Well the ants were resolve as of last week. I have been very careful - I wash the dishes, etc immediately after we eat, then dry them and put them away, then dry the drying rack, dishpan and sink. So far, so good. (Fingers crossed.)
The refrigerator is a different story. I have spent weeks now watching the thermometer in it - it is a remote read so I don’t have to open the door. I understand that there is some play in the temperature of the fridge and I sort of know how it works. For food purposes it has to be kept at 40F or less and for insulin related reasons it has to be kept at 36 F or higher. It can go as high as 46F, but since the food has a lower top limit, I basically have to keep the fridge (house or RV) between 36 and 40 F. I try to keep both at 38F and between 37 and 39F to allow some play or in case the thermometer is off.
I know how to adjust the temperature - turn the knob colder if the temperature is too high until the compressor just clicks on, it if too low then turn the knob just warmer so the compressor clicks off. I am at good at this. In the RV I have been known to jump to the back when we stop for gas to make a quick adjustment.
Recently our house refrigerator has been acting wrong. I look at the thermometer and it is 37F. I leave it. I look again maybe 10-15 minutes later and it is 40F. It should not jump that much that fast or without seemingly hitting any temperatures between. It is then hard to get the temperature back down to where it belongs. I am not adding large amounts of food at all, let alone food that is not already cold. I thought I was just missing the adjustments and started setting the timer in my mobile phone to go off every 15 or 20 minutes to remind me to check the timer. Still missed the jumps. Husband and I have been discussing what to do. For what a repair would cost, it would not pay.
So we have been looking refrigerators online and in stores. Since we have a small house, we have a small kitchen and a relatively small fridge. When we moved into this house 30 years ago we owned a refrigerator that we had used in our apartment and brought that with us. Sending the one that came with the house (from the prior owners) to the garage (which did not have electricity) where its main use was to have our, then, Christmas tree stored on top of it. One July 4th week we were away and came home and found that while we had been away the fridge had died. As we threw out most of what was in the fridge, we thought to and tried to plug in the fridge in the garage - it no longer worked. So we bought a new fridge.
For our apartment we had bought a 15 cu ft refrigerator. Due to confusion the company that we bought it from took about a week to deliver it to us - and they delivered an 18 cu ft one - with an ice maker and told us to keep both when I called that they were wrong. (Apparently they kept mixing us up with another customer which led to them claiming that originally they tried to deliver and I was not home - I was home and on the phone, by coincidence, at that time. We bought the fridge in 1982 for the apartment. I know this as I was working on a piece of embroidery at the time, worked on it all work while stuck in our apartment waiting, and it is, yes, dated 1982. I am not sure of when we bought the first one for this house or its size.
When we had our house treated for the bed bugs in 2009 we found afterwards that the refrigerator which we had replaced that one with was no longer working. Since we found several individual bottles of water in the fridge and its freezer which were not ours, so apparently the bed bug crew had stashed their water bottles in our fridge (it was a major heat treatment) and had been opening the doors all day - so our fridge died.
At that time we bought the fridge that is currently in our house. It is 20.9 cu ft. Like all of our other ones it is white and a top freezer. I did not particularly like a number of things about it, but we were in a rush and bought it - it has served us well.
Monday night we decided that we had to replace it. We both looked online and found that there seemed to be 3 possible replacements of about the same size. Tuesday we went to a major house/hardware chain to look at what they had. None of the 3 excited me. They had oddly arranged shelves (all were actually from different companies - not just the same company with different nameplates) and such. Husband had heard about fridges which allow one to set an actual temperature and the fridge will keep that temperature - not the usual turn the dial a little this way or that and stick a thermometer in the fridge to check the temperature. I found one that was “only” $300 more than what we were looking at - or to look at the extra price another way - it added the equivalent of 50% more of the price to the price. This was something he REALLY wanted. He had given me measurements at home before we went out and this one did not seem that much larger in size and we left it in consideration.
We then went to the other major house/hardware chain to see what they had. Basically the same, but the model that we had seen and husband was interested in, was slightly different - or at least it’s number was.
We have bought large appliances from both in the past and based on same decided that we wanted to buy from the first company, but decided to go a different store in the chain which was larger and “maybe” would have something different.
They did not. So I made the decision. As much as I would hate the fancier fridge - it was side by side and I was not even sure a turkey would fit on the tiny shelves and we had to take it in stainless as white add another 50% to the price, it made sense for the problem we have with keeping the temperature in such a small range. We bought it. To be delivered and set up on Friday.
We then went home and measured the front door - it was about an inch too small, but we figured that they could take the fridge doors off as there was a measurement without same and it would fit.
One thing husband had read about is that the freezer in this type of fridge has a small “door” to the main compartment which opens and closes to take cold air into the freezer and it makes the main fridge section warmer. We have a small freezer in the basement - from when we used to grow vegetables and I would actually shop at sales to buy food and would store the extra in this freezer. Now it is mostly empty - when I went to see what was in it - everything had a date to use by in 2016. I tossed them out. I then took all of the items in our fridge’s freezer downstairs to the freezer. Only things I left in the upstairs freezer are some of those liquid filled plastic things that one freezes and puts with food or meds to keep them cold in transit. I then turned the fridge’s freezer temperature almost all the way to the warmest temperature. (We would need to move the frozen food to same anyway as it takes a day for the new fridge/freezer to reach temperature.
Overnight the same thought came to each of us - the fridge also had to pass through 2 doorways in the house - and they were narrower. Then husband went downstairs and laid out the measurements of the fridge we ordered - it was huge! It would not only block part of the entry into the kitchen from the dining room, it would also block access the (only) light switches in the kitchen. I measured the old fridge and came in about 3-4 inches smaller front to back then he had measured. We went back to the store and canceled the order.
Now what to do? Well, the fridge had been working okay since yesterday (Tuesday). Maybe it would keep working - at least until we return from a trip next week. The sale on the various refrigerators continues to July 10, so we could still get the price when we came back. We looked at the 3 fridges in the right size and decided which one we would get - but we figured we would buy it after we returned from our trip.
Husband decided he wanted a chicken pie we had in the freezer. I went down and took it out. Temperature in the fridge was 37F - great! I put the pie in to cook and was playing games on my cell phone. I wanted a glass of soda - in taking out the bottle that was there, I notice we would need more and added a bottle - a room temperature bottle - to the fridge. When I looked up again the temperature was 45F??!!! By now we have several thermometers sitting in the fridge - the one we normally use seems to always be the odd one out. In this case the others all showed the temperature to be 40F - could it be a thermometer problem? We have spare of the remote read and I set that up and took the first one out - same problem. Even with the temperature set to the coldest setting - it was not getting colder, the compressor did not seem to be on. We unplugged the fridge and then plugged it in again (it seemed to help twice before since the weekend). No effect.
Extremely s l o w l y the temperature dropped. After dinner, we went out and ordered the fridge that we had decided to order next week. I don’t love it - but hopefully it will work and it is better than the huge side by side husband wanted - and it should fit through all the doors it needs to. It is suppose to be here Friday.
Now for logistics -
We have an automatic ice maker to old fridge - as we had one before, we had bought it again. We are not getting one for our new fridge - we rarely use ice and end up tossing out the shrunken cubes that are in the freezer. We can do it “the old fashioned way” and have frozen trays of ice in the freezer. But we have to shut off the water to the fridge and get rid of the water in the line. Husband found it and turned it closed as far it as it went. I threw out the shrunken, dried cubes in the ice bucket and turned the ice maker on to use the rest of the water in the line up. We either have much more water in the line than we thought, the ice maker uses much less water than we figure - or the water is not actually off and has a leak in the tap as we keep getting more ice cubes - right now they are just shells of ice, but they keep coming. Just heard more drop. We bought a “cap” for the end of the water line - just in case the water is not and cannot be shut off completely.
Freezer, as mentioned, is basically empty.
That leaves our fridge section. There is an open package of American cheese slices, an open package of cream cheese, 2 hot dogs, and 6 eggs in it. I have 2 of husband’s insulin pens in it. If we cannot keep them below 46F, I am not going to worry about it as they will need to be used within 42 days - and they are 20 days worth, plus husband is in the middle of pen - so they should be used up long before the 42 days. The rest of what is in there does not really need to be in a fridge “to keep” - soda, sealed bottles of ice tea, condiments (no mayo), and similar. Our RV is currently plugged in to charge the batteries (done twice a month, just happened to be doing it now) and we will turn on the fridge in the RV tomorrow and put the food from the fridge in it until we can move it to the new fridge. (Hot dogs could just be frozen and put in the basement freezer.)
I soooooo hope that this is the last of the stupidity that has been going on. (Well, I do have to make a 3rd call to an insurance for our reenacting unit - so, still repeating chores over and over.) I really cannot take any more!
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
When one thinks that everything is resolved - something isn’t and will need to be dealt with and redone.
Oh, and things always break at the wrong time.
Oh, and when all these things are going on and one goes down to do laundry and pours water out of the dehumidifier all over the basement - the laundry can wait!
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Thursday, June 20, 2019
GOODBYE 2009
In between trying to get rid of ants in the kitchen and the refrigerator needing monitoring to stay in the small temperature range we need to get it to stay in, I had some time in our office to catchup on paperwork a bit - still 2 piles, but the “to do” one is getting shorter.
One job I have not have had a chance to do is store files from 2018 that I need/want to keep. Before doing this I have to clear out the oldest box saved files - in this case it was 2009 that had to be dealt with. 2009 was an unusual year for us - it was the year that we had bedbugs.
I climbed up and took stuff off the front of the shelf in the office closet - 3 boxes of computer disks stored up there (installed hardware, to set up the computers, old software that might needed, past years tax software). At the end of 2018 I stored the paid bills in an old manila envelope box (the one the envelopes came in) that I keep for this - that box had to come down also, as were 2 boxes of small manila envelopes. (Did you know that 6"x 9" or less sized envelopes go at the same US Postage rate as regular #10 envelopes and can hold more in the same 1/4" thickness allowed for same than the #10's?) Some empty, flattened boxes that I kept was the last of what was blocking access to the 3 boxes of old financial records on the middle of the top shelf of the closet. There are additional boxes of same (9 in total) on the top of the closet, but the latest and oldest are the two I try to keep in the center stack - as the other stacks require moving the center stack to take out the boxes. First, I took out the 2017 box and added some papers I had found during the past year from same (I have folder “old years files to add to box” that it has been in. ). I then took out the 2009 box.
Going through the old box is a trip down memory lane. I start taking out papers. There are bank statements, paid bills, old insurance policies, etc. in the box for us and for our businesses. I have my paper shredder ready and also have spare garbage bags.
I take the first item out - what is it? In this case a stack of telephone bills. Nothing needed from same. I go pull the first 4 off the top - checking that nothing else is mixed in - and into the shredder they go. Little by little more goes into the shredder. Items such as the phone bills and cable bills which don’t need to be checked if anything should be kept just get fed in and shredded.
In 2009 we got rid of my 1996 car and bought a new one. (Which we hated and got rid of 2 years later.) I pulled out the book (remember when the dealer handed out books with photos and info about the car that you were looking out) and the rest of the papers from the original 1996 purchase of the car that I pulled from the car’s file at the end of 2009 when I pulled files to keep from the year.) I stuck all of them in the book to go through and added same to my “to do” pile. I will keep the car registrations as I keep them forever. (We once received notice that we had not paid 3 parking tickets on one of our cars. We had never received any tickets nor was it in an area we have been to. I requested copies of the tickets and it was a different car and a different license plate. Some of the letters and numbers matched and some did not - but looked the same. I had to prove what the license plate on the car was - at the time the ticket was issued - having a different plate on the car when I was fighting this did not count. I did not keep the registrations - in this area this is a small square of heavy paper that is changed every 2 years when it is renewed. Each was tossed out after the new one was put in the car or our wallets. It was a big problem to resolve, so I now keep the car registrations - forever. I will go through the purchase papers when I get a chance.
I then looked up in my Quickbooks what income taxes we paid during the year (including final estimate and final payment for 2008 and estimate for 2009.) I saw that we had only made one payment in April. I made a note. I then checked what we had paid for our real estate taxes and made a note of them. I then opened our corporation in same and checked what and when we had paid for corporation taxes and sales taxes that we had collected and paid. I also checked for a certain payment we have to pay to the state corporation dept every other year with who is who in our corporation.
I then started with the corporation bank statements. I pulled out the statements that should have the checks issued above and pulled those checks out, paper clipped them together and safely set them aside. I will scan front and back of these checks in my computer - again due to something that has happened in the past with clients - and my dad’s business. I then started shredding the corporation bank statements, looking as I did for an unusually large amounts on them. If I had seen any I would checked what it was for.
Next I went through the corporation’s charge card statement. Again I looked for anything that is a large amount and feed the statements into the shredder.
By now I have had to change the bag in the shredder once.
I now am at our personal bank statements, again I will check for any large amounts. A lot more of these than for the corporation as we have accounts at multiple banks and each have IRA accounts. Our main checking account has a lot of checks, as well as deposit slips, so I remove the staple(s) holding them to the statement so I can feed them into the shredder in batch sizes that will not jam the shredder and also send the statement through. As I go through I make sure to pull the checks for our income tax and the four for our real estate taxes. When I come to July I find the check that paid for the bed bug treatment - gee, it was $2000 more than I thought I was!
When the bank statements are finished I go through the several credit cards statements. (All of which were paid in full every month, as is all.) Again, I have to separate the slips from the statements as there are too many to go through the shredder all at once.
Suddenly I realize that I am coming to the end of what is in the box. I have pulled some papers and set them aside to check through - maybe scan into the computer, as I will do with the tax payment checks and receipts for our real estate taxes. Last thing was I took the “2009" removable label from the box.
2009 is done and gone. I have done it in 3 sessions of shredding - too much shredded at once and the shredder will overheat and I will have to wait for it to cool off. I filled 4 kitchen sized bags of shreds. (I put them in out by putting 2 bags each into a larger black bag and setting those two large black bags out. The light colored kitchen bags can sort of be seen through and I did not want anyone noticing that the bags had shredded papers in them and it looks more like regular trash than same.)
On to storing 2018. In my file drawer the files that should be gone through have red edged labels (those that are permanent and should stay are blue edged). In our corporation’s file drawer the annual files are yellow edged labels and permanent are green edged labels. I have a folder in our file drawer that holds items I found or received during the year that belongs in the prior year. So I take anything in it - for 2017 and add it to the 2017 box.
I pull the first annual folder - bank statements from our main bank - I take out 2018 statements and put into the box. I do the same with the rest of the bank statements from 2018. I then come to statements from our medical insurance - all of the 2018 statements are pulled out. I switched medical insurance companies in 2018. I go through the blue edged folder for same and pull the papers to keep - I shred the others. 2 empty folders (the annual and the permanent for that insurance company) to be recycled next time I need a folder - put in a sorter on top of the folder holder stack on the side of my desk with other folders waiting a new use. I do this with all of the annual folders in our file drawer.
I then do the same with the corporation file drawer. Paid bills for the corporation are in folders in the file drawer and are pulled out also and fit into the box.
I then go back and pull the box of paid bills which I mentioned I had put the 2018 bills in. I then add the paid bills.
When I am pretty sure that just about everything is in the box I take out my “this year folder”. I use this folder to throw things in that I don’t know what to do with or do not go with anything and need to be held for short term. I go through it and shred whatever is no longer needed. I put in the box anything I want to keep from last year. One example of what is in this folder - we get a large postcard (sometimes two during the same year) on when and where we are to vote - including our Congressional district, State Senate district, State Assembly district, and County legislator district on it, as well as our “voting district” infos. I keep the card until we receive the next year’s card. Since we have the 2019 card, I shredded the 2018 card as it is no longer needed. (I keep it until the new one comes as 3 years ago we did not get the new card. While the card is not needed to vote, it helps when the idiots, ummm, the people working at the polls cannot figure out that we belong at the table that we say we belong at. (No, really, one year the woman at the table we were to vote at told us we were at the wrong polling place as our address was “not on her list”. We had to show her the card with the info we were to vote there and she had to go and check with one. Not sure if that is better or worse than the year we went to the primary vote and the man and woman at the table for our location and our party were not able to figure out anything to do and the fellow from the other party came and took care of getting us signed in and gave us our ballots. If one did not have to be there at 6 am we would go down and work the polls because they need us - and one does get paid.)
When I was pretty sure all of what had to be kept from 2018 was in the box - I put the lid on and climbed up and put it away. I then put back all the stuff that goes in front of the boxes that I had taken out. Anything I find now that belongs in the box, I will put in that prior year’s folder for next year.
Something I just noticed in writing this piece - I never made a new label “2018" and stuck it on the box. I will have to do so or be terribly confused in the future.
I also have a file drawer both for the files I keep for our reenacting unit and for same for my embroidery chapter. (I am treasurer of both and need to keep files). I have a metal file drawer divider so the embroidery files are in front of same and the reenacting ones are behind.
I have not had a chance to go through these files in awhile and move out old years. I started with our reenacting unit. I pulled old paid bills from the paid bills folder, ditto the bank statements and insurance policies. We have some copies of invoices that I sent to organizations that we did events for and they are pulled also if they are 2017 or before. I then sorted what I had pulled out into stacks by year and put the stacks in folders. The unit has several filing cabinets and a drawer in one of them holds the old records - more than 3 years ago - and I move the files there - by year - so I don’t have to take up room in our house for older files. As I pull the older bills I check to make sure that there are not any that I might needs - items we don’t often need to reorder, but if we do, it is helpful to have the last one, so that we know what we ordered last time and from whom. (This past Monday night these files were taken to our reenactment unit’s meeting and put in the file cabinets.)
I did not get to the embroidery chapter’s files yet - those I keep 3 years in the drawer (plus the current year) plus another 7 years in box (another of those manila envelope boxes) in the closet - well labeled.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes just short periods of time are best for getting work done. I could have put all this off, but had a bit of time here and there to shred the papers. I pulled most of the papers to go in the box for 2018 while the computer was backing up for the day.
Getting rid of ants and getting the fridge to stay in temperature range - much harder.
One job I have not have had a chance to do is store files from 2018 that I need/want to keep. Before doing this I have to clear out the oldest box saved files - in this case it was 2009 that had to be dealt with. 2009 was an unusual year for us - it was the year that we had bedbugs.
I climbed up and took stuff off the front of the shelf in the office closet - 3 boxes of computer disks stored up there (installed hardware, to set up the computers, old software that might needed, past years tax software). At the end of 2018 I stored the paid bills in an old manila envelope box (the one the envelopes came in) that I keep for this - that box had to come down also, as were 2 boxes of small manila envelopes. (Did you know that 6"x 9" or less sized envelopes go at the same US Postage rate as regular #10 envelopes and can hold more in the same 1/4" thickness allowed for same than the #10's?) Some empty, flattened boxes that I kept was the last of what was blocking access to the 3 boxes of old financial records on the middle of the top shelf of the closet. There are additional boxes of same (9 in total) on the top of the closet, but the latest and oldest are the two I try to keep in the center stack - as the other stacks require moving the center stack to take out the boxes. First, I took out the 2017 box and added some papers I had found during the past year from same (I have folder “old years files to add to box” that it has been in. ). I then took out the 2009 box.
Going through the old box is a trip down memory lane. I start taking out papers. There are bank statements, paid bills, old insurance policies, etc. in the box for us and for our businesses. I have my paper shredder ready and also have spare garbage bags.
I take the first item out - what is it? In this case a stack of telephone bills. Nothing needed from same. I go pull the first 4 off the top - checking that nothing else is mixed in - and into the shredder they go. Little by little more goes into the shredder. Items such as the phone bills and cable bills which don’t need to be checked if anything should be kept just get fed in and shredded.
In 2009 we got rid of my 1996 car and bought a new one. (Which we hated and got rid of 2 years later.) I pulled out the book (remember when the dealer handed out books with photos and info about the car that you were looking out) and the rest of the papers from the original 1996 purchase of the car that I pulled from the car’s file at the end of 2009 when I pulled files to keep from the year.) I stuck all of them in the book to go through and added same to my “to do” pile. I will keep the car registrations as I keep them forever. (We once received notice that we had not paid 3 parking tickets on one of our cars. We had never received any tickets nor was it in an area we have been to. I requested copies of the tickets and it was a different car and a different license plate. Some of the letters and numbers matched and some did not - but looked the same. I had to prove what the license plate on the car was - at the time the ticket was issued - having a different plate on the car when I was fighting this did not count. I did not keep the registrations - in this area this is a small square of heavy paper that is changed every 2 years when it is renewed. Each was tossed out after the new one was put in the car or our wallets. It was a big problem to resolve, so I now keep the car registrations - forever. I will go through the purchase papers when I get a chance.
I then looked up in my Quickbooks what income taxes we paid during the year (including final estimate and final payment for 2008 and estimate for 2009.) I saw that we had only made one payment in April. I made a note. I then checked what we had paid for our real estate taxes and made a note of them. I then opened our corporation in same and checked what and when we had paid for corporation taxes and sales taxes that we had collected and paid. I also checked for a certain payment we have to pay to the state corporation dept every other year with who is who in our corporation.
I then started with the corporation bank statements. I pulled out the statements that should have the checks issued above and pulled those checks out, paper clipped them together and safely set them aside. I will scan front and back of these checks in my computer - again due to something that has happened in the past with clients - and my dad’s business. I then started shredding the corporation bank statements, looking as I did for an unusually large amounts on them. If I had seen any I would checked what it was for.
Next I went through the corporation’s charge card statement. Again I looked for anything that is a large amount and feed the statements into the shredder.
By now I have had to change the bag in the shredder once.
I now am at our personal bank statements, again I will check for any large amounts. A lot more of these than for the corporation as we have accounts at multiple banks and each have IRA accounts. Our main checking account has a lot of checks, as well as deposit slips, so I remove the staple(s) holding them to the statement so I can feed them into the shredder in batch sizes that will not jam the shredder and also send the statement through. As I go through I make sure to pull the checks for our income tax and the four for our real estate taxes. When I come to July I find the check that paid for the bed bug treatment - gee, it was $2000 more than I thought I was!
When the bank statements are finished I go through the several credit cards statements. (All of which were paid in full every month, as is all.) Again, I have to separate the slips from the statements as there are too many to go through the shredder all at once.
Suddenly I realize that I am coming to the end of what is in the box. I have pulled some papers and set them aside to check through - maybe scan into the computer, as I will do with the tax payment checks and receipts for our real estate taxes. Last thing was I took the “2009" removable label from the box.
2009 is done and gone. I have done it in 3 sessions of shredding - too much shredded at once and the shredder will overheat and I will have to wait for it to cool off. I filled 4 kitchen sized bags of shreds. (I put them in out by putting 2 bags each into a larger black bag and setting those two large black bags out. The light colored kitchen bags can sort of be seen through and I did not want anyone noticing that the bags had shredded papers in them and it looks more like regular trash than same.)
On to storing 2018. In my file drawer the files that should be gone through have red edged labels (those that are permanent and should stay are blue edged). In our corporation’s file drawer the annual files are yellow edged labels and permanent are green edged labels. I have a folder in our file drawer that holds items I found or received during the year that belongs in the prior year. So I take anything in it - for 2017 and add it to the 2017 box.
I pull the first annual folder - bank statements from our main bank - I take out 2018 statements and put into the box. I do the same with the rest of the bank statements from 2018. I then come to statements from our medical insurance - all of the 2018 statements are pulled out. I switched medical insurance companies in 2018. I go through the blue edged folder for same and pull the papers to keep - I shred the others. 2 empty folders (the annual and the permanent for that insurance company) to be recycled next time I need a folder - put in a sorter on top of the folder holder stack on the side of my desk with other folders waiting a new use. I do this with all of the annual folders in our file drawer.
I then do the same with the corporation file drawer. Paid bills for the corporation are in folders in the file drawer and are pulled out also and fit into the box.
I then go back and pull the box of paid bills which I mentioned I had put the 2018 bills in. I then add the paid bills.
When I am pretty sure that just about everything is in the box I take out my “this year folder”. I use this folder to throw things in that I don’t know what to do with or do not go with anything and need to be held for short term. I go through it and shred whatever is no longer needed. I put in the box anything I want to keep from last year. One example of what is in this folder - we get a large postcard (sometimes two during the same year) on when and where we are to vote - including our Congressional district, State Senate district, State Assembly district, and County legislator district on it, as well as our “voting district” infos. I keep the card until we receive the next year’s card. Since we have the 2019 card, I shredded the 2018 card as it is no longer needed. (I keep it until the new one comes as 3 years ago we did not get the new card. While the card is not needed to vote, it helps when the idiots, ummm, the people working at the polls cannot figure out that we belong at the table that we say we belong at. (No, really, one year the woman at the table we were to vote at told us we were at the wrong polling place as our address was “not on her list”. We had to show her the card with the info we were to vote there and she had to go and check with one. Not sure if that is better or worse than the year we went to the primary vote and the man and woman at the table for our location and our party were not able to figure out anything to do and the fellow from the other party came and took care of getting us signed in and gave us our ballots. If one did not have to be there at 6 am we would go down and work the polls because they need us - and one does get paid.)
When I was pretty sure all of what had to be kept from 2018 was in the box - I put the lid on and climbed up and put it away. I then put back all the stuff that goes in front of the boxes that I had taken out. Anything I find now that belongs in the box, I will put in that prior year’s folder for next year.
Something I just noticed in writing this piece - I never made a new label “2018" and stuck it on the box. I will have to do so or be terribly confused in the future.
I also have a file drawer both for the files I keep for our reenacting unit and for same for my embroidery chapter. (I am treasurer of both and need to keep files). I have a metal file drawer divider so the embroidery files are in front of same and the reenacting ones are behind.
I have not had a chance to go through these files in awhile and move out old years. I started with our reenacting unit. I pulled old paid bills from the paid bills folder, ditto the bank statements and insurance policies. We have some copies of invoices that I sent to organizations that we did events for and they are pulled also if they are 2017 or before. I then sorted what I had pulled out into stacks by year and put the stacks in folders. The unit has several filing cabinets and a drawer in one of them holds the old records - more than 3 years ago - and I move the files there - by year - so I don’t have to take up room in our house for older files. As I pull the older bills I check to make sure that there are not any that I might needs - items we don’t often need to reorder, but if we do, it is helpful to have the last one, so that we know what we ordered last time and from whom. (This past Monday night these files were taken to our reenactment unit’s meeting and put in the file cabinets.)
I did not get to the embroidery chapter’s files yet - those I keep 3 years in the drawer (plus the current year) plus another 7 years in box (another of those manila envelope boxes) in the closet - well labeled.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes just short periods of time are best for getting work done. I could have put all this off, but had a bit of time here and there to shred the papers. I pulled most of the papers to go in the box for 2018 while the computer was backing up for the day.
Getting rid of ants and getting the fridge to stay in temperature range - much harder.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
THE SIDE PORCH
I actually got something done this week - last Saturday when we got home I ended up dealing with the porch. We have a small enclosed entryway to our kitchen door which in the most technical sense is our “porch”. It is aluminum with screens on the top half of the walls. It has a shelving unit with cabinet doors on the bottom of it on the wall between the door to the outside (facing the street) and the door to the kitchen. On the back wall there is my husband’s boyhood work bench. This has a shelf under it the top which holds a box for recycling of cans and bottles - just stick my hand out the kitchen door and toss in and I stack the newspapers on top of it for same. There is a small garbage pail between the house wall and the table where I toss the soda bottles for return for deposit. It also has some other storage items. The rest of the porch is filled with stuff. There is a narrow pathway from the door to door.
What is in it which takes up so much more of the space? Well, I tossed the plastic chair which was in the far corner years ago so that’s gone. I admit that much of this mess is mine. I keep empty cardboard boxes to use to put out the recycling. Our township gave out special green plastic square boxes to put the recycling in (cans and bottles) when the program first started. When we bought the house the box came with it. I would dutifully put it out with our cans and bottles weekly and put the newspapers, tied in a stack (sometimes two stacks or more if I had been clearing out papers or it had been raining heavily or snowing the week before) either next to it or in it every week. If we have a lot of snow it is a problem putting it out as where it goes cannot be reached if there is mounds of snow - sometimes I will leave it in our driveway cut, sometimes I hold onto it for the next week. Nice and easy.
I am pretty sure that I mentioned that we live on a main, 4 lane road. The sanitation workers did not neatly place the box back where it belonged on our property, they would drop it in the road. Cars would hit it. Eventually it was in pretty bad shape - even taped back together and it disappeared - my assumption being that the sanitation workers took it. I called the department and they told me to come and pick up a new one. So I drove down - about half an hour each way - to get a new box. In the interim they had made the box larger. The new box did not fit in the work bench. Big problem - it did not fit anywhere usable and we could not figure out what to do with it. Shortly after my sister-in-law was selling her late mother’s house and I had an idea. My in-laws never believed in recycling so they had their box as originally given to them sitting in the garage. I took my large one and exchanged it for their smaller one. Worked well for us and the people in the house would probably have children and need the larger box anyway. Well at some time since this box also was destroyed by being thrown in the street and disappeared I had to come up with a new idea. (In the interim the sanitation department had dropped off the new, even larger, full garbage can sized recycling can which sits tossed behind the garage ever since as it would hold 2 months of our cans and bottles. What really annoyed me about them leaving this can was it was left on the driveway, in front of the house - if only they did that with the boxes when I was using them - at the start of July that year - when people like us are away and it stands there as beacon that the house is empty.)
My solution has been to use cardboard boxes that come into the house to hold the recycling. The box itself is recyclable so they just take it all. To do this I hold onto cardboard boxes as we get them - small ones such as cereal boxes are good when I just have 4 soup cans and so on up to larger size boxes which can take a couple (few?) weeks worth when I have not have not been able to put out the recycling. (Really big ones can be cut in half to use for 2 weeks.) They were all just tossed and a mess.
I have not had a chance to return soda bottles and cans since doing so at the start of December. Weather, things that needed to be done, etc. after my embroidery guild meeting had stopped me from me from doing so. I had 3 large clear garbage bags with same floating about the porch.
There are also several large spray bottles for poison ivy, killing weeds, etc. floating on the floor of the porch. A couple of them are empty - but we were not sure how to dispose of them as they are “hazardous substances” and cannot go in the garbage. (Since clearing the porch out a bit last weekend I have checked and they can only be returned at “STOP” events (stop throwing out poisons). So we have to make a note and get out early enough to get to one - hopefully the July one as the June one is not near us and the July one is.
Using a small plastic bag I was going to throw out I moved these into the far corner of the porch after I cleared out a full large garbage bag that was sitting there, I then put the plastic bags of soda bottles behind the bottles so both are out of the way. The cardboard boxes which were kept were put on top of the same bags. We had a large garbage bag in the middle of the porch to toss, well, garbage into. That was moved further into this corner.
We have a short office paper sized garbage pail in the porch. I put our spare, sealed bag of snow salt in it and then put the started bag on top of it. (The other spare bags are in the snow blower shed outside this porch.)
We have a kitchen sized garbage pail in the porch which holds some of the assorted, brooms and shovels in the porch - I added some more of the lighter weight ones into it. The three snow shovels should go into that same shed until next winter.
Well, the porch is not really cleared out (I did not go through the large shelving unit, but much, if not all, of what is on the open shelf areas is needed and I did fell like going into the doored section - especially since I had not intended to do any of this) but it is so much better. We can easily walk through it.
The garbage bags were put out by the garbage pail that actually holds garbage outside the house - next to the snowblower shed. Garbage pick up would be Monday and it could not go out to the curb before Sunday night. I had 2 large black bags of garbage and a smaller white kitchen can sized one also. I also had two relatively small filled bags with pieces of our driveway in them. (One area of our driveway is falling apart and we can keep picking up the pieces as we are afraid that in winter if we use the snow blower it will send the pieces flying.) So I put those two bags out also. Sunday night when I put all this at the curb I also added the usual kitchen garbage bag.
I am also taking smaller bags of the soda bottles - one put in the car as one bag of bottles is returned to get them rid of them in small amounts. Husband hates the entire process (see the comment about his family not recycling in the body of this post) and I had been saving them up to take monthly. This has become a problem this year and I would not have a chance to do so again until September. I plan to get rid of the bottles a small bag at a time. Once we are caught up the same bag or less will be returned weekly.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes when one never has time to do something, it suddenly becomes “oh carp, we have to do this NOW.” If that happens do what needs to be done. If you can prevent yourself from reaching that point - do it before it reaches that point. Oh, and of course, the snow shovels still have not been put into the snow blower shed.
What is in it which takes up so much more of the space? Well, I tossed the plastic chair which was in the far corner years ago so that’s gone. I admit that much of this mess is mine. I keep empty cardboard boxes to use to put out the recycling. Our township gave out special green plastic square boxes to put the recycling in (cans and bottles) when the program first started. When we bought the house the box came with it. I would dutifully put it out with our cans and bottles weekly and put the newspapers, tied in a stack (sometimes two stacks or more if I had been clearing out papers or it had been raining heavily or snowing the week before) either next to it or in it every week. If we have a lot of snow it is a problem putting it out as where it goes cannot be reached if there is mounds of snow - sometimes I will leave it in our driveway cut, sometimes I hold onto it for the next week. Nice and easy.
I am pretty sure that I mentioned that we live on a main, 4 lane road. The sanitation workers did not neatly place the box back where it belonged on our property, they would drop it in the road. Cars would hit it. Eventually it was in pretty bad shape - even taped back together and it disappeared - my assumption being that the sanitation workers took it. I called the department and they told me to come and pick up a new one. So I drove down - about half an hour each way - to get a new box. In the interim they had made the box larger. The new box did not fit in the work bench. Big problem - it did not fit anywhere usable and we could not figure out what to do with it. Shortly after my sister-in-law was selling her late mother’s house and I had an idea. My in-laws never believed in recycling so they had their box as originally given to them sitting in the garage. I took my large one and exchanged it for their smaller one. Worked well for us and the people in the house would probably have children and need the larger box anyway. Well at some time since this box also was destroyed by being thrown in the street and disappeared I had to come up with a new idea. (In the interim the sanitation department had dropped off the new, even larger, full garbage can sized recycling can which sits tossed behind the garage ever since as it would hold 2 months of our cans and bottles. What really annoyed me about them leaving this can was it was left on the driveway, in front of the house - if only they did that with the boxes when I was using them - at the start of July that year - when people like us are away and it stands there as beacon that the house is empty.)
My solution has been to use cardboard boxes that come into the house to hold the recycling. The box itself is recyclable so they just take it all. To do this I hold onto cardboard boxes as we get them - small ones such as cereal boxes are good when I just have 4 soup cans and so on up to larger size boxes which can take a couple (few?) weeks worth when I have not have not been able to put out the recycling. (Really big ones can be cut in half to use for 2 weeks.) They were all just tossed and a mess.
I have not had a chance to return soda bottles and cans since doing so at the start of December. Weather, things that needed to be done, etc. after my embroidery guild meeting had stopped me from me from doing so. I had 3 large clear garbage bags with same floating about the porch.
There are also several large spray bottles for poison ivy, killing weeds, etc. floating on the floor of the porch. A couple of them are empty - but we were not sure how to dispose of them as they are “hazardous substances” and cannot go in the garbage. (Since clearing the porch out a bit last weekend I have checked and they can only be returned at “STOP” events (stop throwing out poisons). So we have to make a note and get out early enough to get to one - hopefully the July one as the June one is not near us and the July one is.
Using a small plastic bag I was going to throw out I moved these into the far corner of the porch after I cleared out a full large garbage bag that was sitting there, I then put the plastic bags of soda bottles behind the bottles so both are out of the way. The cardboard boxes which were kept were put on top of the same bags. We had a large garbage bag in the middle of the porch to toss, well, garbage into. That was moved further into this corner.
We have a short office paper sized garbage pail in the porch. I put our spare, sealed bag of snow salt in it and then put the started bag on top of it. (The other spare bags are in the snow blower shed outside this porch.)
We have a kitchen sized garbage pail in the porch which holds some of the assorted, brooms and shovels in the porch - I added some more of the lighter weight ones into it. The three snow shovels should go into that same shed until next winter.
Well, the porch is not really cleared out (I did not go through the large shelving unit, but much, if not all, of what is on the open shelf areas is needed and I did fell like going into the doored section - especially since I had not intended to do any of this) but it is so much better. We can easily walk through it.
The garbage bags were put out by the garbage pail that actually holds garbage outside the house - next to the snowblower shed. Garbage pick up would be Monday and it could not go out to the curb before Sunday night. I had 2 large black bags of garbage and a smaller white kitchen can sized one also. I also had two relatively small filled bags with pieces of our driveway in them. (One area of our driveway is falling apart and we can keep picking up the pieces as we are afraid that in winter if we use the snow blower it will send the pieces flying.) So I put those two bags out also. Sunday night when I put all this at the curb I also added the usual kitchen garbage bag.
I am also taking smaller bags of the soda bottles - one put in the car as one bag of bottles is returned to get them rid of them in small amounts. Husband hates the entire process (see the comment about his family not recycling in the body of this post) and I had been saving them up to take monthly. This has become a problem this year and I would not have a chance to do so again until September. I plan to get rid of the bottles a small bag at a time. Once we are caught up the same bag or less will be returned weekly.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes when one never has time to do something, it suddenly becomes “oh carp, we have to do this NOW.” If that happens do what needs to be done. If you can prevent yourself from reaching that point - do it before it reaches that point. Oh, and of course, the snow shovels still have not been put into the snow blower shed.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
A WEEKEND IN THE 18 CENTURY, A LUNCHEON, AND OTHER TIME CONSUMERS
Another week already?
Friday we spent the afternoon with our reenactment unit setting up for a relatively large scale event. It is one that we started last year. We invite other units to join us. We have the use of the restoration village I have spoken about before. We set up near the building that we interpret at Christmas time a “British army camp - with officers in the building. In the same general area the “American civilians” (us) are located. At another restored house that happens to be behind this house on top of a rise, is the “American army”. To visitors this other house is a quite a distance away on the road, but for our convenience it can be reached by walking through the woods between the two, while not being seen from where we are. While we are not setting up at the other house, it still takes quite awhile to set up.
Saturday and Sunday was the event - so the entire day - both days - was taken up with the event. Saturday night we got home and I threw the cups we used during the day (period looking cups are used and we each have/bring our own - ditto dishes, and tablewear, but we had not brought anything other than cups with us Saturday as we were not staying for dinner at night) into the sink and went upstairs to change in modern clothes. When I got back downstairs the kitchen sink and the counter on either side of it was covered in ants! I managed to get rid of the ones I saw and washed the cups - as husband’s cup was also covered. After we had dinner we found more ants. I had just put the kitchen back together from a prior attack of ants! So, again, I checked and washed off each item around the sink - such as the dishrack - and stored them on the one small section of counter that is on the other side of the kitchen. Husband went looking online for what is food safe to get rid of ants. He found out that one can spray a 3/1 vinegar/water mixtures, let it dry for 30 minutes, blot puddles, and let the rest air dry. Seems to be working so far. I have moved items back to the counter top, but still am not using the space. When I wash dishes I wash and rinse an item, dry it and put it away immediately and then on to the next piece. It is exhausting. Oh, and I am using paper towels for washing instead of a sponge or steel wool pad, as I can toss them out after each session of washing. Sunday not only did we have the event - everything had to be packed afterwards.
I was looking forward to tomorrow, Thursday, when I had nothing to do and could breathe - ha ha!
Monday afternoon, husband decided that we had to get gas for our car, as we had not done so on Sunday as we normally would, and also had to check the oil in the car. So we drove out to where we go for both, which took most of the afternoon. When we got home we went through the stuff we brought back from the reenactment and I had put in closed plastic bags and checked it for ants - only found one.
Tuesday we ran some home errands - shopping and such and also bought some deli turkey for me to make light sandwiches to bring today to my embroidery chapter for our annual luncheon meeting. Everyone makes some sort of salad, I can’t eat salad unless I know that I am going home right after, so I bring the sandwiches so I have something to eat. We discuss what we want to do next year (September to June) at our meetings and any regular business. I had planned to run a lot errands as I won’t have a day out alone again until September. I realized on my way back from the meeting today, Wednesday, I had forgotten to bring the soda bottles to put in for recycling - 5 months worth! Oh, well. I did our banking and the banking for the embroidery chapter.
Oh, I also had forgotten that I did have to send a list of members to our region and had planned to do it Thursday (tomorrow) when I would have a chance to breathe - but.... my sister contacted me and needs me to go to my mom on Thursday as she cannot go then. She has been visiting mom just about every day even when the rest of us are going also, so I could not say no. I managed to get the list out by email yesterday.
Monday night after husband fell asleep I heard a chirping - I presumed it was the downstairs smoke detector (upstairs is a 10 year detector) and figured they usually chirp for a couple of days so we would take care of it Tuesday. I heard it again Tuesday morning, but then it stopped. Husband went crazy trying to figure out which device was beeping as they all tested fine. He decided it was a telephone in the office and we bought a new one - but that one still works fine. (New one will be returned.) This morning I heard the chirping again and Robert heard it also. While I was out today he figured out that it was the smoke detector downstairs and replaced the battery.
Oh, and Friday he is planning a trip to Pennsylvania - if it finally does not rain on a Friday this week. (Well, last Friday it did not rain, but we did have the event to set up.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Again, one must take life a day at a time. I know that at some point this craziness will stop and I will be able to catch up - okay, in the back of my head I realize life may remain this crazy for ever, but I sure hope not!
My thoughts and prayers go out to those who continue to get this horrible weather and are in much worse a situation that we are.
Friday we spent the afternoon with our reenactment unit setting up for a relatively large scale event. It is one that we started last year. We invite other units to join us. We have the use of the restoration village I have spoken about before. We set up near the building that we interpret at Christmas time a “British army camp - with officers in the building. In the same general area the “American civilians” (us) are located. At another restored house that happens to be behind this house on top of a rise, is the “American army”. To visitors this other house is a quite a distance away on the road, but for our convenience it can be reached by walking through the woods between the two, while not being seen from where we are. While we are not setting up at the other house, it still takes quite awhile to set up.
Saturday and Sunday was the event - so the entire day - both days - was taken up with the event. Saturday night we got home and I threw the cups we used during the day (period looking cups are used and we each have/bring our own - ditto dishes, and tablewear, but we had not brought anything other than cups with us Saturday as we were not staying for dinner at night) into the sink and went upstairs to change in modern clothes. When I got back downstairs the kitchen sink and the counter on either side of it was covered in ants! I managed to get rid of the ones I saw and washed the cups - as husband’s cup was also covered. After we had dinner we found more ants. I had just put the kitchen back together from a prior attack of ants! So, again, I checked and washed off each item around the sink - such as the dishrack - and stored them on the one small section of counter that is on the other side of the kitchen. Husband went looking online for what is food safe to get rid of ants. He found out that one can spray a 3/1 vinegar/water mixtures, let it dry for 30 minutes, blot puddles, and let the rest air dry. Seems to be working so far. I have moved items back to the counter top, but still am not using the space. When I wash dishes I wash and rinse an item, dry it and put it away immediately and then on to the next piece. It is exhausting. Oh, and I am using paper towels for washing instead of a sponge or steel wool pad, as I can toss them out after each session of washing. Sunday not only did we have the event - everything had to be packed afterwards.
I was looking forward to tomorrow, Thursday, when I had nothing to do and could breathe - ha ha!
Monday afternoon, husband decided that we had to get gas for our car, as we had not done so on Sunday as we normally would, and also had to check the oil in the car. So we drove out to where we go for both, which took most of the afternoon. When we got home we went through the stuff we brought back from the reenactment and I had put in closed plastic bags and checked it for ants - only found one.
Tuesday we ran some home errands - shopping and such and also bought some deli turkey for me to make light sandwiches to bring today to my embroidery chapter for our annual luncheon meeting. Everyone makes some sort of salad, I can’t eat salad unless I know that I am going home right after, so I bring the sandwiches so I have something to eat. We discuss what we want to do next year (September to June) at our meetings and any regular business. I had planned to run a lot errands as I won’t have a day out alone again until September. I realized on my way back from the meeting today, Wednesday, I had forgotten to bring the soda bottles to put in for recycling - 5 months worth! Oh, well. I did our banking and the banking for the embroidery chapter.
Oh, I also had forgotten that I did have to send a list of members to our region and had planned to do it Thursday (tomorrow) when I would have a chance to breathe - but.... my sister contacted me and needs me to go to my mom on Thursday as she cannot go then. She has been visiting mom just about every day even when the rest of us are going also, so I could not say no. I managed to get the list out by email yesterday.
Monday night after husband fell asleep I heard a chirping - I presumed it was the downstairs smoke detector (upstairs is a 10 year detector) and figured they usually chirp for a couple of days so we would take care of it Tuesday. I heard it again Tuesday morning, but then it stopped. Husband went crazy trying to figure out which device was beeping as they all tested fine. He decided it was a telephone in the office and we bought a new one - but that one still works fine. (New one will be returned.) This morning I heard the chirping again and Robert heard it also. While I was out today he figured out that it was the smoke detector downstairs and replaced the battery.
Oh, and Friday he is planning a trip to Pennsylvania - if it finally does not rain on a Friday this week. (Well, last Friday it did not rain, but we did have the event to set up.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Again, one must take life a day at a time. I know that at some point this craziness will stop and I will be able to catch up - okay, in the back of my head I realize life may remain this crazy for ever, but I sure hope not!
My thoughts and prayers go out to those who continue to get this horrible weather and are in much worse a situation that we are.
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