TO BACK UP OR NOT TO BACK UP, THAT SHOULD NEVER BE THE QUESTION!

 A late post, my apologies.  Today I will point out the importance and urgency of backing up one’s computer.  Yes, these two subjects are related.

I normally write my posts using my laptop computer. It is relatively new - bought in December 2018.  It is Windows 10 and I complain about a lot about it.  But over the almost 2 years I have had it I have “moved in” and gotten used to it more or less.  

I have a desktop computer upstairs in our office (which just to mention, no real need to do so, is Windows 7).  I don’t like change and often say that change, especially unwanted change, is never good.  I keep my laptop in the kitchen to use in the evening and I use it also when going to out to clients for work - it’s intended purpose, but has been rare use of it this year due to the Covid 19 shutdowns and limitations, as I went to my business client in January and February only - she has been closed since then and taxes were prepared by having clients mail their information to me.  

I am VERY good about backing up my computers and my data.  Husband usually thinks I go overboard.  When he realized I was backing up my laptop also he sort of gave me a “yeah, well, I guess so” about it.

I keep my data on flash drives - you know, those little stick things. I back up the data after each session at the computer onto alternating additional flash drives - I call then A and B to keep track.  At the end of each week I do another data backup onto a weekly backup flash drive -this one I have 6 of each the data backups and overwrite the oldest one each week - I do this because i had a problem with my calendar data once and did not realize it until I had overwritten both the A and B backup drives with the bad data.  

In more recent years, and more important to this saga, I started backing up my entire computer completely to two external hard drives in addition to my data backups. I back up around the 15th of the month (too many things to do at month’s end and start) onto one of the external hard drives. I will back up, say February 15, 2020 for the month of January in a file labeled as 2020 Q1.  I will then back up by updating that file on March 15 and again on April 15, starting a new file for second quarter on May 15. I do this with both my desktop and my laptop computer.

I also make a backup onto the other external hard drive quarterly - so at about the same time I make the monthly backup on April 15 (and so on) I also make an all new backup for the quarter to the other external hard drive. My husband thinks that all of this overkill.

And now the reason I mention all of this -

This past Sunday I used my laptop computer as normal to read the newspaper (we normally get the print edition, but, due to the Corona virus, we did not want the physical paper in the house each day, and are entitled to the online version, so I have reading same - I do not particularly like reading it this way, but as I have learned, at least I was able to read the paper), and I was able to start reading my Monday comics early, play a bit of Solitaire (I swear the computer cheats) and then shut it down to go to bed.

Monday evening after dinner I set up my laptop to read the newspaper.  It would not turn on.  The power indicator light was dark.  The light next to the power button did not come on when I pushed it (over and over again).  Nothing - dead - D E A D - dead. Battery should have been fully charged and even that did not help.  Husband took it upstairs to see what he could do.  He tried a variety of things.  Unlike my other, older laptops it does not have removable battery - normal thing for them would be to remove the battery, while it was not plugged in  and see if doing so and replacing the battery restarted it.  He found online a way to do this with my computer and it did not work.

So on Tuesday I telephoned the store I bought it from (store gives a second year warranty included so it is still covered) and the information was taken and I have to send it to them for repair.  Scares the heck out of me both because of our general problems with deliveries to the house (normally would have it come back to our PO Box, but since we are not picking mail, I cannot do that) and the fact that all of my passwords, appointment book, etc are in it and not on separate data due to the need for them to be on the computer itself and will be available to them to see when they get it running again.

Now, I understand that there is a check list for the employees to follow, but some sense is needed. My computer will not start - she told me I should make a back up - how the heck does one do that when the computer will not start - I pointed this out to her and said that I did have 2 backups about a week old.  (And my data is backed up daily so I have that as my last session on the computer.)  We then received the list of photos we had to take of the computer and email to them - first one, as well as several of the others requested was to be taken with the computer turned on?  A photo of the problem - well here it is a blank screen - and we also took photos of the power lights not on.  My husband had checked the electric cord with a voltage meter, so we know it is not the cord.

We were told that the box they were sending to us for us to use to send the laptop to them was coming by UPS 2 day.  I sit here on the night of the second day after I called and still do not have it.  It should come tomorrow by 9 pm.  Today it was pouring and windy here.  Tomorrow the remnants of Hurricane Zeta will passing through - presuming the box is dropped on our front steps or driveway as is normal it may blow away as well as possibly getting soaked.  

In the ensuing time - I went to sign in on my older laptop (a Windows XP) to read the newspaper on Tuesday night.  Uh oh!  I have never done so before on it - and my password list from my laptop is ..... in a notepad file in the computer!!  I finally found a piece of paper on which I had written down the sign in and password and tried to sign into the newspaper - it does not work.  It works on husband’s cell phone and it works on my desktop computer, but not on my old laptop!  

Last evening when I should have posted to all of you, I could not - as I did not the password to do so.  Today, I copied out the passwords from my desktop computer onto a flash drive and will make a copy of them - and here I am.


THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you do not do so - start backing up your computer as soon as possible.  One never knows when one will need it, as I so recently found out.  We have also used backups in the past when something has gone wrong in one of our computers.  And back up your data also and more often.  More than one back up, as I do, is a good idea -just in case.

AN IMPORTANT REMINDER -

If you are able to vote in the U.S. - VOTE!!  It is a privilege to be able to do so and this year more than ever, a few votes one way or the other can make a big difference. I say this not knowing if those of you out there lean the same way as I do and I very well might be sending more votes to the candidate I do not choose, but it is everyone’s right to choose and to vote and voting is a right which should not be taken lightly.  

While speaking by telephone with my 91 year old mother a week ago, after we greeted each other, she told me that she had gotten her vote by mail ballot (she can not go out of her assisted living this year to vote) and her residence had an employee assigned to collect the completed vote by mail forms and bring them to their local polling place for the residents. She then made sure my husband and I had plans to vote - we did so already - as she knows the importance of voting.  (And I am not sure that her national votes will not offset mine, but we all have the right to vote and should exercise that right.)






       

COVID-19 # 25 MUST BRING OWN BAGS SHOPPING NOW - HOW MANY WILL BRING BAGS WITH CORONA VIRUS ON THEM?

 Well, another week gone by – I hope everyone is hanging in and not going completely crazy while staying at home for this long – for us it is since basically the start of March, though we were not told to do so by our Governor until later in the month.  More recently we have been going out to run errands more and more – lately seemingly once a week, occasionally twice a week for something or other, with food being about once a month unless we are out for something else in, say, Walmart, where there is also food.  Last week we went out to get a renewal of Diabetes supplies and since we go to Walmart,, also filled in a (very) few food items as long as we were in Walmart.  Tomorrow we are going food shopping.

Shopping in general now has a new challenge here.  March 1 a law went into effect in our state that stores (in most cases) can not distribute “one use” plastic bags.  They can distribute papers bags and charge for same – in some counties/cities they are required to charge a 5 cents fee for the paper bags.  So, almost immediately after this law went into effect the Corona Virus panic set it in.  People of course did not know about or remember the law coming into affect (despite news on TV and in print talking about it) and showed up to panic food shop without bags – what a mess and confusion.  When we went food shopping mid March I brought 3 of the old “one time use” shopping bags shoved in the back pockets of my jeans, and two of the large, zippered bags that had been for sale for one to buy and use instead.  (One supermarket had offered a trade in the week before March 1 – bring in a one time use bag and get one of these zippered bags in exchange free, so husband and I had each done so.)  In the middle of March (just after our shopping “spree” the law was on a halt – I had thought it was due to good sense, in a pandemic do we really want people bringing bags from home into stores – was my logic.  But no, there had been a court case against the law – that it was illegal.  The case was finally heard and the plaintiffs lost, so now we must bring bags when shopping for our items.  In normal times this would be a pain to remember with trips back out to the car where we always have some of the “one time use” bags, but now it is a bigger problem as when we go food shopping we end up with 8 or 9 paper bags (which hold more) of food and remember to bring them with us.  All of the articles about the law are so helpful about remembering to bring bags –

    Put them in your purse – how large a purse does someone have to fit in 8 or 9 paper bags and what about people like me who do not use a purse.

    Put them by the door – where? on my stove? And we have been known to forget things hung from the door knob so we don't forget them.

    Keep them in your car – have to remember to bring them back out to the car and need them in all cars, and then of course with this idea and the prior one – once the bags are in the car – one has to remember to take them out of the car when one goes into the store.  

Well, the shopping list is made and printed out – and we will be going tomorrow to the supermarket.  We will see what will happen.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Understand, I get the idea of using less and appreciate it, but in general it is a problem and even more so right now, when  items from one's home should not be coming into stores as they may be contaminated with Covid-19 and then are put where other people will have to put their bags to load their food orders into them.  

FACING SILLY FEARS AND GETTING THINGS DONE

 Over the decades I have developed an aversion to the telephone phone.   We tend to get very few phone calls other than spam calls or calls from companies we deal with who annoy us about something.  I mean very few phone calls – less than 10 or maybe even 5, a month.  If the phone rings we freeze in place until we hear on the answering machine who is calling.  One problem is that I have learned if something is going on with my mom my sister will send a text unless it is a serious urgent matter – then she calls so that adds to the problem.  I also do not like making phone calls – needed ones or personal ones.  

I currently have a number of calls which have to be made.  I started earlier this week on Tuesday with a call I should have made in late September.  I telephoned our doctor's office and made an appointment for us to have flu shots.  Yes, we know one can go to a chain pharmacy and have the shots, but husband is needlephobic and the last time he had a shot (over 40 years ago) he passed out.  So he was worried about both the lack of privacy when getting a shot at a chain pharmacy and also if he passed out they might call an ambulance and he did not want that.  So the doctor's office it was.  Neither of us has had a flu shot before.  As always, he over read up about the shots making him more concerned. We are very concerned about going out in general, let alone a doctor's office due to Covid-19, but that was the very reason we decided to get the flu vaccine.  We went today.  We were told to wait in our car and telephone when we were there.  We presumed that we would wait in the car and then go into the doctor's office which would be empty of other patients – or perhaps one going in or out.  We were surprised that when we were called to come in there were about 15 people spaced out around the waiting room (it also serves a second doctor).  Luckily the shots went well.

I also have to call – since last month – the post office where our box is located.  I need to check with the very nice fellow I have been speaking with there about if our missing our bank statements were returned to the banks due to printed notations on them – related to letting the sender know if the address changed.  I also want to talk to him as we have now had 3 items returned to the senders – two items mailed to our businesses by our state tax department and one from a credit card company and figure out why these items were returned (and what else might also have been returned).  In addition we had actually gone to the post office late one Sunday night to see if the missing mail was in the box.  It was not, but 4 pieces of mail which should have been forwarded were.  I keep putting off this call, but I really have to get it done with.  

My embroidery chapter will be renewing its meeting room next month – though the rooms are closed and we do not know when they will reopen.  The chapter president who, unlike husband and me – has been going out – when to look at meeting room in a different park which she heard was larger.  Our room has been getting a bit tight and with the idea of maybe needing to social distance on our return (hopefully some time next year) to physical meetings, she had gone to look for other rooms from the same park system and found one.  She is not a resident of the area served by these parks and I am.  She and the woman in charge of the meeting rooms have been conversing by email and including me.  I suddenly realized that the form has to be notarized which means a trip, in person, to the bank - uh oh!  So I emailed the woman from the parks department and asked if there was going to be any allowance on the notarization this year, pointing out that they have my notarized signature from several past years and I was still residing in the same house.  (I am swearing that I am resident of the township.)  She sent an email back asking to talk to me on the phone.  I told her I would call tomorrow.  My stomach is turning over with dread, not over what she will say, but making the actual call.  (My neighbor works in real estate, if I do need the notarization, I will ask if she is notary, if not, I will have to deal with going to the bank for same.)

I have other papers on my desk that I need to make phone calls for, but forget what they are.

Plus Sunday nights I try to call my mom while I am cooking dinner.  I generally cook a frozen dinner on Sunday nights and do not need to do anything while it cooking.  Mom tends to call me at dinner time – generally just as I am about to start cooking on a night that I have to be active to cook the dinner and it is a problem.  So, I have taken to calling her either on Friday nights (I make a similar type of dinner then) or Sunday nights.  Mom either does not hear the phone, does not have enough time to get to the phone before it stops ringing. It rings 4 times and then either the voice mail from the assisted living residence or the answering machine put in by family for her answers.  I have taken to calling her several times in a time in a row to let it keep ringing longer, but even then she often does not answer.  I know she is okay because if she was not, my sister would have been contacted and she would called me.  

Now, I have been very good at calling banks to check that deposits (both mailed by me and automatic) have been received and also checking how much and when payments are due on credit cards and other bills as I currently mailing out payments sooner than normal and do not always have the bill in hand when I need to pay it – or since incoming mail is problematic these days since the corona virus stay at home started and we had to have the mail forwarded from our box to our house, to check that I am correct that nothing is due on the bill.  It seems to be the actual talking to someone that upsets me.  (I learned in the first months of stay at home to call about balances due and such late night as fewer people are calling then.  In early April one bill I kept calling about and the calls were not even  accepted to wait, I was able to reach the company (for a live person) at 12:15 am. )

I especially do not like make telephone calls when my husband is in the room.  He will tell me what to say and correct me (when I am not wrong) if he hears me making calls, so I have to make them when he is elsewhere in the house – which is not often these months.)

So I have been barely getting work done this week – too  busy putting off making the telephone calls.  Hence why this post is out a day late.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Everyone has something they REALLY hate to do.  We all know that we have to do them and get them done with or the problem will be even bigger.  What do you hate to do?

COVID 19 # 24 FOOD - STORING IT, KEEPING TRACK OF IT, AND USING IT IN TIME

 Another week, another post.  I had an idea this morning for the post, but by tonight it is gone.  So let me tell you how we are dealing with food right now as we only go out once a month to a month and a half to food shop (and did not shop from mid March to Mid May at all).

Husband, as I have mentioned, is a panicker.  To allay his fears we  now have, since the start of the corona virus, more food, toilet paper, paper towels, soap, dish soap, laundry soap, denture adhesive than we can use in several years.  My dining room table is covered in unopened canned, jarred, and bottled food and packets in gallon sized plastic boxes.  I have two huge plastic boxes that we normally use for food storage under my side of the kitchen table.  We also use these same types of boxes in the house for other storage.  I donated one of my bear figure storage boxes and he donated two of his woven items storage boxes to “the cause” and they are in the dining room filled with food.  

As with anything organizing what is where is important.  In our case we also want to make sure that we do not attract ants or mice – both of which we have had problems with in the past, so any food that is not in sealed glass, hard plastic or metal container is put in a plastic box – whether a large package in the huge boxes or the individual packages in the gallon containers.  

I covered the dining room table with heavy towels to protect it from damage – I want to use it as nice looking table again one day.  Cans, bottles, and jars are arranged in lines by what they are – a line of each type of soup cans (and the different lines of soup are next to each other), a line of canned tomatoes, a line of canned beans... or sometimes small groupings – 4 cans of evaporated milk (was 6 cans originally) sitting in 2 rows of 2 cans, and so on.  There are also gallon sized plastic containers (recycled large ice cream containers) stacked 2 high in a grouping on the far corner of the table.  These have things such as packets of ramen noodles (husband has me has me add half a package to half a can of soup for lunch sometimes) in two of them (ordered online from Walmart – we got a LOT of ramen packages).  One has packages of husband's instant grits (my apologies to anyone from the South) and another has packets of my instant oatmeal.  ½ cup containers of applesauce in another.  Powered milk packets in one container and powdered mash potatoes packets in another.  A quick circle of the table – okay cannot actually fully circle the table as there is stuff from my family home to be sorted through and excess baking pans on the far side of the table on the floor – lets one see how much we have of various items and find what we are looking for.  

The three large boxes on the floor in the dining room (stacked to save room) contain items such as fresh(ish) bread that is currently being used (we buy several loaves, start use one loaf, then usually start the second before it has to frozen and any loaves past two are frozen right away when we bring them home.  This includes white bread, rye bread, hot dog rolls and burger rolls.  There are also some packages of snack cakes that we bought.  Items that come multiple in a package and are individually wrapped are removed from their outer package – so the individual snack cakes are in the box, the boxes that, say 8 of them, came in was tossed and never came into the house – chances are no one has touched the inner packages or at least not just before we bought them are in a plastic bag with the bread.  Cookies are also in this box and some other individual items.  The next box down holds things such as boxes of cake mix, stuffing mixes, dry cereal, and two largeish cardboard containers of raisins.  The bottom box holds macaroni – both the boxes of spaghetti , penne, elbows and bow ties and the packaged macaroni and cheese boxes.  (Husband ordered the first three from Bjs in his big order from them, he told me 4 boxes of each were coming – 8 boxes of each came – so they will take awhile to use up.)

In the pantry closet in the kitchen I keep started macaronis in glass canning jars and other started packages of food in either hard plastic locking boxes, old Chinese soup containers, or other glass canning jars.  (I used to can.)  

We have do not have a huge refrigerator  (18 cubic foot) or freezer.  We have the small freezer on the top of the refrigerator and a dorm fridge sized freezer in the basement (from when we used to grow vegetables in the back yard and froze them for the winter).  

Mostly I can see the items in the refrigerator but I try to deal in a way that makes sense and I can remember.  We got this refrigerator a year ago.  It does not have what is normally called “a snack drawer”.  I kept the bin for ice from the old refrigerator, which went from back to front of the old refrigerator's freezer so it is well sized.  I put it in the right side of the refrigerator's top shelf and we use it for smaller items – currently it is being used to hold cold cuts and cheeses so they are together – and I can take them all out for lunch if husband is not sure what he wants by just pulling the bin out of the refrigerator.  We may have to root through the bin a bit to find which item husband wants, but they are all in there (unless they were hanging around too long had to be frozen).  

Shortly after we bought the refrigerator I bought a largeish plastic bin that looks woven, so it has openings around the four sides, to use to store small items in the freezer.  This works well.  It may be heavy, but I can take it out and see all of the smaller items in it easily to keep track of them.  

So now everything has a home – but how do I remember what is where?  I have been writing up lists of what is in each freezer (don't do so for non- cold items or for refrigerator items, at least not so far).  There are 4 lists.  Two are for the downstairs freezer and two are for the upstairs/refrigerator freezer.  One of each list is called “meat”, but it actually should be entrees – I list what meats, frozen entrees, and things such as frozen ravioli and tortellini or leftovers on these lists.  The other two lists are the upstairs “other” and basement “other” list.  This is where I list foods such as frozen vegetables, breads, and so on.

Of course maintaining the lists is important.  Since we are shopping in large quantities (husband almost passes out when he sees the huge amount on the receipts) I redo the lists when I shop each time and try to make sure to cross off or change the count of used items as I take items out – or move them from up to down list or the reverse if items have to moved.  We shopped last week and I have not yet had a chance to go through the freezers and make new lists so I am still working off the old ones.  This allows me to know what I have downstairs without having to run down the stairs to see what there is and lets me know that somewhere in the refrigerator's freezer is 2 more hot dogs.  

I have two other lists on the refrigerator also.  One is the list of “meals”, sort of a home menu.  If I ask husband what he wants for dinner and he says “what do we have” I can read him the list (my hand writing is not always readable by me, so I won't make him try to read it).  The second one is a shopping list.  Any suggestions we come up with or see we are running out of I add to this list.  (I periodically copy the items into the spreadsheet program file I started in my laptop since being home for Covid-19.)

I should mention that there are sections of food – especially cans, jars, bottles, and packaged items – which we have not used up the items we bought months ago when the pandemic started or soon after it did.  It may be years before we can use up all that we have.  We try even harder than normal to keep track of the dates on packages so food does not go bad.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Buying food that you need to have in the house if you are not food shopping often these days is a good thing, but you have to keep track of what you have to figure out what you need to buy and you need to keep track of dates on packages and also of when you started using a package as food in opened packages often go bad faster than in still sealed packages.  (We learned that we really need to buy mozzerella and ricotta cheeses in smaller packages as they both go bad too quickly when the package is open.)    

TODAY IS A START OF A NEW YEAR - DON'T WAIT FOR JANUARY 1

 It is time for my annual mention that a new year starts every day.  Everyone decides at the end of the common (Gregorian) calendar year  - December 31 – to make resolutions – to lose weight, to go back to school, and for most reading this list – to get organized, get rid of the clutter in the house and clean the house.  

But every day starts a new year and can be used the opening to make a resolution or attempt to make a permanent change in our lives.  Over the past week it was the start of the Jewish new year. The Jewish (religious) calendar starts with a holiday called Rosh Hashanah, which in literal translation means head of the year.  We eat sweet things to look forward to a sweet year to come.  It is followed 10 days later (which are called the Days of Awe) by another holiday called Yom Kippur (which means Day of Atonement).  It is a period in which Jewish people look back at the year which has passed and pray forgiveness for their “sins” – large and small and then fast on Yom Kippur and spend the day (in normal years) in the synagogue praying and asking forgiveness of God – having already spent the 10 days asking forgiveness of those around them for sins, slights, and related against those around them.  We also ask God to write us into the Book of Life for a good year to come (and boy do we all need that right now).  Understand that we are making resolutions to be better in the year to come – same as one makes resolutions to do so for December 31.  

The Chinese calendar's new year is between January 21 and February 20 – like the Jewish new year the day varies over different dates in the common calendar as the number of days in these calendars is not 365 as they are lunar calendar (12 months of 28 days each) with no annual adjustment for the difference between in the number of days between the lunar and solar calendars.  (We have leap months instead of leap days, an extra month added every so many years.)

Similarly the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar – in this case there is no adjustment for the difference between lunar and solar calendars so dates and holidays in the Islamic calendar as it rotates through it's 12 month cycle will annually fall at different times during the year.  

Okay, I know – you did not expect a class in calendars, but my point in this is that one does not have to wait for January 1 to decide that THIS is when you are going to make a change in your life – any day of the year can be your new year to make a resolution to change something about your life and start getting rid of clutter and getting organized  - and yes, even start doing better at the dreaded cleaning.  

Pick something to start with – it may not be what bothers you (or your loved about you) the most, but pick something and start doing it – today.  I won't say, as many do, that doing something on a regular basis makes it a habit, but instead each day deal with what you have picked to do.  When you get to the point where you think you have it control – it is another day and pick something else to do.

Right now – in the middle of writing this post I have to run down to the laundry (I heard it beep) and transfer the clothing to the dryer and throw in our Covid-19 face masks to wash in a separate load.  I will be right back, don't go away….  Okay, I am back.  

So don't wait for January 1 – start now by doing one thing new or change how you do something now – today is the start of a new year (and of course you can instead start tomorrow if you need to plan – it is the start of a new year also).  After all, you are probably home due to the corona virus pandemic anyway – might as well get something organized and get some rid of some unneeded stuff.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Our lives are very different than they were last year at this time.  Take the gift (and yes, every day of life is a gift) of the time you have and do SOME THING with it.  Work on getting organized – or ignore organizing to spend quality time with those you love.  

As I posted last week, my husband has recently decided that we should take a walk at a local park.  I would much rather be home getting work done, but I understand his need to go out and do something, anything.  It is just the two of us (and all the others also out walking or fishing or sitting or playing) as walk – not briskly, but not just strolling around the park.  Of course I have things waiting for me to do, but being with him and doing something he feels he needs to do is more important at this time.  We have all been reminded of what a precious gift life is.  Let us not waste our time here and do something for or with and spend time with those we love.