I hope those how celebrate Christmas had a good holiday. I hate to use the Merry or Happy as there are many for whom that won’t happen, but good holiday has a larger definition and is more inclusive. (By the way - Queen Victoria was the one who changed the expression from Merry to Happy in Britain. Why? Well what we think of as the meaning of Merry is not what it then meant. To wish someone a Merry Christmas then, was to wish them a drunken Christmas.)
Did you get all of your holiday preparations done on time? I didn’t. Between time lost back in October and November to my husband’s injured shoulder/arm, doing an assortment of tasks twice to get them done finally and correctly, work, and my general laziness, compounded by the fact that I lost 2 evenings (which should have been 3 - but more on that later) to the Candlelight Nights reenactment event we do with our reenactment unit just before Christmas, I fell behind - even for me.
Normally I would have everything I wanted to do finished, except my (infamous) Teddy Christmas Village setup. Over the years it has become normal for me to be setting it up on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day night, or even just after same. Dinner for Christmas Eve would be planned in advance,gifts wrapped, all the other trees and decorations up and in place. Not this year.
As I wrote last week, I had set up the living room and dining room and front hall decorations - mostly - in advance. I put artificial roping over the windows in the living and dining room and did so this year in the dining room. The living room involves moving a coffee table from in front of the windows to hang the roping there - and an embroidered hoop piece that I put in the center of the roping. (The coffee table is there and not in front of the sofa since it became husband’s weaving room and while not heavy is shoved between 2 chairs and therefore hard to move.) At Christmas Eve the roping was still waiting. I put it back the box and sat the embroidered piece on a chair (which will not be sat in anyway). While doing this annoys me - the lack of the roping does not change the holiday in any way.
Last week, you may remember, I assembled the tree while writing my post to you. On Thursday night I brought up the two boxes of decorations that go on it first (the nicer ones), put “Lion in Winter” in the DVD player (a tradition with husband and me) and started on decorating the tree. It took a few hours but the decorations went on the tree. I put them on the tree in sections as there are so many that it makes it easier to see them. I put angels on the top section of the tree all around - or at least on the 3 sides one can actually see. On the front of the tree I put the ornaments we have bought on vacation - and about vacation - I remember as I start to leave a vertical space for key chain we bought at one of the Smithsonian Air and Space museums of a red fabric piece which says “remove before flight” as used on planes. An ornament does not have to be an actual ornament is something we figured out a number of years ago. (We were someplace and they had the same piece as a key ring -not this one - and as an ornament. Key ring was $3, ornament was $15 - we bought the key ring.) In addition to key rings, we have bought the pins that people put on their hats to show that they have been someplace and a variety of other small items. On the side of the tree facing the front hall and to the left of the vacation ornaments are the Santa ornaments - there I have to leave a space long enough for Santa hanging from a parachute until I come to it. To the left of the them are the teddy bear ornaments - and above them the ones dated with our anniversary - towards the back of the tree - paper houses are hanging. On the other side of the tree - facing the side of the room, but visible are sections with stars, characters (Snoopy, Alice in Wonderland...), (fake) candy, vehicles and so on. Then other ornaments are mixed in around the tree in all of these - handmade ornaments (some embroidered of course), and so on.
Friday night we were suppose to be at the Candlelight event, but there was a huge rain storm coming in and the restoration canceled the night on Thursday as it would be too dangerous for people to be out in the storm and they figured few people would come. So I was able to work on the other two boxes of ornaments (while watching the second version of “Lion in Winter” that we have. These boxes have larger ornaments - balls and such - so there are less of them. I put the more “important” of them on the tree - and stopped. The back of the tree - the side facing the window and not seen in the room (or outside as the drapes are closed) is naked this year - for the first time ever. I cleared up the room and stored the boxes downstairs. As I took a box down I brought a large Santa or elf figure upstairs. This also allowed us to food shop Friday afternoon. While I had already bought stuff earlier in the week to make a Brunswick stew for Christmas Eve dinner, we also need food items that don’t have to be cooked or cook quickly to eat for dinner when we come home at around 10:30/11 pm after the events.
Saturday night (well, actually afternoon) we ate a bigger lunch than normal at Wendys as we were eating earlier and would eat dinner much later than normal. We then went home to dress in our period style clothing. I had previously laid out my clothing - in reverse order of how they worn so the first piece to be put on is at the top of the pile and the last (my apron) is at the bottom of the pile. I put on my “stockings” and shoes (I can’t reach the shoes after I put on my stays) and then my “shift” (a white more or less A-line dress that serves as underwear in period). Over this I wear “stays” - not a corset and not worn tightly tied as Scarlet O’Hara wore her corset. The stays have lacing up the back and front and I only open the front lacing to put them on and off. I had them on and laced up the front. I then pulled the lacing to tighten them (only to the feel of “a gentle hug” and then to tie them - suddenly I was holding a piece of the lacing in my hand and the rest had mostly unlaced itself. The lacing had torn apart! I do not have a spare lace as it came with (on) the stays. Husband suggested that I get some fabric seam tape from our studio. I ran down glad of a solution. Uh, Oh! I had stored his weaving stuff - yarns, finished pieces, table on my side of the studio. I had taken out what I thought we might need to access - safety pins, thread spools and such, but we never need seam tape - so I could not get any. On my way back upstairs the thought hit me, I could pull the seam tape in the waistband of my other petticoat (skirt) out and use it - no problem unless I decide to wear my other petticoat the next night - then an even better idea hit - I have a spare apron and have it used it while cooking at events so it is stained and I would not be wearing it during this event. I pulled it out. I started trying to lace the stays with it - end was stiff and it was wider than the lacing - I grabbed a pen and used to point to push the lacing into each hole - and it worked great (no one sees it as it under the rest of my clothing.) We then rushed - afraid to be late to get there as husband is in charge and the first night we have to make sure the building is set up right and that we have candles, etc. We got there half an hour early to be there an hour before the event started! We sat in the car until we saw some employees of the restoration go into the building.
Everything we needed was there and we rearranged things from how they had been left for us to how we needed them. As unit members came in each started setting up what they normally work with. We made sure to put the keys to the building in the spot where they are suppose to be kept (don’t want to miss them when we go to lock up later). As 4pm approached we lit the candles inside the house and on the steps outside. Three of the rooms are behind clear half height gates, the others are walk through. I put on my cap and offered the mirror in one of the gated off rooms to other women in our unit before I slide that gate into place, the last of the gates to be put in place. One of the fellows had the fire going in the kitchen and the musician was ready. We had a very successful and fun - both for the crowds and us - evening. Members each do whatever they feel they would like to do at the event - sing, greet people at the door and tell them about the building, be a person of the past (as husband and I do) and talk about the house and “our” time as someone who knows nothing of the future, just up to the matching day in 1775. We are on the village for some of our fellows to fire their muskets 3 times during the night in front of the building. When we went back on Sunday night we found out that 1500 people had come through the village the night before! And Sunday night seemed to have almost as many people.
Saturday night after we came home, changed our clothes and had dinner I brought up the rest of my Santas and elves and set all of them up in the living room at the entrance to the room. (Most of them were Christmas gifts from someone husband worked with, two I made, one we bought, and one is husband’s since he was a boy. At this point the excess packing was stored away and the room almost finished - for this year at least.
Sunday was a repeat of Saturday - eat lunch early and more than usual, change clothes, drive to restoration village - not as early this time as we knew that everything was ready for us. The event was basically a repeat of the night before (and really every night we do this), while always being different based on who comes through the building and their interests as life in 1775 had about as many facets as life does today and one or the other of us (or several of us) will be able to talk on the different facets.
After we, again, came home, changed our clothes and had dinner, I went back to Christmas decorating. I brought up our Christmas stockings - one pair red and white fur with names for use in the years that there is something for them, one pair decorated with “Santa Claus, the movie” and one pair I embroidered for us. There are is also a line of small stockings with the names of our Cabbage Patch kids on them (yes, we are that silly). I also boiled the chicken I needed for the Brunswick stew for Christmas Eve dinner.
Christmas Eve day we went out for lunch and some short errands as places closed early. While I cooked our dinner and set the table in the dining room - I had to, again, take the stuff we had brought back into the house from the RV to the RV. Since the stew cooks a long time and has to be watched, I brought up and assembled the dining room tree and decorated it with brass ornaments we have received as members of Colonial Williamsburg. I have, somehow, duplicates of two them and the two duplicates I put on the main tree in the living room. I then took the handmade ornaments I had set aside as I did the main tree (the handmade ornaments are split between the two trees) and set up the tree in the studio for them and put them on the tree - the woven wheat snowflake I use for star on top (made by husband) needed a bit of reinforcing glue on one point and I fixed it.
Ah, all that will/can be done was done at this point. I turned on the living room and studio tree lights and finished cooking dinner. We had dinner, I did the dishes. I put the few (3) gifts we had bought ourselves in recycled Christmas gift bags. Husband wrapped his 2 nieces’ Christmas gifts in Christmas paper and their birthday gifts in different in different paper and we put them in bags for Christmas Day. We then went to Midnight Mass.
Husband later went up to bed before me and I put our gifts under the tree - next to the empty fancy gift boxes there for “show”.
Christmas Day was spent at his sister’s house and the less said about it, the better. Today was the 26th. I paid all the bills due until after New Year’s Day, we mailed them, we went to the bank and transferred money to cover them and then came home for a quiet evening to rest up. Tomorrow night we go back to the Candlelight Nights through Saturday night. Ah, being in 1775 for 3 more nights - something we love. Then the teddy village will be changed from fall to Winter/Christmas.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
None of us can do everything. I could be upset and kicking myself for not getting all of the decorating done, but I did the best I could. Husband points out that there is nothing missing when one looks at it all. Another year, more will be done.
Relax - you can only do the best you can - in decorating and organizing. New Year’s Day will be here before I talk with you again - remember think of what you might want to change or improve and decide to try. Don’t make resolutions - just pick something and think about what you can do. And don’t forget - every day is the start of a new year.
I wish a happy, and healthy new year to all of you.
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Thursday, December 20, 2018
CHRISTMAS ALREADY?
As I write this post it is just less than a week to Christmas. This has been a mixed up year and I am soooo behind. I am hoping that we will have the big tree in the living room for our presents. Okay, I know we will have the tree as in between writing this post I am bringing up the pieces of the tree from the basement and putting them in place - but will it be decorated and how much will it be decorated? I have already put down the stand, added the pole and the tree top to it. I am now going to put in the first of the wedge shaped sections.
Why I am so late this year? Well, as mentioned last week, lately I seem to need to do almost everything twice. In addition to what I mentioned last week - on Thursday a gift we had ordered for husband’s niece - a Barbie doll that is a mermaid and lights up in the bathtub as Walmart, our go to source for purchasing just about anything, does not carry it in store stock, so we had to order it for her. The doll shown on Walmart’s site was the traditional Caucasian, blonde, blue eyed Barbie. Unlike other Barbie dolls on the page there was no choice of “color’. When the doll arrived it was African-American in features - not the doll we had ordered. The doll had taken 2 weeks to come - and even if we could reorder her, we had no way of knowing if we would receive the Barbie pictured on the page on the website. Niece actually asked for this doll and her mom had not tried to buy it for her as we were doing so. No one wants to disappoint a 9 year old. (Okay, even though according to her mom she asked for this, I know fully well that there is a good chance when she gets this doll, it will be glanced at and tossed over her shoulder lost in the excessive gifts from her mom and (dad’s mom) grandmother. So we both went online and I managed to find out that Target claimed to have the doll in stock at several local stores. I printed out the information from the two stores we were most likely to get to. We paid $13 from Walmart - the doll was listed as available by order, pick up at the store or buy at the store for $15, so not much more. We went to one of the Targets. To my surprise we did not have to find an employee and plead that the doll which we expected not to be on the floor - or it would be same as the one received if it was on the floor - is suppose to be in the store and please, please find us one - the doll was out on display in abundance. We selected one. We then looked at the shelf and the price was $21 - not only more than the price online for Target, but also $1 over the list price from Mattel. Husband started to panic. I took the doll and my printout and went to the service desk. I explained - employee told me that just because the price was shown on the website (even if it said buy in store) does not mean that the store price is the same as the online price - and even different stores will have different prices for the same item (please remember that when you shop at Target in the future, as well as the shelf price was over the list price), but she would match it (so I didn’t bother to point out to her that their shelf price was more than list.) Almost finished - we then had to go stand in line at Walmart and return the doll received from them. Another day gone. (Putting in the second section of the tree. - right back.)
We have not driven our RV since August as we have not been able to go on a trip. It was having trouble starting when we did maintenance things to it (such as running the generator every month) and husband has been pushing for trip so we were going to drive to Lancaster, PA for a farmer’s market, some other shopping, and dinner for the day on Tuesday. Then we were just too exhausted. So we drove it just to drive it (we could wake up much later and not need to pack any “going out of state stuff”). We drove it for about an hour headed east on the Island we live on. We then drove it around out there (it is the both the fancy tourist end of the Island, as well as the agricultural end of same) for a while. We finally ended up at larger Walmart out there - both so husband could look for some things he has not been able to find and to make a rest stop. (We had lunch at the start of the trip.) We then drove home. It was the start of rush hour - which mostly is in the opposite direction as we are going, but there are a lot of people who commute in the opposite direction - and an accident on the main highway we were on. We are limited in the highways which we can on which we can drive the RV as it is over height for many of them. Husband was thinking of getting off the highway where we were and we knew the roads. I quickly calculated and decided that the back up was after where we would get off - by one exit. I was right. We stopped and refilled the gas tank in the RV and now it can rest for awhile. Another day gone.
I have to go to a client for the month - I was hoping to have gone today, but she had a doctor’s appointment, so it will be tomorrow - the expected busiest traffic day of the season, of course. Either day - it is another day gone. (Just put in the 3rd section of the tree.)
In addition to all of this and my exam (which I finished with a grade of 85 last night, thank goodness), we will be short of time from now to Christmas as our reenactment unit will be doing the candlelight event at the local restoration village. It sounds like a short time - event starts at 5 pm and ends at 9:30. But we have to start dressing before 3 pm to leave at 3:30 to get there by 4 pm (and driving with rush hour traffic on Friday, the first day of the event) to start setting up. Then after the event ends we will need to close up, so we will not be out until 10 pm, drive home by 10:30, start dinner going and change to modern clothes and start eating dinner by 11 pm. We have done this event for at least a decade now and we know how to plan ahead. Today we mailed out payment on all bills due before December 27 - no need to go to the post office or bank (we took extra cash and transferred money to cover bills today). In buying food for Christmas Eve dinner today, I did forget to buy for dinner the 3 nights of the event - hot dogs for him and chicken patties for me - come home, put up canned soup and dinner, change clothes and start eating by 11:30 pm. Husband said he would go tomorrow while I was at work to buy same - and some deli turkey breast for Friday night. We treated ourselves to dinner out tonight as we normally would go out on the weekend for dinner and will pick up takeout tomorrow night.
In and between all of this I have put up the decorations in the dining room and most of them in the living (I have not have the energy to move furniture to put up a double length swag of artificial roping across the back living room windows with an embroidery piece of mine in a hoop in the center of the swag (where it goes back up to the top of the window). So everything on the table below it is in disarray.
Our Christmas tree and lights, skirt, and some of the ornaments are stored in the box that the tree came in - under the staircase in the basement. Two of our other trees, Christmas decorative figures and some other related items are stored on top of the box. Of course to get to the box everything in front of it has to be moved. After we came home from dinner I began sorting this all out. I moved what is kept in front of the box and the items stored on top of it. I then pulled out the stand and the pole - need them first of course - and a junk bath size towel (you know - the ones that are not good enough to use, but too good to toss, and great for things like soaking water from a small flood or such). I put the towel down on the wooden floor first - it keeps the floor from getting scratched if we need to move the tree from where it starts as well as making it easier to do so by dragging the towel, while holding the tree upright. Oh - it is not this easy - I spent part of last night moving husband’s table that he uses for various weaving related purposes into the studio (what should have been our family room) and wedging it (it is a gate-leg, so it folds down narrow) between my studio worktable and chair. I then carried in 7 boxes of yarns and finished woven pieces. (And arranged them in the right order for access to what husband might need while it is all shoved back there.) I put the top of the tree in place. The instructions said to do this last and we did so for years (closer to decades). We are both short and doing so involves reaching across the spread of the bottom tree sections - not something either of us can do without a ladder, which is a rather shaky way to do so. 2 years ago it occurred to me to try putting the top in place and seeing if I could still put the bottom pieces (8 wedge shaped pieces) in place - I could and I now I assemble the tree this way. I am now in the midst (between lines/ sections of this post) of bringing up a section of the tree and a zip bag or two with a strand of lights in each. I discovered that the way to deal with the down and up the stairs for each section is to stretch it out a bit as the sections are heavy and the stairs long. (Going down for another section right now - my fourth of the eight.) Back again. We found that we have to put the sections on so that two which sit opposite each other go on one after another - then the 2 that form the two cross pieces to same, then fill in opposite ones in the holes in between them. If the sections next to each other are put on together - the tree gets too heavy and starts to fall over (yes, we found out the hard way - been there, done that) so the spacing of putting them in is important. I should have the entire tree up before we go to bed. Not sure if I will get the lights on tonight - or tomorrow night. Spacing where it is located seems good. It is a small area, but I can walk around the tree, except for the side facing the window and will deal with that from the sides. We originally would set up the tree in the back, right corner of the room, but the front center works better - and only one piece of furniture needs to moved (and this crazy year past, it was never put back).
A few years ago I came up with an idea for turning on and off the tree. We have several electric cords which allow something to be plugged in at one end (which is also what plugs into the electricity) and at the other end there is an on-off switch. I use this and run the cord up through the tree and it just sticks on the side of the tree that is not as easily seen (away from the room entrance and near a wall) and we just stick our hands into the tree there and turn the lights on or off. This year I put a 3 outlet plug into the cord before the tree and we can also plug in our light up bear (he wears our Santa hat) so both will go on at the same time - we always forget to light him. (Off for section 5 - it will face the window behind the tree.)
I have four large plastic boxes with ornaments in the basement also - behind the 2 empty decoration boxes and the 2 full Teddy bear village Christmas village. They will come up when I am ready to use them. The ornament boxes are labeled one to four. The ornaments in box 1 are basically the ones I want to put on the tree first and the ones in box 4 basically the ones I want to put on last. There are also other ornaments which are kept in the tree box and some in other places. Some of the ornaments will end up on the studio tree - it is decorated with only ornaments we have made - although there are plenty of those also on the main tree. There will also be a tree in the dining room. It gets the ornaments we receive as donors to Colonial Williamsburg - but some duplicate ones will go on the main tree also. There is also a small beaded tree which I made - it is stored decorated, but some always fall off in transit and need to be replaced.
I had cleared out the dining room of extraneous stuff before decorating it. Unfortunately RV stuff that ends up in the dining room in RV use season which I took out and left in the RV for the winter, had to be brought back in when we went on the trip - good thing. The back of the RV (remember this is a Chevy van conversion not a huge RV) has two seating benches opposite each other on the sides and they convert to the bed by filling in the area between the seats with wooden boards and sliding the seat cushions and seat backs into the space. It is set up as the 2 seats for the off season with the bedding in knotted closed huge plastic bags on one of the seats and the seat backs on the other seat. We have driven before with them like this with no problem. During the trip we heard NOISES from the back, Normally we hear noises from the back and we just figured it was because things that are normally packed full when we travel so that items don’t shift around were much emptier. When we stopped at the Walmart out there - everything was lying in the area between the benches - luckily nothing broken - don’t know why. If I had not taken the items back into the house as I did - they would have been broken. So again, I have to repeat doing something and I have to take the items back from the dining room - again - and store them in the (stationary now for some time to come) RV.
At some point - even if it is on or after Christmas - I will set up the other 2 trees down here that have to be decorated. I will, hopefully finish the living room (or just put out my embroidery place and forget about the roping for this year). I will also change the teddy village from fall to winter - this is something that I normally do on Christmas Eve or afternoon or after same.
Do I over decorate? Yes. But we don’t really buy each other gifts (or otherwise get them) and Christmas day dinner with his sister and her family is not fun. Mass, the focus of the holiday is an hour. So other than participating with our reenacting unit in doing 6 nights (3 this week and 3 next week) of interpreting a 1740 house at the event mentioned, decorating is just about all of our holiday. Oh, and of course there are some Chanukah decorations mixed in for me. (Going down for piece number 6, right back.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Take time to enjoy the holidays. We often spend so much time decorating, shopping, cooking (maybe some cleaning if people are coming), etc. While I , obviously, go overboard in decorating, I also understand that time to enjoy ourselves and rest is also needed. I push to get it all done, but if it is not, I am not going to be upset with myself. The first year that we were married we did not have a tree for a variety of reasons (none financial). I decided that husband needed something. I bought 2 large sheets of brown oak tag and some paints. I painted a fireplace opening and fire on one and painted the mortar of bricks (see I bought brown oaktag so I would not have to paint bricks - just the mortar between them) for the sides and chimney area of a fireplace. I then tied them to the back of one of his mom’s old kitchen chairs (we had a few of them to use as we had not bought kitchen set yet - table was a bridge table borrowed from my mom) so it would stand. We set it up for years until it fell apart some time after we moved into this house. It was simple, but served its purpose. (Going down for tree December 20, 2018 piece number 7.)
I hope that all of you have a good holiday season - I hate to say Happy or Merry as I know that many people do not. Try to remember what is important and know that the rest will work itself it out. If not everything you plan gets done - it is not a failure, it is just how it is. Something will always go wrong - last year I misplaced a gift card purchased for husband’s niece (same one we got the Barbie mermaid for) and it did not turn up until I started changing the teddy Christmas village into the summer village (for the first time - as in the past the village has only been done for Christmas/Winter). So now we have a gift card to use at a store we don’t shop at. But we gave her cash last year and we are sure that some day we will find a use for the card - maybe a DVD before they stop carrying them? But after going crazy looking for the card last year (and positive I threw it out somehow), I put it aside and went on with the holiday. (I will go down for the last piece and close up downstairs after I post this - see it wasn’t so bad.)
Why I am so late this year? Well, as mentioned last week, lately I seem to need to do almost everything twice. In addition to what I mentioned last week - on Thursday a gift we had ordered for husband’s niece - a Barbie doll that is a mermaid and lights up in the bathtub as Walmart, our go to source for purchasing just about anything, does not carry it in store stock, so we had to order it for her. The doll shown on Walmart’s site was the traditional Caucasian, blonde, blue eyed Barbie. Unlike other Barbie dolls on the page there was no choice of “color’. When the doll arrived it was African-American in features - not the doll we had ordered. The doll had taken 2 weeks to come - and even if we could reorder her, we had no way of knowing if we would receive the Barbie pictured on the page on the website. Niece actually asked for this doll and her mom had not tried to buy it for her as we were doing so. No one wants to disappoint a 9 year old. (Okay, even though according to her mom she asked for this, I know fully well that there is a good chance when she gets this doll, it will be glanced at and tossed over her shoulder lost in the excessive gifts from her mom and (dad’s mom) grandmother. So we both went online and I managed to find out that Target claimed to have the doll in stock at several local stores. I printed out the information from the two stores we were most likely to get to. We paid $13 from Walmart - the doll was listed as available by order, pick up at the store or buy at the store for $15, so not much more. We went to one of the Targets. To my surprise we did not have to find an employee and plead that the doll which we expected not to be on the floor - or it would be same as the one received if it was on the floor - is suppose to be in the store and please, please find us one - the doll was out on display in abundance. We selected one. We then looked at the shelf and the price was $21 - not only more than the price online for Target, but also $1 over the list price from Mattel. Husband started to panic. I took the doll and my printout and went to the service desk. I explained - employee told me that just because the price was shown on the website (even if it said buy in store) does not mean that the store price is the same as the online price - and even different stores will have different prices for the same item (please remember that when you shop at Target in the future, as well as the shelf price was over the list price), but she would match it (so I didn’t bother to point out to her that their shelf price was more than list.) Almost finished - we then had to go stand in line at Walmart and return the doll received from them. Another day gone. (Putting in the second section of the tree. - right back.)
We have not driven our RV since August as we have not been able to go on a trip. It was having trouble starting when we did maintenance things to it (such as running the generator every month) and husband has been pushing for trip so we were going to drive to Lancaster, PA for a farmer’s market, some other shopping, and dinner for the day on Tuesday. Then we were just too exhausted. So we drove it just to drive it (we could wake up much later and not need to pack any “going out of state stuff”). We drove it for about an hour headed east on the Island we live on. We then drove it around out there (it is the both the fancy tourist end of the Island, as well as the agricultural end of same) for a while. We finally ended up at larger Walmart out there - both so husband could look for some things he has not been able to find and to make a rest stop. (We had lunch at the start of the trip.) We then drove home. It was the start of rush hour - which mostly is in the opposite direction as we are going, but there are a lot of people who commute in the opposite direction - and an accident on the main highway we were on. We are limited in the highways which we can on which we can drive the RV as it is over height for many of them. Husband was thinking of getting off the highway where we were and we knew the roads. I quickly calculated and decided that the back up was after where we would get off - by one exit. I was right. We stopped and refilled the gas tank in the RV and now it can rest for awhile. Another day gone.
I have to go to a client for the month - I was hoping to have gone today, but she had a doctor’s appointment, so it will be tomorrow - the expected busiest traffic day of the season, of course. Either day - it is another day gone. (Just put in the 3rd section of the tree.)
In addition to all of this and my exam (which I finished with a grade of 85 last night, thank goodness), we will be short of time from now to Christmas as our reenactment unit will be doing the candlelight event at the local restoration village. It sounds like a short time - event starts at 5 pm and ends at 9:30. But we have to start dressing before 3 pm to leave at 3:30 to get there by 4 pm (and driving with rush hour traffic on Friday, the first day of the event) to start setting up. Then after the event ends we will need to close up, so we will not be out until 10 pm, drive home by 10:30, start dinner going and change to modern clothes and start eating dinner by 11 pm. We have done this event for at least a decade now and we know how to plan ahead. Today we mailed out payment on all bills due before December 27 - no need to go to the post office or bank (we took extra cash and transferred money to cover bills today). In buying food for Christmas Eve dinner today, I did forget to buy for dinner the 3 nights of the event - hot dogs for him and chicken patties for me - come home, put up canned soup and dinner, change clothes and start eating by 11:30 pm. Husband said he would go tomorrow while I was at work to buy same - and some deli turkey breast for Friday night. We treated ourselves to dinner out tonight as we normally would go out on the weekend for dinner and will pick up takeout tomorrow night.
In and between all of this I have put up the decorations in the dining room and most of them in the living (I have not have the energy to move furniture to put up a double length swag of artificial roping across the back living room windows with an embroidery piece of mine in a hoop in the center of the swag (where it goes back up to the top of the window). So everything on the table below it is in disarray.
Our Christmas tree and lights, skirt, and some of the ornaments are stored in the box that the tree came in - under the staircase in the basement. Two of our other trees, Christmas decorative figures and some other related items are stored on top of the box. Of course to get to the box everything in front of it has to be moved. After we came home from dinner I began sorting this all out. I moved what is kept in front of the box and the items stored on top of it. I then pulled out the stand and the pole - need them first of course - and a junk bath size towel (you know - the ones that are not good enough to use, but too good to toss, and great for things like soaking water from a small flood or such). I put the towel down on the wooden floor first - it keeps the floor from getting scratched if we need to move the tree from where it starts as well as making it easier to do so by dragging the towel, while holding the tree upright. Oh - it is not this easy - I spent part of last night moving husband’s table that he uses for various weaving related purposes into the studio (what should have been our family room) and wedging it (it is a gate-leg, so it folds down narrow) between my studio worktable and chair. I then carried in 7 boxes of yarns and finished woven pieces. (And arranged them in the right order for access to what husband might need while it is all shoved back there.) I put the top of the tree in place. The instructions said to do this last and we did so for years (closer to decades). We are both short and doing so involves reaching across the spread of the bottom tree sections - not something either of us can do without a ladder, which is a rather shaky way to do so. 2 years ago it occurred to me to try putting the top in place and seeing if I could still put the bottom pieces (8 wedge shaped pieces) in place - I could and I now I assemble the tree this way. I am now in the midst (between lines/ sections of this post) of bringing up a section of the tree and a zip bag or two with a strand of lights in each. I discovered that the way to deal with the down and up the stairs for each section is to stretch it out a bit as the sections are heavy and the stairs long. (Going down for another section right now - my fourth of the eight.) Back again. We found that we have to put the sections on so that two which sit opposite each other go on one after another - then the 2 that form the two cross pieces to same, then fill in opposite ones in the holes in between them. If the sections next to each other are put on together - the tree gets too heavy and starts to fall over (yes, we found out the hard way - been there, done that) so the spacing of putting them in is important. I should have the entire tree up before we go to bed. Not sure if I will get the lights on tonight - or tomorrow night. Spacing where it is located seems good. It is a small area, but I can walk around the tree, except for the side facing the window and will deal with that from the sides. We originally would set up the tree in the back, right corner of the room, but the front center works better - and only one piece of furniture needs to moved (and this crazy year past, it was never put back).
A few years ago I came up with an idea for turning on and off the tree. We have several electric cords which allow something to be plugged in at one end (which is also what plugs into the electricity) and at the other end there is an on-off switch. I use this and run the cord up through the tree and it just sticks on the side of the tree that is not as easily seen (away from the room entrance and near a wall) and we just stick our hands into the tree there and turn the lights on or off. This year I put a 3 outlet plug into the cord before the tree and we can also plug in our light up bear (he wears our Santa hat) so both will go on at the same time - we always forget to light him. (Off for section 5 - it will face the window behind the tree.)
I have four large plastic boxes with ornaments in the basement also - behind the 2 empty decoration boxes and the 2 full Teddy bear village Christmas village. They will come up when I am ready to use them. The ornament boxes are labeled one to four. The ornaments in box 1 are basically the ones I want to put on the tree first and the ones in box 4 basically the ones I want to put on last. There are also other ornaments which are kept in the tree box and some in other places. Some of the ornaments will end up on the studio tree - it is decorated with only ornaments we have made - although there are plenty of those also on the main tree. There will also be a tree in the dining room. It gets the ornaments we receive as donors to Colonial Williamsburg - but some duplicate ones will go on the main tree also. There is also a small beaded tree which I made - it is stored decorated, but some always fall off in transit and need to be replaced.
I had cleared out the dining room of extraneous stuff before decorating it. Unfortunately RV stuff that ends up in the dining room in RV use season which I took out and left in the RV for the winter, had to be brought back in when we went on the trip - good thing. The back of the RV (remember this is a Chevy van conversion not a huge RV) has two seating benches opposite each other on the sides and they convert to the bed by filling in the area between the seats with wooden boards and sliding the seat cushions and seat backs into the space. It is set up as the 2 seats for the off season with the bedding in knotted closed huge plastic bags on one of the seats and the seat backs on the other seat. We have driven before with them like this with no problem. During the trip we heard NOISES from the back, Normally we hear noises from the back and we just figured it was because things that are normally packed full when we travel so that items don’t shift around were much emptier. When we stopped at the Walmart out there - everything was lying in the area between the benches - luckily nothing broken - don’t know why. If I had not taken the items back into the house as I did - they would have been broken. So again, I have to repeat doing something and I have to take the items back from the dining room - again - and store them in the (stationary now for some time to come) RV.
At some point - even if it is on or after Christmas - I will set up the other 2 trees down here that have to be decorated. I will, hopefully finish the living room (or just put out my embroidery place and forget about the roping for this year). I will also change the teddy village from fall to winter - this is something that I normally do on Christmas Eve or afternoon or after same.
Do I over decorate? Yes. But we don’t really buy each other gifts (or otherwise get them) and Christmas day dinner with his sister and her family is not fun. Mass, the focus of the holiday is an hour. So other than participating with our reenacting unit in doing 6 nights (3 this week and 3 next week) of interpreting a 1740 house at the event mentioned, decorating is just about all of our holiday. Oh, and of course there are some Chanukah decorations mixed in for me. (Going down for piece number 6, right back.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Take time to enjoy the holidays. We often spend so much time decorating, shopping, cooking (maybe some cleaning if people are coming), etc. While I , obviously, go overboard in decorating, I also understand that time to enjoy ourselves and rest is also needed. I push to get it all done, but if it is not, I am not going to be upset with myself. The first year that we were married we did not have a tree for a variety of reasons (none financial). I decided that husband needed something. I bought 2 large sheets of brown oak tag and some paints. I painted a fireplace opening and fire on one and painted the mortar of bricks (see I bought brown oaktag so I would not have to paint bricks - just the mortar between them) for the sides and chimney area of a fireplace. I then tied them to the back of one of his mom’s old kitchen chairs (we had a few of them to use as we had not bought kitchen set yet - table was a bridge table borrowed from my mom) so it would stand. We set it up for years until it fell apart some time after we moved into this house. It was simple, but served its purpose. (Going down for tree December 20, 2018 piece number 7.)
I hope that all of you have a good holiday season - I hate to say Happy or Merry as I know that many people do not. Try to remember what is important and know that the rest will work itself it out. If not everything you plan gets done - it is not a failure, it is just how it is. Something will always go wrong - last year I misplaced a gift card purchased for husband’s niece (same one we got the Barbie mermaid for) and it did not turn up until I started changing the teddy Christmas village into the summer village (for the first time - as in the past the village has only been done for Christmas/Winter). So now we have a gift card to use at a store we don’t shop at. But we gave her cash last year and we are sure that some day we will find a use for the card - maybe a DVD before they stop carrying them? But after going crazy looking for the card last year (and positive I threw it out somehow), I put it aside and went on with the holiday. (I will go down for the last piece and close up downstairs after I post this - see it wasn’t so bad.)
Thursday, December 13, 2018
HOW MANY THINGS CAN NEED TO BE REDONE?
I know I complain a lot. Life used to be relatively organized. I would do things and be done with them. Lately everything seems to be awry. I do things and they have to be redone.
One of the things I do in November is reserve the meeting room for the following year for my embroidery group. This was relatively simple at first. I would receive the paperwork in the mail early in November, fill it in, have my signature notarized and mail it back - and we had room - free - to meet in for another year.
We had met in a series of churches over decades - back to before I joined the group in the 1990s. (The group is around 40 years old.) We would pay for our meeting room. The group used to be over 400 members. The group would have workshops and interested members would pay for same which would allow the group to pay for a meeting room. Over the years members aged (with the inevitable result) and moved away. Women were working and could not come to day meetings. (A new group had broken off from ours and meets at night in the next county - some members belong to both groups.) Interest in embroidery waned. We were down to around 20 members. I figured out (as treasurer) that in 3 years we no longer would have anything in the treasury and the group would be gone. As I was about to sign the agreement for the next year, I noticed a mailer from the local township. One of the parks caught my eye. I called and asked about the use of a room for meetings. We had just enough percentage of members who were residents of the township for a room - since we are non-profit - it would be free! We were given space at a park other than the one I saw and we have been there for 5 years now. The women who work in the park office have been very nice. The first woman who ran it, however retired. Since then it has been a bit confused in renewing the room. Last year I did not get the form until late so I had made a note for November 1 to check with them.
October 31 I received a phone call asking for the group’s email address. I called back and left it on voice mail. A week later, nothing had come and I had not heard from anyone. I called back in case my voice mail had gone astray and was given someone else’s voice mail and left the info again. Another week - I called and was told that the forms would be out shortly. The next week was Thanksgiving. I was telephoned the day before same by the woman who used to run the department who again asked for my email - I told her the story and she apologized. She called back later to check which park we meet in. Thank goodness it was all finally going to be done with! On Tuesday the next week I received the paperwork by email. I filled it in. Wednesday I went to the bank and had the paperwork notarized and on Thursday mailed it back. All done, finally, how great.
The following Tuesday I had a telephone message when we got home from errands, basically, sorry. another group meets in that room then. Hmmm, we meet in that room then, maybe the nice former director had filled us in already on some chart or form? I called her back the next morning. No - another group was meeting at an overlapping time to ours - and she had a different location for us to met. I questioned how this had happened. The other group got their paperwork in first. I told her the story of trying to get the paperwork and how unfair that someone else had, apparently gotten their paperwork earlier than us and taken our space. I also explained that we were a group of “old ladies” - which we are, at 65 I am the youngest - and I was afraid that finding the other park would be too hard for them. She hmmmed a bit. Then said that since we only meet once a month and the other group meets more often maybe she could get them to give up the room for the once a month. She did and we have the room back for next year.
Totally unrelated - and dealing with the county instead of the township - husband and I are entitled to a reduction in our real estate taxes due to our age and income. I started collecting information for the paperwork in January - well I actually collected some during 2017. I had to telephone our medical insurance companies for last year (which we had 4 of do to R switching to Medicare partway through the year) and get printouts of the premiums paid to them - listed by month paid. Of course one only gave a total and I to keep after them for the correct info. I also had to get listings of what we paid for prescriptions (Walmart pharmacy was the easiest of all the info needed for me to get) and the dentist and doctors from the providers themselves. I did not bother with the doctors as payments to them were minor. We have to get statements from who we paid - canceled checks are not accepted.
In late August I received the renewal papers from the county (we had gone through all this last year for the first time). I filled them in and continued to chase down missing information. While husband was incapacitated I finished the forms and started making the photocopies I needed to give them - photocopies of income, of the medical expenses, etc. I wrote a summary of what I was giving them. I wrote a cover letter. We mailed it out certified mail (almost $7 postage) on November 27 - and received the information that it had been delivered and signed for on November 29. We sat back to wait to hear from the county in April - maybe earlier if they wanted some other information.
Monday night we got a robocall from the county executive that we have not yet filled the renewal for our exemption! We panicked. Tuesday I was taking my mom to her doctor and I called before I left for her house. I got a voice mail setup and left my information and asked them to PLEASE call back and let me know if they were missing our application - knowing that they would not call back. Oh, well, this was better than last year. Last year when I called for information their telephone number was continually answered by voice mail that said, basically, we are too busy to answer the phone - goodby, although after calling for several weeks the message was changed by adding - that there is not enough parking here, so don’t come either. While mom was in with her doctor I called again. This time there was a message that people were called who should not have been called and - the message only applied to those over 65 and if one had receipt from them for the paperwork given, they were fine. It offered a chance to talk to exemptions (overall I was calling the county tax assessor’s office) and I did so - same message as in the morning and I again asked to PLEASE let me know if they have our paperwork - just leave the message on our answering machine, they did not even have to talk to us.
Local news last night talked about the robocall error - it showed the lines that people were on for 2 hours due to the call - as did the local paper today - 400,000 called instead of something liked 50,000! But again it was said that as long as one had a receipt from them there was no problem.
Well, we only have the proof of delivery from the post office. So being crazy people - we copied all the supporting paperwork, reprinted the forms and resigned everything and reassembled it all. Tomorrow morning we will be going to the county assessor’s office. Hopefully the crowds will no longer be there having heard on the news or read in the newspaper what the situation is and we will get in fairly quickly - perhaps even told that of course they have the application and paperwork. But I anticipate a long wait to get in and who knows what has happened to our original paperwork. Husband will drop me off and try to find a parking space - there are a lot of parking lots (free) but in addition to the county office buildings (at least 3 I know of) there are the courts (at least 2 buildings), general office buildings in the area and the train station which serves 2 train lines, so parking is not easy - which is why we mailed it in the first place.
Does this happen to everyone - or just us?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Always get a receipt. Always follow up. Always make and keep copies (or give copies if you can and keep the originals). Never assume that all is going well. Do this for smaller things also, but especially for big important things.
UPDATE -
Even with all this going on, I managed to take more of my required tax courses and now have finished 14 of the required 20. I have a left a 6 hour (credits) course that has a 3 hour exam. This exam is timed and has to be completed at one sitting, so I will have to set aside an evening alone in our office to take the exam - I do get 3 chances, but I have not yet (in past years) needed more than one attempt.
One of the things I do in November is reserve the meeting room for the following year for my embroidery group. This was relatively simple at first. I would receive the paperwork in the mail early in November, fill it in, have my signature notarized and mail it back - and we had room - free - to meet in for another year.
We had met in a series of churches over decades - back to before I joined the group in the 1990s. (The group is around 40 years old.) We would pay for our meeting room. The group used to be over 400 members. The group would have workshops and interested members would pay for same which would allow the group to pay for a meeting room. Over the years members aged (with the inevitable result) and moved away. Women were working and could not come to day meetings. (A new group had broken off from ours and meets at night in the next county - some members belong to both groups.) Interest in embroidery waned. We were down to around 20 members. I figured out (as treasurer) that in 3 years we no longer would have anything in the treasury and the group would be gone. As I was about to sign the agreement for the next year, I noticed a mailer from the local township. One of the parks caught my eye. I called and asked about the use of a room for meetings. We had just enough percentage of members who were residents of the township for a room - since we are non-profit - it would be free! We were given space at a park other than the one I saw and we have been there for 5 years now. The women who work in the park office have been very nice. The first woman who ran it, however retired. Since then it has been a bit confused in renewing the room. Last year I did not get the form until late so I had made a note for November 1 to check with them.
October 31 I received a phone call asking for the group’s email address. I called back and left it on voice mail. A week later, nothing had come and I had not heard from anyone. I called back in case my voice mail had gone astray and was given someone else’s voice mail and left the info again. Another week - I called and was told that the forms would be out shortly. The next week was Thanksgiving. I was telephoned the day before same by the woman who used to run the department who again asked for my email - I told her the story and she apologized. She called back later to check which park we meet in. Thank goodness it was all finally going to be done with! On Tuesday the next week I received the paperwork by email. I filled it in. Wednesday I went to the bank and had the paperwork notarized and on Thursday mailed it back. All done, finally, how great.
The following Tuesday I had a telephone message when we got home from errands, basically, sorry. another group meets in that room then. Hmmm, we meet in that room then, maybe the nice former director had filled us in already on some chart or form? I called her back the next morning. No - another group was meeting at an overlapping time to ours - and she had a different location for us to met. I questioned how this had happened. The other group got their paperwork in first. I told her the story of trying to get the paperwork and how unfair that someone else had, apparently gotten their paperwork earlier than us and taken our space. I also explained that we were a group of “old ladies” - which we are, at 65 I am the youngest - and I was afraid that finding the other park would be too hard for them. She hmmmed a bit. Then said that since we only meet once a month and the other group meets more often maybe she could get them to give up the room for the once a month. She did and we have the room back for next year.
Totally unrelated - and dealing with the county instead of the township - husband and I are entitled to a reduction in our real estate taxes due to our age and income. I started collecting information for the paperwork in January - well I actually collected some during 2017. I had to telephone our medical insurance companies for last year (which we had 4 of do to R switching to Medicare partway through the year) and get printouts of the premiums paid to them - listed by month paid. Of course one only gave a total and I to keep after them for the correct info. I also had to get listings of what we paid for prescriptions (Walmart pharmacy was the easiest of all the info needed for me to get) and the dentist and doctors from the providers themselves. I did not bother with the doctors as payments to them were minor. We have to get statements from who we paid - canceled checks are not accepted.
In late August I received the renewal papers from the county (we had gone through all this last year for the first time). I filled them in and continued to chase down missing information. While husband was incapacitated I finished the forms and started making the photocopies I needed to give them - photocopies of income, of the medical expenses, etc. I wrote a summary of what I was giving them. I wrote a cover letter. We mailed it out certified mail (almost $7 postage) on November 27 - and received the information that it had been delivered and signed for on November 29. We sat back to wait to hear from the county in April - maybe earlier if they wanted some other information.
Monday night we got a robocall from the county executive that we have not yet filled the renewal for our exemption! We panicked. Tuesday I was taking my mom to her doctor and I called before I left for her house. I got a voice mail setup and left my information and asked them to PLEASE call back and let me know if they were missing our application - knowing that they would not call back. Oh, well, this was better than last year. Last year when I called for information their telephone number was continually answered by voice mail that said, basically, we are too busy to answer the phone - goodby, although after calling for several weeks the message was changed by adding - that there is not enough parking here, so don’t come either. While mom was in with her doctor I called again. This time there was a message that people were called who should not have been called and - the message only applied to those over 65 and if one had receipt from them for the paperwork given, they were fine. It offered a chance to talk to exemptions (overall I was calling the county tax assessor’s office) and I did so - same message as in the morning and I again asked to PLEASE let me know if they have our paperwork - just leave the message on our answering machine, they did not even have to talk to us.
Local news last night talked about the robocall error - it showed the lines that people were on for 2 hours due to the call - as did the local paper today - 400,000 called instead of something liked 50,000! But again it was said that as long as one had a receipt from them there was no problem.
Well, we only have the proof of delivery from the post office. So being crazy people - we copied all the supporting paperwork, reprinted the forms and resigned everything and reassembled it all. Tomorrow morning we will be going to the county assessor’s office. Hopefully the crowds will no longer be there having heard on the news or read in the newspaper what the situation is and we will get in fairly quickly - perhaps even told that of course they have the application and paperwork. But I anticipate a long wait to get in and who knows what has happened to our original paperwork. Husband will drop me off and try to find a parking space - there are a lot of parking lots (free) but in addition to the county office buildings (at least 3 I know of) there are the courts (at least 2 buildings), general office buildings in the area and the train station which serves 2 train lines, so parking is not easy - which is why we mailed it in the first place.
Does this happen to everyone - or just us?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Always get a receipt. Always follow up. Always make and keep copies (or give copies if you can and keep the originals). Never assume that all is going well. Do this for smaller things also, but especially for big important things.
UPDATE -
Even with all this going on, I managed to take more of my required tax courses and now have finished 14 of the required 20. I have a left a 6 hour (credits) course that has a 3 hour exam. This exam is timed and has to be completed at one sitting, so I will have to set aside an evening alone in our office to take the exam - I do get 3 chances, but I have not yet (in past years) needed more than one attempt.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
WHAT EATS UP MY TIME THESE DAYS?
Do you have control over your time? How much of you time is governed by other people who need you or make plans which involve you - and are not the king of people you can say no to?
When my husband worked full time at his job all of my time during the day on weekdays was my own. Yes, I had to go to work and I went to my embroidery meetings, but I could easily plan what I was doing when back then.
Husband and I were in what is called a rotational art exhibit - okay, we were each in two of them. In this type of exhibition (run by two different township park departments) the artist, after having his/her work reviewed and approved, goes to a showcase. Different venues - town offices, libraries, local businesses... sign up with the program also and come to the showcase. They select which artist’s works they would like to have in their venue and they and the artist agree on which month (or two month period) the exhibition will be for. There would be months when we had 3 shows at 3 different venues (he had work in 2 different media in the show). Since he was working full time I was allowed to represent both of us - I also set up and took down the exhibitions. I could schedule the exhibitions, set them up and then take them down. When husband quit his job and worked part time from home we would do all of this together and there was always a problem with him as to when we were doing it, why we were doing it (we only sold 3 small pieces over the time he exhibited, my work was not for sale, so I did not sell any). It amazed me how much easier it was when I did this all alone, then when we did it together. Due to the fact that one of libraries may be where we got bedbugs, we stopped doing the shows - and it was relief to stop - although before he started coming along, this would not have been true.
When he first quit his job we had an agreement that we would each go our own way during the day - and we did for awhile. Then gasoline prices went up and up and up and husband pointed out that we were wasting money at the high price of gas for me to drive to the supermarket and him to drive separately to the Home Depot in the same parking lot and we started sort of car pooling for errands like this. Before I knew it, we were together all day, every day (except the days I went out to work and the days I went to my embroidery meeting).
Clients of mine, older senior citizens, had to shut down their business due to the economy and gradually I ended up with only one monthly business client. I used to go out to clients at least 8 days a month - some days to multiple clients - and had no problem scheduling them - now the 1 client is a problem to schedule.
I am not the world’s best house cleaner. I had a schedule - on Wednesdays I would clean - First Wednesday of the month I would dust, vacuum & wash floors, and clean the toilet upstairs. Second Wednesday of the month I would do the same downstairs. Third week I would do the upstairs - except the toilet - again. Fourth week I would do the same as the second, but would clean the kitchen instead of the bathroom. On the occasional fifth Wednesday I would do another chore that had not been done and needed doing. Now - forget it! It is hard to clean toilets or wash floors when as soon as one is mid cleaning one’s husband appears and says “I have to go in NOW.” And there is always a reason that the other bathroom is not where he wants to be. It has gotten so bad that I ended waiting until he fell asleep at night and then cleaned the upstairs bathroom - at 3 in the morning!
This comes up right now as the past 2 weeks I feel like screaming! Last week on Tuesday he decided it was time to put up the Christmas lights, and then looked at the bushes and the piles of fallen leaves and said “We can’t put up the lights with all these leaves here - there will be a fire.” Okay, so we are going to suddenly clear up the leaves. He found online at a home store near us a rack to hold the garbage bags and it was in stock at the store. We go there - I really don’t think we need the rack - without even knowing what it was. The store does not have any, even though the company website says that they do - and, while it is still November at that time, they don’t have it because it is a “fall” item and the main office therefore took all of them back! Oh, and according to them the website saying they have something does not mean anything - good thing husband did not buy it online and go to pick it up at the store. We lost an hour and a half of limited sunlight (remember we get started late and had already run errands) on that fool’s errand. We come home and we start clearing the leaves. Over the years husband has come up with a variety of methods to do this - vacuum them, shred them with a vacuum, and I don’t know what else - my system is a snow shovel - yes, a snow shovel. First I quickly rake the leaves out from between the bushes onto the driveway in a line of leaves. I shovel them into the garbage bag in the garbage pail, stop periodically to tamp them down with the shovel, then when the bag is full (probably overfull) I close the bad with a bag tie, drag the garbage can to by the curb, lay the pail down on it’s side, stand it up again with the open end down, pull the can off the bag and there it is - a bag of leaves where it needs to be for pickup. I am doing the work due to the pain that is still healing in his left arm and shoulder. He has to help (you know, like small children have to help). He wants to hold the rake for me to push the leaves against when shoveling, this is not needed as there is a line of leaves to push against and at the end I use the pail. Then he decides that too many leaves are falling and puts the rake over the leaves - resulting in almost all of the leaves falling off. I convince him to go and get more bags and bag ties to keep him busy. We eventually end up with about a dozen or more bags sitting at the curb - they were picked the next day as Wednesday is yard pickup. Wednesday we run errands and then go to clear the last of the leaves - these are leaves around the driveway where he is worried that mice will nest - he is shocked that new leaves are where we cleared the day before! Now, if I was involved in planning this ahead of time - we would not have had errands to run - I would make sure they were otherwise scheduled - and we would have eaten a quick lunch at home to give us enough time, instead of our daily half hour plus leisurely lunch at Wendys.
We had checked the light strands ahead of time, as we had not had a chance to check them when we took them down (I made a reminder in my cell phone for the middle of October about this, as well as about the 2 strands that went out while out last year and had purchased replacement lights. We had to wait after clearing the leaves for a day that was not below freezing and it was not raining. Over the weekend we put out the lights. I am, again, doing the work. We did a little bit different setup as he had some ideas, All was going well. We have a holly tree and the lights have to be (literally) thrown onto the upper part of it as neither of us likes to go on a ladder. I was trying to figure out how to put the higher lights on it - figuring a ladder will be needed - and he grabs the strand and throws it - and then is reminded of his shoulder and arm - and was back in pain like a few weeks ago! (Yes, the lights are up, look nice - one of his ideas I thought was terrible works very well.)
We spent yesterday evening taking apart his computer as it had stopped working - believe it or not it as the battery that keeps the time and such going as this is his desktop computer. So the time I would have spent washing dishes - I was lifting his computer (because even before he threw the light strand he should not have lifted it) as well as clearing off my desk for him to work on. I did some of my magic - “It needs a CR2032 battery, I guess we will have to buy one.” I go to our bag of button batteries (travels with us on trips) and find one, still sealed in the package. Then I did the dishes after we changed the battery, put the computer back on his side of the office on the floor and he had restarted the computer.
I have to take 20 hours of classes to do tax returns next year - I took 2 hours of them the other evening and I should have much more of them done by now - only 26 days to go - 6 days of which we will be involved in reenacting, two days of which will be Christmas Eve and Day, that leaves 18 days left! And Christmas decorations, shopping for one of his nieces (other is finished) and regular housework is left - oh, and he is still trying to fit in a one day trip to Lancaster, PA.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It is hard to make our time our own to be able to schedule what work needs to be done, but we have to do it. This time of year, especially, we have to make time for what we need to do as well as what we have to do.
When my husband worked full time at his job all of my time during the day on weekdays was my own. Yes, I had to go to work and I went to my embroidery meetings, but I could easily plan what I was doing when back then.
Husband and I were in what is called a rotational art exhibit - okay, we were each in two of them. In this type of exhibition (run by two different township park departments) the artist, after having his/her work reviewed and approved, goes to a showcase. Different venues - town offices, libraries, local businesses... sign up with the program also and come to the showcase. They select which artist’s works they would like to have in their venue and they and the artist agree on which month (or two month period) the exhibition will be for. There would be months when we had 3 shows at 3 different venues (he had work in 2 different media in the show). Since he was working full time I was allowed to represent both of us - I also set up and took down the exhibitions. I could schedule the exhibitions, set them up and then take them down. When husband quit his job and worked part time from home we would do all of this together and there was always a problem with him as to when we were doing it, why we were doing it (we only sold 3 small pieces over the time he exhibited, my work was not for sale, so I did not sell any). It amazed me how much easier it was when I did this all alone, then when we did it together. Due to the fact that one of libraries may be where we got bedbugs, we stopped doing the shows - and it was relief to stop - although before he started coming along, this would not have been true.
When he first quit his job we had an agreement that we would each go our own way during the day - and we did for awhile. Then gasoline prices went up and up and up and husband pointed out that we were wasting money at the high price of gas for me to drive to the supermarket and him to drive separately to the Home Depot in the same parking lot and we started sort of car pooling for errands like this. Before I knew it, we were together all day, every day (except the days I went out to work and the days I went to my embroidery meeting).
Clients of mine, older senior citizens, had to shut down their business due to the economy and gradually I ended up with only one monthly business client. I used to go out to clients at least 8 days a month - some days to multiple clients - and had no problem scheduling them - now the 1 client is a problem to schedule.
I am not the world’s best house cleaner. I had a schedule - on Wednesdays I would clean - First Wednesday of the month I would dust, vacuum & wash floors, and clean the toilet upstairs. Second Wednesday of the month I would do the same downstairs. Third week I would do the upstairs - except the toilet - again. Fourth week I would do the same as the second, but would clean the kitchen instead of the bathroom. On the occasional fifth Wednesday I would do another chore that had not been done and needed doing. Now - forget it! It is hard to clean toilets or wash floors when as soon as one is mid cleaning one’s husband appears and says “I have to go in NOW.” And there is always a reason that the other bathroom is not where he wants to be. It has gotten so bad that I ended waiting until he fell asleep at night and then cleaned the upstairs bathroom - at 3 in the morning!
This comes up right now as the past 2 weeks I feel like screaming! Last week on Tuesday he decided it was time to put up the Christmas lights, and then looked at the bushes and the piles of fallen leaves and said “We can’t put up the lights with all these leaves here - there will be a fire.” Okay, so we are going to suddenly clear up the leaves. He found online at a home store near us a rack to hold the garbage bags and it was in stock at the store. We go there - I really don’t think we need the rack - without even knowing what it was. The store does not have any, even though the company website says that they do - and, while it is still November at that time, they don’t have it because it is a “fall” item and the main office therefore took all of them back! Oh, and according to them the website saying they have something does not mean anything - good thing husband did not buy it online and go to pick it up at the store. We lost an hour and a half of limited sunlight (remember we get started late and had already run errands) on that fool’s errand. We come home and we start clearing the leaves. Over the years husband has come up with a variety of methods to do this - vacuum them, shred them with a vacuum, and I don’t know what else - my system is a snow shovel - yes, a snow shovel. First I quickly rake the leaves out from between the bushes onto the driveway in a line of leaves. I shovel them into the garbage bag in the garbage pail, stop periodically to tamp them down with the shovel, then when the bag is full (probably overfull) I close the bad with a bag tie, drag the garbage can to by the curb, lay the pail down on it’s side, stand it up again with the open end down, pull the can off the bag and there it is - a bag of leaves where it needs to be for pickup. I am doing the work due to the pain that is still healing in his left arm and shoulder. He has to help (you know, like small children have to help). He wants to hold the rake for me to push the leaves against when shoveling, this is not needed as there is a line of leaves to push against and at the end I use the pail. Then he decides that too many leaves are falling and puts the rake over the leaves - resulting in almost all of the leaves falling off. I convince him to go and get more bags and bag ties to keep him busy. We eventually end up with about a dozen or more bags sitting at the curb - they were picked the next day as Wednesday is yard pickup. Wednesday we run errands and then go to clear the last of the leaves - these are leaves around the driveway where he is worried that mice will nest - he is shocked that new leaves are where we cleared the day before! Now, if I was involved in planning this ahead of time - we would not have had errands to run - I would make sure they were otherwise scheduled - and we would have eaten a quick lunch at home to give us enough time, instead of our daily half hour plus leisurely lunch at Wendys.
We had checked the light strands ahead of time, as we had not had a chance to check them when we took them down (I made a reminder in my cell phone for the middle of October about this, as well as about the 2 strands that went out while out last year and had purchased replacement lights. We had to wait after clearing the leaves for a day that was not below freezing and it was not raining. Over the weekend we put out the lights. I am, again, doing the work. We did a little bit different setup as he had some ideas, All was going well. We have a holly tree and the lights have to be (literally) thrown onto the upper part of it as neither of us likes to go on a ladder. I was trying to figure out how to put the higher lights on it - figuring a ladder will be needed - and he grabs the strand and throws it - and then is reminded of his shoulder and arm - and was back in pain like a few weeks ago! (Yes, the lights are up, look nice - one of his ideas I thought was terrible works very well.)
We spent yesterday evening taking apart his computer as it had stopped working - believe it or not it as the battery that keeps the time and such going as this is his desktop computer. So the time I would have spent washing dishes - I was lifting his computer (because even before he threw the light strand he should not have lifted it) as well as clearing off my desk for him to work on. I did some of my magic - “It needs a CR2032 battery, I guess we will have to buy one.” I go to our bag of button batteries (travels with us on trips) and find one, still sealed in the package. Then I did the dishes after we changed the battery, put the computer back on his side of the office on the floor and he had restarted the computer.
I have to take 20 hours of classes to do tax returns next year - I took 2 hours of them the other evening and I should have much more of them done by now - only 26 days to go - 6 days of which we will be involved in reenacting, two days of which will be Christmas Eve and Day, that leaves 18 days left! And Christmas decorations, shopping for one of his nieces (other is finished) and regular housework is left - oh, and he is still trying to fit in a one day trip to Lancaster, PA.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It is hard to make our time our own to be able to schedule what work needs to be done, but we have to do it. This time of year, especially, we have to make time for what we need to do as well as what we have to do.
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