rest of the ornaments from the main and studio trees over the weekend.  Monday night I took the lights off the tree - except the top section which the lights stay in place on.  My right elbow started hurting last week (maybe even the week before at this point) especially when lifting my arm or lifting something heavy with my arm and it has been hard to do all of this.  Our main tree is artificial (well, all of them are) and had to be disassembled and the sections are too heavy for me to lift with this arm, so last night husband took it apart and stacked the pieces in the dining room where I told him to put them.  This way he can warp his loom and start working on it again and the pieces of tree can “drift” downstairs as I can deal with them - he would get ill bending over to put them into the tree box.  The studio tree is not in the way and will also find its way downstairs and after the these trees are down I will be able to take apart the one in the dining room- currently blocked by the pieces from the main tree. Since we don’t really get Christmas gifts there is nothing of same to put away - just one empty box that I will ask husband about tossing.  I did move the “Christmas boxes” we use for storage out of the way - these are Christmas decorated gift or storage boxes that I store Christmas decorations in during the year and then put them - empty - under the tree so it looks pretty and like there are gifts under the tree.  So today we warped his loom - without the tree there is enough room to do so.  But he is still surrounded by Santas, angels, Christmas and Chanukah bears.

I finally had a chance to write a cover letter and get out the renewal reminders for our reenactment unit - I serve as the membership chair in addition to being the treasurer as it is easier than passing the info back and forth to someone else about renewals.  I had been delayed due to an error on our national group’s website.  Something interesting - when I went on their website with my computer and clicked on this year’s membership form I got instead a form for people to form and sign up a new unit.  When I contacted the person in charge she said that when she clicked on it she got the membership form.  Hmmm?  Turns out if one went on the site with a computer one got the unit form, but if one went on the site with a tablet or phone one got the correct the form.  It has been corrected thank to my asking about it - it also delayed sending out the renewals a week waiting for this.  We put together the mailing t - folded cover letter and forms, put in envelopes, put on stamps and address and return address labels.  Out in the mail today.  The renewal reminders and forms went out in today’s mail.

I have out a stack of books to write a talk that I am scheduled to give at my embroidery chapter on our meeting next month - 2 weeks from today - on the history of samplers.  I keep trying to get started writing it.  I know the basics of what I plan to say and the order, but I have to get it all together and have an outline to follow - I would hate to suddenly forget a word in the middle of the talk and I don’t want to start to wander off point!  Husband will print out photos for me that he has taken at exhibitions we have gone to - plus I may pull some off the Internet or out of the books I have.  Somehow I know it will be done as I want to do it.  I don’t feel that I can teach stitches or techniques at meetings as others have done, but I am real good at talking.  (Can you tell that from my posts?)  I sent out an email today to the chapter board asking if anyone had anything for me to include in the newsletter - which will go out next Wednesday (meeting is the week after).

I put my older software DVDs/CDs that I still need to keep in 2 new boxes as the old ones did not hold much and kept falling apart.  The old ones will be donated next month - along with a bag of unworn pantyhose - I wore one and it was awful, so I tossed that one and the rest of the huge bag (from an outlet) will be donated.  I have a glass bowl that did not make it in December when I went to Goodwill that will join them.  Looking around for what else can be donated.

And now tomorrow I will spend driving to Queens, taking the subway to Manhattan, working for about 3 hours, and then take the subway back to Queens and drive home.  I will spend between 4 and 5 hours in transit for the 3 hour visit.  Hopefully our mechanic found the problem last month and the drive home will be comfortable.  I have already put burgers in the refrigerator to defrost for dinner tomorrow night when I get home.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

We can get more done when we have to than we do when we don’t have to. 

It seems odd to me that I normally have trouble getting through what I need to in a week, but then those weeks come when I have to do a LOT more - Christmas decorating or decoration storage, writing a talk to give at a meeting, catching up on laundry when I fall behind, tax season, and other assorted extra or emergency jobs.  Somehow it all always seems to get done.


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