Late again posting - sorry.
We did go away last Thursday and Friday. When I telephoned Wednesday afternoon to make the reservation the woman I spoke with, was rather odd about the entire thing. The spaces I asked for were not available for two nights - we had decided to stay through Saturday. When I asked if any of the spaces were available just for the one night, Thursday there was still confusion. I finally worked it out and reserved one of the spaces for Thursday night and figured that we would ask what was available for just Friday night when we checked in - just in case something was available that would work for us. I made sense to me that Friday would not be available even though Thursday was as Friday is a weekend night and more people travel.
Our trip down was fine - better time than the usual mess. As we drove down husband suggested, which he acknowledged was crazy, that we drive back again on Tuesday of the following week for the day. We have not been to the farmers market that is on Tuesday most or all of this year and different vendors are there from the Friday market. The idea hit me, I suggested that we drive down Monday and stay until Tuesday. This would relieve the problem of possibly getting stuck in traffic on the way and arriving too late to have enough time at the market. (Mostly we have lunch and walk around, perhaps buying some small items we need or see, good shop at Tuesday market to look for bears for my village and I have not been there since the village went to year round.) Plus, if we use the toilet in the RV it has to be dumped at the RV park. It needs to be 2/3 full minimum, to dump so that there is enough force, so Friday morning we were going to have to fill the tank (having only stayed one night) to dump the tanks. By coming back, there would be double in the tanks when we dumped and it would fill faster. The weather promised to be nice for Monday and Tuesday and I would make the reservation when we checked in.
Remember I said that it had been suppose to rain there on Tuesday? When we arrived in the general area we saw lots of fields (this is farm country) with huge puddles- almost pond size in them. We went around to several touristy we go to in the area and then around 5:30 pm went to the RV park to check in. We paid for our space for the evening and reserved the same space for Monday night. It is a fairly small RV park along a stream. As we were walking out of the office the employee said “Oh, if the space is too wet, just come back and we will give you another one.” Huh!? Apparently they had trouble from the rain on Tuesday. As we drove to our space we were driving along the row of spaces facing the stream. We saw what they meant - the spaces had MUD in them. Our space is in the next row so we were concerned. We drove to the space and it seemed mostly okay. I got out of the RV as we do a few things when we arrive at a space at the start of a stay there. First husband will back in (rare that we get a “drive through space”) and we will find the level spot. I guide him. This time I checked that the actual space was dry - it is gravel and the gravel looked different, very light in color, apparently washed in the flood. I saw mud on the sides of the space, so I walked to the back of the space and it was not muddy there - where we have to walk to hook up the electricity and the TV (and water if we hooked up same), so it seemed okay. He backed in, we found the level spot and marked it with markers he made. Although we have been in the space numerous times, when we arrive there we check the electricity to make sure it is functioning properly and we did so and went off again.
Well, now I understood why there was confusion about reserving a space when I called the afternoon before. Apparently the general area did not just have rain, it had RAIN!!!!!. FLOODING RAIN!!!!! As we went around over the rest of the two days we saw the result of flooding in many places. At the Friday market there was mud on the foundations of buildings and pavement. One building, which had flooded badly once in the past, had obviously been flooded as there was no merchandise on the bottom 3 shelves of the fixtures - tossed out as it was soaked. There is an auction in a room at the end of one building. I have never seen it closed. It was closed and through the wall I could hear fans running trying to dry the room.
If any of you are from the Lancaster, PA area - I hope that you were not hit by the flooding.
Friday night we returned home. I did not unpack much of the RV. I left my clothes, the snacks, the towels, etc. Husband insisted on taking his clothing into the house. After 2 days, I repacked the RV on Sunday night for the drive down on Monday. By then it was much dryer, although some of the space in the RV park needed work on them and were still closed. Understand, we were away for 2 days, 1 night, then drove home for 2 nights, 2 days, and then back again to Pennsylvania for another 2 days, 1 night and then home - and I won’t bore you with the local traffic mess on the way home last Tuesday night. Of this time, we spent the equivalent of over half a day traveling forth and back and forth and back again.
I am behind in everything I was suppose to do the last few weeks. I notice this when I went to change towels Tuesday night. I normally change all the towels on Monday, then change the bathroom towels again on Thursday and the kitchen towels on Wednesday and Friday. The towels are all assorted - I had Monday bathroom towels out downstairs and Thursday ones upstairs. (No, I am not that anal. I put blue hand towels upstairs and green ones downstairs on Monday and another color on Thursday - as I have 2 sets of each color and all my other ones vary in color by pair. This way I can tell by looking if I forgot to change the hand towels.) I went to change husband’s weekly hair towel and 2 of the 3 were in the laundry and I was pulling the third one to wash. My pillowcases are either white (2 sets) or beige (1 set) I have 3 white towels and a beige one on the bed. I forgot to do the laundry last night. I have been keeping up with washing clothing over the past several weeks of colds and travel, but not the rest of the laundry.
So right now clothing is being washed (a day late). I spent last night writing and rewriting the newsletter for my embroidery chapter. I had figured to write it quickly as it usually does not take long. We are starting our meeting year and I had not heard from the chapter president with her president’s message. We are doing a project for most of the year and I had to figure out how to write up what we are doing at the meeting. (I also list information from our national and region, as well as giving list of related exhibitions and events in a travelable area - this takes up most of the newsletter). In addition we are doing a “stitch in public” that we do every year and I wrote a page to encourage someone other than myself and the chapter president (and husband who joins us) would also come with us. I then found out, in reply to an email I had sent, that the chapter president had sent the info - apparently when I downloaded my email - from 3 days - it did not download on most of my email addresses. When I downloaded it again after hearing from her, it all downloaded. Her president’s message included this info for the meeting. So I had to fit in her message, splitting it to the meeting information and get rid of what I had written. Then send out 3 versions of the newsletter (members, prospective members, and other region newsletter editors). So last night was gone - which is why I did not get a chance to write this post then.
I have a piece I am entering at the local three county, county fair - huh? Our local fair, which dates back to 1842, is the legal county fair for 3 counties. It is held at the restoration village I have mentioned before where there is an exact copy of the original fair grounds from photos) and is held in the style of a late 1800s fair, with many of the volunteers dressed in period dress. The heart of the fair are the art, craft, needlework, sewing, baking, canning, fruits, vegetables, flowers and the like which have been entered by people from the three counties.
I used to enter several items each year including an angel cake. Lately it has been one or two items and no more baking - as there have been less entries they cut some categories all around, including angel cake. I have one piece to enter this year - if I finish it. I have about one or maybe two more nights of stitching it, then I need to assemble it and then husband has to have time to frame it for me. I keep Thursday nights (which means 11:30 pm to 2 am Friday) for stitching and other crafts for me. I have not had a chance in at least a month to do so. I planned on tonight finishing the stitching. Obviously I will not as I am writing this post and have other “must to do” items for after this. If I don’t finish it, it will be entered next year. I am not going to panic over not getting it done in time. I am a procrastinator, I know this and try to push myself to finish ahead of time. When husband was still working I would drop off our entries while he was at work. One year on the day the entries had to be in, I called him at work and - in a panic - asked where the craft wire was in the house, I was still finishing a doll I was making of Theodore Roosevelt and he needed eyeglasses. He on the other hand, would have his entries done in July!
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
What must be done gets done. What is nice to do or one wants to get done, may or may not get done - and that is okay. We can only do a certain amount and cannot kick ourselves for not getting everything done.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
LISTS FOR REPETITIVE TASKS
Husband has spent the last week and a half with cold - which we are guessing he caught from me. I had been feeling fine and was doing things he would normally do concerning food - such as when we went to Wendys for lunch I would order, pay and pickup the food instead of him - this intended to keep me from catching back the cold. Well, it worked for a while.
I had planned to be telling you about our being in our little RV and dealing with the problems of organizing it for the trip. We had planned on leaving this past Monday and coming home on Friday as the weather was suppose to be nice there all week. As the trip date came closer, Monday and Tuesday were to have RAIN there. Wednesday would be okay there, but there might be some rain on the drive down. Since one cannot cancel RV park reservations this close to a trip, we waited to make same.
Our idea was that we wake early (for us) today and call and make reservations. During the night I started having cold symptoms again - bad and heavy ones. I had trouble sleeping. When we woke earlier than the alarm, husband was concerned about reaching the RV park to make the reservations as the office opens at 9 am, but it is hard to speak to someone before 11 am usually and we had to be on the road by 9 am to try to avoid the dreaded Belt Parkway and the construction along the entire length. I was trying to breathe. We sadly decided to not go today.
As we thought about this during the day - and I started to feel a bit better (amazing what 2 little aspirins can do in getting rid of a headache) and able to breathe again. We decided that I would call the RV park and make reservations for tomorrow night and Friday night and have a 3 day trip. We tend try not to be in Lancaster, PA on Saturdays - especially in summer - as there are too many tourists. (Yes, I know we are tourists also, but we are polite ones who try to blend in, not act rudely as many of our fellow New Yorkers and those from New Jersey do. We go there not for the novelty of the visit, but because it feels like a second home to us.) I was only able to get a reservation in a space that we know (and know it will be level) for tomorrow night, so we are going for just 2 days - and will hope that along the way there will a space we like for Friday night also. Oddly the 6 spaces that they had available for the 2 nights in the section we like, were all ones we have had problems with in the past - maybe others know that they are not level? (For those who have never stayed in an RV or trailer, if the RV or trailer is not level one feels off - walking uphill and down, the cabinet doors either swing shut or swing open, most of the refrigerators for same need to be level to work, etc. Most units have automatic levelers; ours does not. So we will go and see what happens as to how long we will stay.
Yesterday I packed the RV. As I have mentioned before, we keep basic items in it so we don’t need to remember or pack them - toothpaste, soap, dish soap, shampoo, an electric razor for husband, cleaning supplies, office supplies (pens, pencils, paper, stamps, clear tape, stapler...), dishes, pots, tableware, blankets & bedding (bed is still made up from last time as we only used it two nights then - covered the pillows on the bed with the blankets), towels - hand & dish, flashlights, sun hats, rain gear and the like. It is much easier to buy extras of these items than to have to remember to bring them each time - and then remember to put them away when we get home. We filled the water tanks on Monday - this gives us 25 gallons of water for drinking, cleaning, flushing, etc. Yesterday I packed clothing for us for 4 days (we always bring an extra days clothing on a short trip, 2 days worth on a longer one) into the shelves in the RV “closet” (a small cabinet). I packed snacks for us into plastic boxes which snap lock closed and put them into one of the “kitchen cabinets” - two thin shelves one about a foot long and the other about 18 inches long which have doors that snap closed. When we first got the RV we would fill both of these cabinets. Now I use only one for food as we have learned that we do not need as much as thought we did. (Heck, there are supermarkets and farmers’ markets everywhere there - including 24 hour Walmarts.) The other cabinet gets used to hold items such as plastic shopping bags, sweaters, whatever. The refrigerator gets soda - a big bottle to use at night and some cans in case we have lunch at a farmer’s market - which is common - or such, we will not have to buy something to drink.
Shoes were brought in and stored - I bring or wear sneakers and bring leather shoes in case of rain. We keep slippers in the RV. I have a pair of slip on sneakers that I keep in it - in colder weather I might be wearing shoe boots and if I need to run outside, it is easier to slip on these sneakers. We also each keep shower slippers in the RV.
I put the batteries in the thermometer for the fridge - better to find out I need new batteries then, rather than find out when we are leaving. I also put the toll reader into place in the front window. I bring in the store coupons from our car.
How do I keep track of all of this - what needs to be put in the RV when. I have a list of course. I have it memorized in my computer in a spreadsheet. I have a “Do Ahead” section - put water in the tanks, fill bottles of water to bring in the fridge, fill our travel medication boxes and such. I also have a “Check Ahead” section - this is for items which get used up on trips - paper plates, cups, bathroom cups, napkins (well, okay generally these don’t run out as we end up picking up some at different places as we travel) is there enough paper towels, toilet paper and tissues; soaps and related items; did the towels go back in after laundering after the last trip; and such.
I then have categories of what to pack -
What clothing items we need; what snack/food items we need/want.
Items to take from our car and bring - sunglasses, glasses.
Electronics - you know, tablets, laptops, extra or old cell phones as backups (we would not forget our current ones of course), camera if it is touring trip.
Household items - laundry bags (we bring our clothes into the RV in 2 laundry bags to unpack them. One is stored away until the end of the trip and is used to take unworn clothing back into the house. The other is used as a - well - laundry bag and then the dirty clothing goes back into house in it and tossed down the stairs to the basement.
I have some coupons which were picked up on earlier trips or came in the mail related to where we are going and I keep them in an envelope that I bring (it’s on the list of course). Also for our regular main trips (well they used to be regular and main) I have an envelope for each that labeled on the outside on a edge with the name and approximate date of the trip. For example - Labor Day trip- September, Fourth of July trip, etc. I keep them in date order with the next trip in the front of the stack in the same 3 section holder on the wall next to my desk as I keep our unpaid bills (the travel coupon holder is mixed in the same section as these envelopes. If say we pick up coupons for the Kutztown festival in advance - they are put in the envelope for same and will be there when we need them. I also have backpack
Things to do - magazines, my embroidery, etc. Generally they are not touched while we are away, but I always bring them. Husband gives me whatever he wants of same.
Finally, our “last minute bag”. This contains items we might need at home until the moment we leave. I have 3 plastic boxes in the bag. One has OTC medications - if we our stomachs feel bad at home, we take the pill out of the box. If ditto while on a trip, well, ditto. I don’t like to buy these items special for the RV as we use them so rarely, that even the one bottle is not used up by any stretch of when the expiration date is or beyond that seems safe. One has a bit more of same and our thermometer - one can get ill even on a trip and again, we did not want to buy 2 of them. The last box has items we will need on the trip - prescription medications for example - and will taken out of the bag the first night of our trip and stored in the cubby that has our personal items needed for the evening and the morning. We add other items as we use them for the final time at home before the trip. Much of what is in the bag will stay in the bag for the trip and it is stored where it can be more or less easily accessed.
The list also has a section for what we need to on our return to make sure that everything that needs to be is out of the RV and back into the house - and there are always items that we bought on the trip in addition to what we brought. I have a pattern for taking everything out of the RV - but don’t worry I am not going into that now. The list for our return reminds me of what needs to come out and that we need to shut off the refrigerator, air conditioning, inside light, and the RV battery - and put a towel into the refrigerator in case there is any leaking from the small freezer section. (There is a quick version of what absolutely has to come out/be done in case it is raining.
So, everything but the last minute bag, this laptop, and the rain jackets we might have needed for the trip is packed in our RV. Tomorrow we will bring these items, turn on the RV batteries, start the refrigerator in the RV, back out of our driveway and be on our way.
Oh, that sounds so easy. To back out into 2 lanes of traffic on our side of the road involves me standing in the road with a walkie talkie and telling him when he can pull out - talk about needing planning and organization!
I also have a short list, kept on a little clipboard that we use to check off each day of the trip that we have done everything we need to do before pulling out. We would not want to forget to unplug the RV from the electricity so the system is not broken or to lock a cabinet or the refrigerator door and have everything in it go flying when we drive. A common thing that we husband forgets is after we disconnect from the camp’s sources he needs to open the curtain at the back of the RV so he can see out same - good thing it is on my list and I turn around see that it is open and if not send him to open it. Even odd things are on my list. We have an outside light next to the side door. (Same as the light next to your front/back door at home.) We don’t turn it on. One day after driving around much of the day I realized it was on - it must have gotten turned on by accident the night before - I turned it off of course and I added it to the check off list. This short list has several columns so that on a trip up to 4 days can be marked off on the same form.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you do something that has many steps or many parts as a repeated thing, make up a list on your computer for what you need to do. Print it out each time you are doing to do the task and actually cross the items off the list. If needed I list the items that are going to be done at the last minute on the side as I see them - and circle them on the list. If I find that there is something that I need to add - I list it on the back of the page and add it when we return home.
I had planned to be telling you about our being in our little RV and dealing with the problems of organizing it for the trip. We had planned on leaving this past Monday and coming home on Friday as the weather was suppose to be nice there all week. As the trip date came closer, Monday and Tuesday were to have RAIN there. Wednesday would be okay there, but there might be some rain on the drive down. Since one cannot cancel RV park reservations this close to a trip, we waited to make same.
Our idea was that we wake early (for us) today and call and make reservations. During the night I started having cold symptoms again - bad and heavy ones. I had trouble sleeping. When we woke earlier than the alarm, husband was concerned about reaching the RV park to make the reservations as the office opens at 9 am, but it is hard to speak to someone before 11 am usually and we had to be on the road by 9 am to try to avoid the dreaded Belt Parkway and the construction along the entire length. I was trying to breathe. We sadly decided to not go today.
As we thought about this during the day - and I started to feel a bit better (amazing what 2 little aspirins can do in getting rid of a headache) and able to breathe again. We decided that I would call the RV park and make reservations for tomorrow night and Friday night and have a 3 day trip. We tend try not to be in Lancaster, PA on Saturdays - especially in summer - as there are too many tourists. (Yes, I know we are tourists also, but we are polite ones who try to blend in, not act rudely as many of our fellow New Yorkers and those from New Jersey do. We go there not for the novelty of the visit, but because it feels like a second home to us.) I was only able to get a reservation in a space that we know (and know it will be level) for tomorrow night, so we are going for just 2 days - and will hope that along the way there will a space we like for Friday night also. Oddly the 6 spaces that they had available for the 2 nights in the section we like, were all ones we have had problems with in the past - maybe others know that they are not level? (For those who have never stayed in an RV or trailer, if the RV or trailer is not level one feels off - walking uphill and down, the cabinet doors either swing shut or swing open, most of the refrigerators for same need to be level to work, etc. Most units have automatic levelers; ours does not. So we will go and see what happens as to how long we will stay.
Yesterday I packed the RV. As I have mentioned before, we keep basic items in it so we don’t need to remember or pack them - toothpaste, soap, dish soap, shampoo, an electric razor for husband, cleaning supplies, office supplies (pens, pencils, paper, stamps, clear tape, stapler...), dishes, pots, tableware, blankets & bedding (bed is still made up from last time as we only used it two nights then - covered the pillows on the bed with the blankets), towels - hand & dish, flashlights, sun hats, rain gear and the like. It is much easier to buy extras of these items than to have to remember to bring them each time - and then remember to put them away when we get home. We filled the water tanks on Monday - this gives us 25 gallons of water for drinking, cleaning, flushing, etc. Yesterday I packed clothing for us for 4 days (we always bring an extra days clothing on a short trip, 2 days worth on a longer one) into the shelves in the RV “closet” (a small cabinet). I packed snacks for us into plastic boxes which snap lock closed and put them into one of the “kitchen cabinets” - two thin shelves one about a foot long and the other about 18 inches long which have doors that snap closed. When we first got the RV we would fill both of these cabinets. Now I use only one for food as we have learned that we do not need as much as thought we did. (Heck, there are supermarkets and farmers’ markets everywhere there - including 24 hour Walmarts.) The other cabinet gets used to hold items such as plastic shopping bags, sweaters, whatever. The refrigerator gets soda - a big bottle to use at night and some cans in case we have lunch at a farmer’s market - which is common - or such, we will not have to buy something to drink.
Shoes were brought in and stored - I bring or wear sneakers and bring leather shoes in case of rain. We keep slippers in the RV. I have a pair of slip on sneakers that I keep in it - in colder weather I might be wearing shoe boots and if I need to run outside, it is easier to slip on these sneakers. We also each keep shower slippers in the RV.
I put the batteries in the thermometer for the fridge - better to find out I need new batteries then, rather than find out when we are leaving. I also put the toll reader into place in the front window. I bring in the store coupons from our car.
How do I keep track of all of this - what needs to be put in the RV when. I have a list of course. I have it memorized in my computer in a spreadsheet. I have a “Do Ahead” section - put water in the tanks, fill bottles of water to bring in the fridge, fill our travel medication boxes and such. I also have a “Check Ahead” section - this is for items which get used up on trips - paper plates, cups, bathroom cups, napkins (well, okay generally these don’t run out as we end up picking up some at different places as we travel) is there enough paper towels, toilet paper and tissues; soaps and related items; did the towels go back in after laundering after the last trip; and such.
I then have categories of what to pack -
What clothing items we need; what snack/food items we need/want.
Items to take from our car and bring - sunglasses, glasses.
Electronics - you know, tablets, laptops, extra or old cell phones as backups (we would not forget our current ones of course), camera if it is touring trip.
Household items - laundry bags (we bring our clothes into the RV in 2 laundry bags to unpack them. One is stored away until the end of the trip and is used to take unworn clothing back into the house. The other is used as a - well - laundry bag and then the dirty clothing goes back into house in it and tossed down the stairs to the basement.
I have some coupons which were picked up on earlier trips or came in the mail related to where we are going and I keep them in an envelope that I bring (it’s on the list of course). Also for our regular main trips (well they used to be regular and main) I have an envelope for each that labeled on the outside on a edge with the name and approximate date of the trip. For example - Labor Day trip- September, Fourth of July trip, etc. I keep them in date order with the next trip in the front of the stack in the same 3 section holder on the wall next to my desk as I keep our unpaid bills (the travel coupon holder is mixed in the same section as these envelopes. If say we pick up coupons for the Kutztown festival in advance - they are put in the envelope for same and will be there when we need them. I also have backpack
Things to do - magazines, my embroidery, etc. Generally they are not touched while we are away, but I always bring them. Husband gives me whatever he wants of same.
Finally, our “last minute bag”. This contains items we might need at home until the moment we leave. I have 3 plastic boxes in the bag. One has OTC medications - if we our stomachs feel bad at home, we take the pill out of the box. If ditto while on a trip, well, ditto. I don’t like to buy these items special for the RV as we use them so rarely, that even the one bottle is not used up by any stretch of when the expiration date is or beyond that seems safe. One has a bit more of same and our thermometer - one can get ill even on a trip and again, we did not want to buy 2 of them. The last box has items we will need on the trip - prescription medications for example - and will taken out of the bag the first night of our trip and stored in the cubby that has our personal items needed for the evening and the morning. We add other items as we use them for the final time at home before the trip. Much of what is in the bag will stay in the bag for the trip and it is stored where it can be more or less easily accessed.
The list also has a section for what we need to on our return to make sure that everything that needs to be is out of the RV and back into the house - and there are always items that we bought on the trip in addition to what we brought. I have a pattern for taking everything out of the RV - but don’t worry I am not going into that now. The list for our return reminds me of what needs to come out and that we need to shut off the refrigerator, air conditioning, inside light, and the RV battery - and put a towel into the refrigerator in case there is any leaking from the small freezer section. (There is a quick version of what absolutely has to come out/be done in case it is raining.
So, everything but the last minute bag, this laptop, and the rain jackets we might have needed for the trip is packed in our RV. Tomorrow we will bring these items, turn on the RV batteries, start the refrigerator in the RV, back out of our driveway and be on our way.
Oh, that sounds so easy. To back out into 2 lanes of traffic on our side of the road involves me standing in the road with a walkie talkie and telling him when he can pull out - talk about needing planning and organization!
I also have a short list, kept on a little clipboard that we use to check off each day of the trip that we have done everything we need to do before pulling out. We would not want to forget to unplug the RV from the electricity so the system is not broken or to lock a cabinet or the refrigerator door and have everything in it go flying when we drive. A common thing that we husband forgets is after we disconnect from the camp’s sources he needs to open the curtain at the back of the RV so he can see out same - good thing it is on my list and I turn around see that it is open and if not send him to open it. Even odd things are on my list. We have an outside light next to the side door. (Same as the light next to your front/back door at home.) We don’t turn it on. One day after driving around much of the day I realized it was on - it must have gotten turned on by accident the night before - I turned it off of course and I added it to the check off list. This short list has several columns so that on a trip up to 4 days can be marked off on the same form.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you do something that has many steps or many parts as a repeated thing, make up a list on your computer for what you need to do. Print it out each time you are doing to do the task and actually cross the items off the list. If needed I list the items that are going to be done at the last minute on the side as I see them - and circle them on the list. If I find that there is something that I need to add - I list it on the back of the page and add it when we return home.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
BACK TO HOUSEWORK - PREPARE FOR POSSIBLE TRIP
After 2 weeks husband has decided that the tail end of cold is too much to deal with and I am back to cooking and cleaning on my own as of yesterday. So tonight I am catching up on 3 weeks of laundry backed up. I washed the clothing, he put in the dryer and then in the laundry basket. He then pulled out his clothing and put it away and left mine for me.
I think the final blow was yesterday was “change the bed linens day”. Last week we only changed the pillow cases. Last night I figured I would change the sheets, I would change my pillow cases, he would change his, and I would change the sheets and remake the bed - other than him dealing with his pillowcases. So yesterday morning, I pulled off my pillowcases, folded the blanket and pulled the top sheet off the bed. I would normally have pulled off his bottom pillowcase in the morning. I pull the top pillowcase and the bottom sheet off when we are going to bed at night and remake the bed then. (I used to pull everything off in the morning, but a couple of times he was dizzy and ill during the day and I had to quickly put his side of the bed back, so this is our compromise - he can lie down as the bottom sheet and his top pillowcase are there and then pull the top sheet - lying on the bed - on top of him if he does not feel well. ) So last night I put the last (of 3) set of clean sheets on the bed and put the blanket on. I went to pull 2 pillowcases for my pillow and he would do his pillowcases afterwards .... but there were only 2 clean pillowcases! We each took one.
I went down tonight to start the first load of laundry and did so. I was also going to run our “Packtite”, a device intended to heat suitcases and their contents when one returns home from a trip so that if one has picked up bed bugs they will be killed by the heat. We set it up with a laundry basket with holes in it and I heat anything coming into the house we are concerned about. Normally I run it when it when I do the laundry as it is near the washer and dryer in the basement and the timing for a load of laundry to wash or dry and to check the temperature on the thermometer in the Packtite is about the same. There is a small number of things to heat. I noticed that the thermometer reading for the Packtite was the same as last time I used it . (We have an indoor/outdoor reading thermometer and the dohickey for the outside is in the Packtite so I can see the temperature and make sure it is high enough, long enough, but does not go to high.) No new reading - or a blank reading - for the dohickey means that it needs new batteries. I walked up 2 flights of stairs to the office to get new batteries and then back down the same 2 flights. It still did not work. I texted husband to help me. (Yes, we are lazy enough to text each other in the house - much better than running up and down the stairs to tell each other something, especially in summer when doors are closed to keep air conditioning in the room and the ac units are running and making noise.) We spent over half an hour playing with it, but the dohickey still does not work. My solution? We have the same setup on a thermometer in the kitchen to read the temperature in the refrigerator, I brought that set up downstairs and took the working main thermometer from the basement and stuck it in the refrigerator and read it by opening the door. Tomorrow I will switch the setups back - and we will look for a new thermometer for the basement. (I pause here to run down and switch laundry loads.)
Okay, I am back. Over last weekend I reset the number of days for my Quickbooks to remind me of memorized transactions (mostly bills to pay, some direct deposits to come in) to cover everything through the end of the month (normally it is set for one week). I wrote checks for all the bills and calculated how much we needed to transfer from savings (which is a holding account for money for bills) to pay all the bills to the end of the month. I transferred the money yesterday and today mailed out the bill payments. Well, everything but the cable/Internet bill which will not come until the last minute at the end of the month - and the money for it plus a bit more is now is now in the checking account. Why did I pay it all at once? Husband REALLY wants to go on a trip of more than a day or two. He keeps checking the upcoming weather in the several places we might go and it continues to follow the pattern of a day with no rain - maybe two days if lucky -and then two or three days of pouring rain and thunderstorms. (Although the weather is not as bad as it is in some parts of the country - I hope none of you are in the areas of the wildfires or the flooding.) When we prepare for a trip we pay any bills that need to be paid while we will be away and need to transfer money for same and then mail the payments. This way we do not even have to think of the bills until the cable bill at the end of the month. We can leave with a just a quick stop at the bank for cash for the trip. One less thing that has to be dealt with. Actually the only other problem is the newspaper - if we go at the last minute there will be a paper sitting in the delivery tube while we are away - I guess one paper will look like that day’s paper so it is not bad. Most of our mail goes to our box at the Post Office and we put in a large locking mailbox at the house so that we do not have to stop the mail that does still come to the house. Clothing can be washed and dried and then packed the night before and just tossed on the RV bed when we go. Food, etc can be stuck under the RV bed in a holder that is there. It can all be unpacked when we get where we are going. So if he finds a place to go we can leave the next day.
He has had another project he has been working on and frustrated with, which affects me. He has been trying to convince me to stop using this laptop and buy a new one. I have some problems checking posts on some websites - the laptop runs Windows XP. We have been looking and have found some laptops at the price we can pay - actually more than we can pay, but we can stretch the amount another $100 or so t buy. I am still resistant as there are only one or two websites which are affected and I have software I like which may or may not work with Windows 10 and at least one I know will not work with same. Yes, it can take up to 20 minutes for the laptop to boot and takes awhile for programs to open, but I am used to. The alternative he comes up with is installing Linux on this computer to use when online. He has found and set up about 5 versions of same on USB stick drives and DVDs in the past week or so. The latest version on DVD actually works - but one of the sites I have a problem with only partially opens. I have not have my laptop at least part of each night as a result as he loads the new try. (Notice I made sure to write and post on time this week since I was late last week, but some friends on an embroidery site and some friends on a comics site will not hear from me - and I normally am on the comics site on Monday nights.) I am guessing that I will be giving in and getting the new laptop - but not until after the cutoff for the credit card bill this month, so we won’t have to pay for it until October - the house insurance is in September, plus any travel bills if we go away.
Oh - I did finally vacuum up all the shreds of paper from my big shredding of 2008 last week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One may fall behind due to illness or other reasons. Don’t panic. One can always catch up.
I think the final blow was yesterday was “change the bed linens day”. Last week we only changed the pillow cases. Last night I figured I would change the sheets, I would change my pillow cases, he would change his, and I would change the sheets and remake the bed - other than him dealing with his pillowcases. So yesterday morning, I pulled off my pillowcases, folded the blanket and pulled the top sheet off the bed. I would normally have pulled off his bottom pillowcase in the morning. I pull the top pillowcase and the bottom sheet off when we are going to bed at night and remake the bed then. (I used to pull everything off in the morning, but a couple of times he was dizzy and ill during the day and I had to quickly put his side of the bed back, so this is our compromise - he can lie down as the bottom sheet and his top pillowcase are there and then pull the top sheet - lying on the bed - on top of him if he does not feel well. ) So last night I put the last (of 3) set of clean sheets on the bed and put the blanket on. I went to pull 2 pillowcases for my pillow and he would do his pillowcases afterwards .... but there were only 2 clean pillowcases! We each took one.
I went down tonight to start the first load of laundry and did so. I was also going to run our “Packtite”, a device intended to heat suitcases and their contents when one returns home from a trip so that if one has picked up bed bugs they will be killed by the heat. We set it up with a laundry basket with holes in it and I heat anything coming into the house we are concerned about. Normally I run it when it when I do the laundry as it is near the washer and dryer in the basement and the timing for a load of laundry to wash or dry and to check the temperature on the thermometer in the Packtite is about the same. There is a small number of things to heat. I noticed that the thermometer reading for the Packtite was the same as last time I used it . (We have an indoor/outdoor reading thermometer and the dohickey for the outside is in the Packtite so I can see the temperature and make sure it is high enough, long enough, but does not go to high.) No new reading - or a blank reading - for the dohickey means that it needs new batteries. I walked up 2 flights of stairs to the office to get new batteries and then back down the same 2 flights. It still did not work. I texted husband to help me. (Yes, we are lazy enough to text each other in the house - much better than running up and down the stairs to tell each other something, especially in summer when doors are closed to keep air conditioning in the room and the ac units are running and making noise.) We spent over half an hour playing with it, but the dohickey still does not work. My solution? We have the same setup on a thermometer in the kitchen to read the temperature in the refrigerator, I brought that set up downstairs and took the working main thermometer from the basement and stuck it in the refrigerator and read it by opening the door. Tomorrow I will switch the setups back - and we will look for a new thermometer for the basement. (I pause here to run down and switch laundry loads.)
Okay, I am back. Over last weekend I reset the number of days for my Quickbooks to remind me of memorized transactions (mostly bills to pay, some direct deposits to come in) to cover everything through the end of the month (normally it is set for one week). I wrote checks for all the bills and calculated how much we needed to transfer from savings (which is a holding account for money for bills) to pay all the bills to the end of the month. I transferred the money yesterday and today mailed out the bill payments. Well, everything but the cable/Internet bill which will not come until the last minute at the end of the month - and the money for it plus a bit more is now is now in the checking account. Why did I pay it all at once? Husband REALLY wants to go on a trip of more than a day or two. He keeps checking the upcoming weather in the several places we might go and it continues to follow the pattern of a day with no rain - maybe two days if lucky -and then two or three days of pouring rain and thunderstorms. (Although the weather is not as bad as it is in some parts of the country - I hope none of you are in the areas of the wildfires or the flooding.) When we prepare for a trip we pay any bills that need to be paid while we will be away and need to transfer money for same and then mail the payments. This way we do not even have to think of the bills until the cable bill at the end of the month. We can leave with a just a quick stop at the bank for cash for the trip. One less thing that has to be dealt with. Actually the only other problem is the newspaper - if we go at the last minute there will be a paper sitting in the delivery tube while we are away - I guess one paper will look like that day’s paper so it is not bad. Most of our mail goes to our box at the Post Office and we put in a large locking mailbox at the house so that we do not have to stop the mail that does still come to the house. Clothing can be washed and dried and then packed the night before and just tossed on the RV bed when we go. Food, etc can be stuck under the RV bed in a holder that is there. It can all be unpacked when we get where we are going. So if he finds a place to go we can leave the next day.
He has had another project he has been working on and frustrated with, which affects me. He has been trying to convince me to stop using this laptop and buy a new one. I have some problems checking posts on some websites - the laptop runs Windows XP. We have been looking and have found some laptops at the price we can pay - actually more than we can pay, but we can stretch the amount another $100 or so t buy. I am still resistant as there are only one or two websites which are affected and I have software I like which may or may not work with Windows 10 and at least one I know will not work with same. Yes, it can take up to 20 minutes for the laptop to boot and takes awhile for programs to open, but I am used to. The alternative he comes up with is installing Linux on this computer to use when online. He has found and set up about 5 versions of same on USB stick drives and DVDs in the past week or so. The latest version on DVD actually works - but one of the sites I have a problem with only partially opens. I have not have my laptop at least part of each night as a result as he loads the new try. (Notice I made sure to write and post on time this week since I was late last week, but some friends on an embroidery site and some friends on a comics site will not hear from me - and I normally am on the comics site on Monday nights.) I am guessing that I will be giving in and getting the new laptop - but not until after the cutoff for the credit card bill this month, so we won’t have to pay for it until October - the house insurance is in September, plus any travel bills if we go away.
Oh - I did finally vacuum up all the shreds of paper from my big shredding of 2008 last week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One may fall behind due to illness or other reasons. Don’t panic. One can always catch up.
Thursday, August 9, 2018
ACHOO!
Achoo! Last week I was feeling fine. Then it happened. You know, you wake up with a scratchy throat and wonder - is it a cold or did I just sleep on my back with my mouth open and annoy my throat. Then the coughing starts - and you still hope it is a just a scratchy throat from sleeping on your back, but you are pretty sure it is not. Once the sneezing starts and your nose is clogged... My husband lives in fear of me having a cold. He is a bit of a hypochondriac so he won’t let me do anything if I might “spread the germs” to him. But he doesn’t want to do what he is not letting me do either. Everything takes longer to do as a result and wastes time. Don’t worry - you can’t catch the cold.
He doesn’t want to cook (although he used to love to cook and is the better cook). He doesn’t want to do the dishes. but he doesn’t want me to do either as I will get him sick. The first night he made dinner - ham steak that we shared and a packaged macaroni with mushrooms - add to boiling water and let cook - and canned soup. I did the dishes afterwards with disposable plastic gloves on. One night he was on the computer with a client and I asked if I should make dinner or wait for him and he told me he was busy - so I made dinner and he ate it, but not happily. Then the weekend came and cooking was resolved as we eat out Friday through Sunday nights. This week he cooked dinner on Monday. Last night as we were trying to figure out what to have for dinner a rain storm hit. I mean A RAIN STORM HIT. He received a warning on his cell phone - I did not, although my, no cell service for over a year as it was not working for Internet or phone service and I had to switch, Blackberry received a notice. (I keep it charged for it games and camera.) We had major lightning and thunder for about 2 hours - remember I have fired a reproduction 18th century cannon - the thunder was like cannon fire. We lost our electricity - one of husband’s other great fears. We stood/sat with the front door open watching “the show” . We live on a main road. A UPS truck went past to the right, then to the left, then two of them passed our house, then another one and so on. Assorted emergency vehicles passed the house in both directions with lights flashing - police, ambulances, fire trucks, a couple of electric utility trucks... Cars kept driving in the mess, some would pull over a few minutes and then go on. I am a pretty fearless driver (scared husband the few times he had to drive with me as the driver) and I would have pulled over. Sooo, what will we eat? I was thinking - we have rolls, peanut butter - crunchy and smooth, jelly - strawberry and Ikea ligonberry, American cheese, mozzarella cheese - no problem. I suggested this to him. NO! We cannot open the fridge or his insulin would go bad. (Well, technically if it got too warm it would still be good for 42 days, but I was not going to argue.) Luckily the rain let up around 10:30 pm. We got in the car and drove to a nearby supermarket and bought more rolls and cold cuts for dinner. On the corner passed a 7-11 shut down do to lack of electricity, employees seemed to be sitting in cars in the parking lot. We got home and were getting ready to eat and - the lights came back on. Apparently we were in the largest outage area so we were put back quickly. I honestly do not remember a thunderstorm with so much or such loud thunder with rain that heavy for so long.
Tonight we took in Chinese food - simple right? Not really. The place we took out from for decades (while I was waiting for the gas company to come and turn on the gas in our first apartment I went and took out from this place for lunch - I did not even have tableware, dishes, glasses, etc in the apartment - I did have a borrowed bridge table and 2 borrowed bridge chairs) has changed. The original owners ran it for a long time - we knew their children, I remember hearing a car stop short in front of our apartment and the father coming running to the corner because his younger daughter had been riding her bicycle and just missed being hit by the car. When he died his older daughter would come home from college on weekends to help her mom. Then the son took over for awhile - even though he really wanted to be fishing - and the place often had fresh fish due to same. Eventually the place was sold - to the son’s sister in law and her husband. They were also nice and the food was the same and we kept going there. Earlier this year we went there and the husband was not there and an older woman (I presume one of their moms) was cooking. The food was not good. We tried another place and were not happy with them. We went back to them figuring maybe it was the change in cook. But the last time we took out the soup was too salty to eat and all the dishes were wrong. We don’t know what happened. This is the place we called on our way back from our 5 hour trip in July, 2017 to get dinner made before they closed - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/07/treading-water-5-hour-trip-to-nowhere.html So, we never know where to take out from and as a result we don’t. We receive an assortment of fliers from take out places and I keep them. One recently caught husband’s eye and he had been planning to try it - so tonight we did. Very nice people and food. Three street parking spaces in front of the 4 stores was the only parking. Then, since I was sick, husband did not hand me the food to hold on the trip home, he put it in a plastic laundry basket we keep in the back in the car, he did not put anything against the bag to hold it. Yes, the bag went on an angle and was soaked when he took it out of the car. After dinner we had to wash the vinyl cover I keep in the car, the basket, and back of the car. We will go back again - and I will hold the bag.
In the middle of all this I had to go to Manhattan to a client for work - I should have gone last month, but she had a cold (could I have caught this cold over the telephone :-) ). So I went yesterday. I packed a zip lock bag with sucking candy, lots of tissues, and an old prescription bottle with one dose of the cough medicine I am taking. In another zip lock bag I had a small bottle I filled with water. Did I mention the temperature yesterday was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit? Luckily I did not need any of the items.
As a result of this normal housework and keeping things in order are only done if absolutely needed. Instead of changing the bedding, I changed only my pillowcases. I suggested he change his, but he said it was okay to just leave them until next week. I had to talk him through changing the hand towels. We were in the downstairs bathroom - “Where are they?” “In the cabinet under the sink - see those 2 whiteish towels? Take them and the green dish towel below them.” (I put out a green dish towel each week in that bathroom to use for quick clean ups of water around the sink - it matches the bathroom.) Upstairs? “Which towels?” “The yellow ones.” (I figured yellow was bright and he would easily see them.) “You mean these yellow ones?” They are the only yellow ones we have.
Last week I had washed and dried the clothes the night before I got the cold. A load of jeans were in the dryer drying overnight. So we had clothes for the week. I did not wash the towels or the bed linens. Good thing I have 2 weeks of towels plus one extra set for up and down. I was trying to figure out how to mention to him about the laundry when he brought it up. I put the clothes in to wash. He will put them in the dryer - with me talking him through it - and then bring them upstairs afterwards. He brought up last week jeans load when I put in the load to wash. He says he will fold the laundry. I normally pull out his shirts as I put the clean, dry laundry in the basket to take upstairs so that they do not need to be ironed, as I put them over the top of the other clothes and if he does that, and sorts mine from his, I can deal with my clothes and he can deal with his or leave them in the basket and pull them out as he needs them.
Hopefully either this cold will be definitely over with or he will give up by Monday so life can return to normal.
On the other hand, I had some extra time in the office as we came home quicker in the afternoons. I managed to shred all of my 2008 records - other than few I kept such as the checks written that year for our income taxes - 3 tall kitchen bags plus, worth of shredding. I then packed my 2017 records into the same box, relabeled it, and put it back in the closet - ah, room to fit papers in file folders again.
I also had time to transfer my 2017 computer files to my archive file and make 2 DVD copies of the revised archive files. I still have to change my back up files so that the old files are gone from them, but that will happen as I make backup files.
I went through an assortment of old computer instruction manuals sitting on a shelf in the office - why? I needed space for 2 magazine holders. I pulled a number of the manuals - mostly from programs or hardware that I had - and I will put them out over a couple of weeks with the recycling. I still have a stack for husband to go through - understand this are DOS or pre Windows XP software and hardware that I cannot figure out what or where it is. The magazine holders fit nicely in the shelf now with room for the manuals for computer things we are actively using.
The office floor is a mess due to my cheapness in not wanting to waste extra garbage bags when doing shredding and pouring from one to another - as well as throwing handfuls of shreds from one bag to another. I had planned to vacuum up the shreds - but then caught this cold - maybe tomorrow I will get to vacuuming.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One gets ill. It happens. I am glad that it only a cold so all it has been is inconvenient. In the larger world it is nothing, just an inconvenience. I am happy that is not serious and by next week either I will be better or he will give up trying to do things for me so he does not catch the cold. (I have never pointed out to him that I touch the light switches and so does he.)
Try to do as much as one can without overtaxing one’s self - this will vary based on what is wrong with one.
I leave you with a final achoo! If I rambled too much - will, hey! I have a cold! :-)
He doesn’t want to cook (although he used to love to cook and is the better cook). He doesn’t want to do the dishes. but he doesn’t want me to do either as I will get him sick. The first night he made dinner - ham steak that we shared and a packaged macaroni with mushrooms - add to boiling water and let cook - and canned soup. I did the dishes afterwards with disposable plastic gloves on. One night he was on the computer with a client and I asked if I should make dinner or wait for him and he told me he was busy - so I made dinner and he ate it, but not happily. Then the weekend came and cooking was resolved as we eat out Friday through Sunday nights. This week he cooked dinner on Monday. Last night as we were trying to figure out what to have for dinner a rain storm hit. I mean A RAIN STORM HIT. He received a warning on his cell phone - I did not, although my, no cell service for over a year as it was not working for Internet or phone service and I had to switch, Blackberry received a notice. (I keep it charged for it games and camera.) We had major lightning and thunder for about 2 hours - remember I have fired a reproduction 18th century cannon - the thunder was like cannon fire. We lost our electricity - one of husband’s other great fears. We stood/sat with the front door open watching “the show” . We live on a main road. A UPS truck went past to the right, then to the left, then two of them passed our house, then another one and so on. Assorted emergency vehicles passed the house in both directions with lights flashing - police, ambulances, fire trucks, a couple of electric utility trucks... Cars kept driving in the mess, some would pull over a few minutes and then go on. I am a pretty fearless driver (scared husband the few times he had to drive with me as the driver) and I would have pulled over. Sooo, what will we eat? I was thinking - we have rolls, peanut butter - crunchy and smooth, jelly - strawberry and Ikea ligonberry, American cheese, mozzarella cheese - no problem. I suggested this to him. NO! We cannot open the fridge or his insulin would go bad. (Well, technically if it got too warm it would still be good for 42 days, but I was not going to argue.) Luckily the rain let up around 10:30 pm. We got in the car and drove to a nearby supermarket and bought more rolls and cold cuts for dinner. On the corner passed a 7-11 shut down do to lack of electricity, employees seemed to be sitting in cars in the parking lot. We got home and were getting ready to eat and - the lights came back on. Apparently we were in the largest outage area so we were put back quickly. I honestly do not remember a thunderstorm with so much or such loud thunder with rain that heavy for so long.
Tonight we took in Chinese food - simple right? Not really. The place we took out from for decades (while I was waiting for the gas company to come and turn on the gas in our first apartment I went and took out from this place for lunch - I did not even have tableware, dishes, glasses, etc in the apartment - I did have a borrowed bridge table and 2 borrowed bridge chairs) has changed. The original owners ran it for a long time - we knew their children, I remember hearing a car stop short in front of our apartment and the father coming running to the corner because his younger daughter had been riding her bicycle and just missed being hit by the car. When he died his older daughter would come home from college on weekends to help her mom. Then the son took over for awhile - even though he really wanted to be fishing - and the place often had fresh fish due to same. Eventually the place was sold - to the son’s sister in law and her husband. They were also nice and the food was the same and we kept going there. Earlier this year we went there and the husband was not there and an older woman (I presume one of their moms) was cooking. The food was not good. We tried another place and were not happy with them. We went back to them figuring maybe it was the change in cook. But the last time we took out the soup was too salty to eat and all the dishes were wrong. We don’t know what happened. This is the place we called on our way back from our 5 hour trip in July, 2017 to get dinner made before they closed - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/07/treading-water-5-hour-trip-to-nowhere.html So, we never know where to take out from and as a result we don’t. We receive an assortment of fliers from take out places and I keep them. One recently caught husband’s eye and he had been planning to try it - so tonight we did. Very nice people and food. Three street parking spaces in front of the 4 stores was the only parking. Then, since I was sick, husband did not hand me the food to hold on the trip home, he put it in a plastic laundry basket we keep in the back in the car, he did not put anything against the bag to hold it. Yes, the bag went on an angle and was soaked when he took it out of the car. After dinner we had to wash the vinyl cover I keep in the car, the basket, and back of the car. We will go back again - and I will hold the bag.
In the middle of all this I had to go to Manhattan to a client for work - I should have gone last month, but she had a cold (could I have caught this cold over the telephone :-) ). So I went yesterday. I packed a zip lock bag with sucking candy, lots of tissues, and an old prescription bottle with one dose of the cough medicine I am taking. In another zip lock bag I had a small bottle I filled with water. Did I mention the temperature yesterday was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit? Luckily I did not need any of the items.
As a result of this normal housework and keeping things in order are only done if absolutely needed. Instead of changing the bedding, I changed only my pillowcases. I suggested he change his, but he said it was okay to just leave them until next week. I had to talk him through changing the hand towels. We were in the downstairs bathroom - “Where are they?” “In the cabinet under the sink - see those 2 whiteish towels? Take them and the green dish towel below them.” (I put out a green dish towel each week in that bathroom to use for quick clean ups of water around the sink - it matches the bathroom.) Upstairs? “Which towels?” “The yellow ones.” (I figured yellow was bright and he would easily see them.) “You mean these yellow ones?” They are the only yellow ones we have.
Last week I had washed and dried the clothes the night before I got the cold. A load of jeans were in the dryer drying overnight. So we had clothes for the week. I did not wash the towels or the bed linens. Good thing I have 2 weeks of towels plus one extra set for up and down. I was trying to figure out how to mention to him about the laundry when he brought it up. I put the clothes in to wash. He will put them in the dryer - with me talking him through it - and then bring them upstairs afterwards. He brought up last week jeans load when I put in the load to wash. He says he will fold the laundry. I normally pull out his shirts as I put the clean, dry laundry in the basket to take upstairs so that they do not need to be ironed, as I put them over the top of the other clothes and if he does that, and sorts mine from his, I can deal with my clothes and he can deal with his or leave them in the basket and pull them out as he needs them.
Hopefully either this cold will be definitely over with or he will give up by Monday so life can return to normal.
On the other hand, I had some extra time in the office as we came home quicker in the afternoons. I managed to shred all of my 2008 records - other than few I kept such as the checks written that year for our income taxes - 3 tall kitchen bags plus, worth of shredding. I then packed my 2017 records into the same box, relabeled it, and put it back in the closet - ah, room to fit papers in file folders again.
I also had time to transfer my 2017 computer files to my archive file and make 2 DVD copies of the revised archive files. I still have to change my back up files so that the old files are gone from them, but that will happen as I make backup files.
I went through an assortment of old computer instruction manuals sitting on a shelf in the office - why? I needed space for 2 magazine holders. I pulled a number of the manuals - mostly from programs or hardware that I had - and I will put them out over a couple of weeks with the recycling. I still have a stack for husband to go through - understand this are DOS or pre Windows XP software and hardware that I cannot figure out what or where it is. The magazine holders fit nicely in the shelf now with room for the manuals for computer things we are actively using.
The office floor is a mess due to my cheapness in not wanting to waste extra garbage bags when doing shredding and pouring from one to another - as well as throwing handfuls of shreds from one bag to another. I had planned to vacuum up the shreds - but then caught this cold - maybe tomorrow I will get to vacuuming.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One gets ill. It happens. I am glad that it only a cold so all it has been is inconvenient. In the larger world it is nothing, just an inconvenience. I am happy that is not serious and by next week either I will be better or he will give up trying to do things for me so he does not catch the cold. (I have never pointed out to him that I touch the light switches and so does he.)
Try to do as much as one can without overtaxing one’s self - this will vary based on what is wrong with one.
I leave you with a final achoo! If I rambled too much - will, hey! I have a cold! :-)
Friday, August 3, 2018
BACK TO SCHOOL SUPPLIES - AGAIN
First, my apologies - somehow I forgot last night to write and post to you. I had finished the yearbook (next year meeting program guide) for my embroidery guild chapter and on Tuesday I had taken it to be printed - yesterday (Wednesday) we picked it up and in the evening when I normally would be writing and posting to you, I stapled, labeled, and stuck stamps on the yearbooks to be mailed out today. Somehow my mind then wandered off and I never did get back to writing and posting. So I am doing it today.
Last year I wrote about back to school supplies - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/08/this-week-back-to-bit-more-normal.html
Today is more about back to school supplies. As I wrote last year, even as a child I loved office supplies and back to school was actually fun for me - the promise of a blank notebook, not scribbled on or in was the promise to me of a year that I would stay organized and all assignments would be done ahead of when they were due. This, of course, was never true for me or I would not be writing this blog.
As I mentioned last year this is the time of year to buy supplies that might be needed as they are discounted. Do you have pens and pencils in your house that you can find? If not this is the time to get them - and a box to keep them in. The same with basics such as scissors and tape. Good time to find plastic boxes, crates, and file storage boxes.
Growing up I thought everyone went to back to school the Wednesday after Labor Day unless they lived in New York City - since NYC rarely needed a snow day (subways always ran until more recent years when even they had to close sometimes for weather) so the schools in NYC started on the Monday, a week after Labor Day as the did not need to have the 3 snow days the rest of had built into their schedule. I have in recent years learned that schools around the country start and end on all different schedules. (Around here schools close at the June.) Some school districts close for a 2 month vacation -some for a 3 month vacation. Even around here there is now a movement to start schools earlier - in some districts even before Labor Day (although many districts have union agreements against same). The local change is the result of adding holy days of additional religions as days off during the year and the need to make up those days in the calendar.
But right now is the time for school supplies. I wanted to add this second posting about school supplies as there are some that people (as least old timers such as me) do not think of as back to school items.
Electronics. Laptops, tablets, and so on. Stores are running sales now on these for back to school. I was reminded of this as my husband has for some time (years) been pushing me to replace this laptop - to say it is not new is an understatement, you know those stickers on the laptops that show what version of what is included in it - well, the newest copyright on any of them on this laptop is 2004 - that make it around 14 years old, and yes, it still runs Windows XP. It was my work laptop when it was new. I bought a newer work laptop since then and rather than toss this one, it became my kitchen computer - where I go online at night and write and post my blog. It still works - mostly. Some websites are too fast for it and therefore run very slowly on the computer. But for most things it is fine. Husband has been pushing me to get a new laptop. My desktop - main - computer is Windows 7 and not all of my software runs on it - it is even harder to get me to get new software. I tried using his laptop which is Windows 10 and I was not happy with it - and probably even more software will not run. He has been showing me back to school ads for laptops and pushing “Look what great prices they are.” I start to think what a great idea - that website that takes sooooo long to open will work quicker, but I know it is hard for me to switch and it will involve screaming and yelling - on both our sides. (Husband is a dear and puts up with my wanting everything to remain the same and be able to use my old software and goes to great lengths to “make it so” but even he cannot do magic.) So, it reminded me to mention it to all of you. Now, don’t run out and buy a new computer just because they are on sale - but if you have been thinking of getting one - it is a good time save a few bucks.
Another school supply that I don’t think of as being one is casual furniture. Back to school includes going to college and stores that carry casual furniture - small pieces for storage and the like - are having sales and also have a larger choice of them in stock. Shelving units, small file cabinets, the doored cabinets with shelves in them are readily available now.
Of course clothing including shoes for adults (remember back to college) as well as children, of course, are in stock now.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
While one should not go out buying items willy nilly and only buy what one actually needs, if one is need of office supplies, clothing, electronics, casual furniture, etc. now is the time to look for bargains.
Obviously one should not buy stuff just because it is on sale - that just adds to the clutter and having too much stuff, but if items are needed it is always best to buy them during the time they are on sale.
Last year I wrote about back to school supplies - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/08/this-week-back-to-bit-more-normal.html
Today is more about back to school supplies. As I wrote last year, even as a child I loved office supplies and back to school was actually fun for me - the promise of a blank notebook, not scribbled on or in was the promise to me of a year that I would stay organized and all assignments would be done ahead of when they were due. This, of course, was never true for me or I would not be writing this blog.
As I mentioned last year this is the time of year to buy supplies that might be needed as they are discounted. Do you have pens and pencils in your house that you can find? If not this is the time to get them - and a box to keep them in. The same with basics such as scissors and tape. Good time to find plastic boxes, crates, and file storage boxes.
Growing up I thought everyone went to back to school the Wednesday after Labor Day unless they lived in New York City - since NYC rarely needed a snow day (subways always ran until more recent years when even they had to close sometimes for weather) so the schools in NYC started on the Monday, a week after Labor Day as the did not need to have the 3 snow days the rest of had built into their schedule. I have in recent years learned that schools around the country start and end on all different schedules. (Around here schools close at the June.) Some school districts close for a 2 month vacation -some for a 3 month vacation. Even around here there is now a movement to start schools earlier - in some districts even before Labor Day (although many districts have union agreements against same). The local change is the result of adding holy days of additional religions as days off during the year and the need to make up those days in the calendar.
But right now is the time for school supplies. I wanted to add this second posting about school supplies as there are some that people (as least old timers such as me) do not think of as back to school items.
Electronics. Laptops, tablets, and so on. Stores are running sales now on these for back to school. I was reminded of this as my husband has for some time (years) been pushing me to replace this laptop - to say it is not new is an understatement, you know those stickers on the laptops that show what version of what is included in it - well, the newest copyright on any of them on this laptop is 2004 - that make it around 14 years old, and yes, it still runs Windows XP. It was my work laptop when it was new. I bought a newer work laptop since then and rather than toss this one, it became my kitchen computer - where I go online at night and write and post my blog. It still works - mostly. Some websites are too fast for it and therefore run very slowly on the computer. But for most things it is fine. Husband has been pushing me to get a new laptop. My desktop - main - computer is Windows 7 and not all of my software runs on it - it is even harder to get me to get new software. I tried using his laptop which is Windows 10 and I was not happy with it - and probably even more software will not run. He has been showing me back to school ads for laptops and pushing “Look what great prices they are.” I start to think what a great idea - that website that takes sooooo long to open will work quicker, but I know it is hard for me to switch and it will involve screaming and yelling - on both our sides. (Husband is a dear and puts up with my wanting everything to remain the same and be able to use my old software and goes to great lengths to “make it so” but even he cannot do magic.) So, it reminded me to mention it to all of you. Now, don’t run out and buy a new computer just because they are on sale - but if you have been thinking of getting one - it is a good time save a few bucks.
Another school supply that I don’t think of as being one is casual furniture. Back to school includes going to college and stores that carry casual furniture - small pieces for storage and the like - are having sales and also have a larger choice of them in stock. Shelving units, small file cabinets, the doored cabinets with shelves in them are readily available now.
Of course clothing including shoes for adults (remember back to college) as well as children, of course, are in stock now.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
While one should not go out buying items willy nilly and only buy what one actually needs, if one is need of office supplies, clothing, electronics, casual furniture, etc. now is the time to look for bargains.
Obviously one should not buy stuff just because it is on sale - that just adds to the clutter and having too much stuff, but if items are needed it is always best to buy them during the time they are on sale.
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