CHRISTMAS PUT AWAY + DEALING WITH A NEW CELL PHONE AGAINST MY WILL

Done storing away Christmas last week. 
Due to the discontinuation of some 4G cell phone systems (which is not being mentioned in public releases - only 3G is being mentioned).  I have spent much of the past 2 weeks getting and being disappointed in a new cell phone.  The organization of my life depends on my cell phones.  Yes, cell phones. One is the only one which actually phone service, but I like the calendar in my original cell phone (a Palm Centro, the first smartphone) much better and continue to use it for same.  I like the games in the Blackberry I had after it, so it is still around for the games.  Now my first Android will join them in traveling around the house and on trips as it sooooo much better than my new one. 
My husband had assured me that "everything would like the same".  The poor man has spent the better part of 2 weeks trying to make that true - and it is not and the new one is terrible, but apparently most is due to software changes.  So my last one gets to stay in use in the house for what the new one either does not do or makes doing much harder - and that is true of most things in the new phone including making phone calls which the older one cannot be used for except by calling through the Internet as it no longer has service. 
This has thrown my organization into a tizzy.  One example - recently, since I feel comfortable again taking my cell phone out in public places - I had gone back to putting my shopping list in it (when one's phone is always with one, it cannot be forgotten).  Right now I am not ready to try to using the phone for the shopping list so I used the same spreadsheet I have used most of the pandemic.  I wrote out what needed to buy in the aisle order they are in the store.  I did not print it out right away as I wanted to add anything husband wanted.  Between when I finished the list and when he came down for pre-bed snack - the entire list disappeared and I had trouble finding my master list of where foods are located!!  I had to make a second shopping list from memory and hope I did not live anything out - which was the purpose of the first list which was collected as we found we needed to replace some food item - put us at going to bed an hour even later than normal.  (Used the list when we went shopping today and will know soon enough if we forgot to relist something and did not buy it.)
I use my assortment of cell phones (remember only one actually has service and can make calls) to keep my organized - from reminders ringing to shopping list it helps me.  I even had to rename items in the calendar - for example, I have a reminder for every day at 6:45 pm to stop what I am doing and start cooking dinner.  Dinner is what we call this meal and it is our main meal of the day.  In the new cell phone a picture showed up because it said "dinner".  I had to change it to "supper" to get rid of teh picture - despite that we do not call it that.  Same thing - any item which says "birthday" has a picture of a party - why would they do such a stupid, inane, annoying thing!  I have to go through my calendar and change these entries also!!  Why change something when it works well to something this annoying!!
My poor husband has been breaking his back trying to make everything comfortable for and usable by me and I feel so terrible that he has to do spend so much of his time doing so.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Aw, heck - my only thought this week is how annoyed I am about this phone!

CHRISTMAS ALMOST ALL STORED AWAY

 

Well my storage of our Christmas items has progressed. I have put away all 3 regular trees, the Christmas figures (Santas, elves…) that we put out in the living room (most were Christmas gifts from someone husband worked with – one small plastic Santa goes back to when husband was a boy and one elf I sewed and entered in the local tri-county County Fair), and a set of bear figurines that I put out by the month – December is boxed and stored and when I finish putting away the rest of Christmas I will put out the February bears from that set – they go in the corner display unit in our living room (this is NOT part of the Teddy Village I talk about – that is upstairs). (BTW – I store the Christmas bear figurines to this set in holiday design boxes which are sold to store photographs. When the figurines are all put out the boxes are empty and put them under the big Christmas tree in the living room as set dressing of presents as we do not get many Christmas presents – husband buys himself a couple of things and gives them to me to wrap and I do not get any presents – don't need more stuff around the house. But the tree so looked so lonely without any gifts so this way it looks cheerful with (empty boxes as) gifts under it during the entire season.)

The ornaments from the trees has progressed and are boxed and waiting to go downstairs – it is a tall set of steps so as I go down on trips I take the boxes down – second box will go down when I go down to change laundry loads shortly and third will follow later when I go down to bring up the laundry – that leaves one box to go down tomorrow.

I have to pack the assorted small decorations – candles, “greens”, mugs, Lego Christmas figures, and the like in the 2 boxes they store in. These two boxes will be stored on top of the ornament boxes – all of which go in a corner of the basement which is a perfect fit for them.

I have beaded Christmas tree which I made some years ago and is in a glass dome, as well as a large light up teddy bear and the wreath for our front door which will go on top of the stack of boxes.

I have a number of soft decorations – small stuffed toys, as well as items I have embroidered – other stuffed toys, wall hangings, holiday throw pillows, and such. They will go down last to their box which is elsewhere in the basement.

I do have great incentive to get the tree and the items which go on top of it quickly – I can't do the laundry until I put away these items as assorted items which are stored in front of these items are moved to the top of the washer and dryer to get the items out for Christmas – and I had to get them put away – Wednesday night is laundry night! Second load washing first load drying – and a load of Covid masks to follow.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

While it is much more fun to take out the Christmas (or other seasonal) decorations – it is not as much fun to put them away – but it must done so go ahead and get it done – it is February after all!

SNOW!!!!!!

 Oops – I thought I posted last week – but when I looked at my copy of saved posts – last week's post was blank.

I did start taking the ornaments off the trees – but got sidetracked by snow – plus somehow I am missing 2 ornaments and broke one.

We have had SNOW!  We had about 18 inches, while to the east of us it was close to 24 inches.  This is suppose to be the 3rd highest amount of snow in the area – so those of you who read this and think “2 feet – big deal” will understand.

The storm started late Friday night – before it started coming down the county plow/sander trucks put down salt mixture on our street to keep the snow from sticking as much.  

Per the newscast husband likes, when we went to bed the night before (Thursday night) we were to get 6-12 inches.  Since we are towards the west side of our county and the county west of us was to have up to 6 inches and the county to the east of us was to have 12 and up inches – we sort of figured we would get be getting towards the low end of the 6-12 inches.  Husband falls asleep much quicker than I do and when I checked the weather again a couple of hours later we had been upgraded to 8-12 inches.  He was in a panic straight through the week in anticipating of any snow – let alone this much. When we woke on Friday morning  - anticipated snow amounts from the storm had been raised and our area could get as much as 20 inches!!  He was very upset and nervous.  

When we came home on Thursday we had parked our car as close to the sidewalk as we could so in an emergency we could just clear out behind it and back out of the driveway – this is not easy to do, remember we live on 4 lane main road -  but we do so with our RV – I stand in the street with a walkie talkie and tell him when to pull out.  

It snowed – and it snowed – and it snowed.  We guess that by the end of the storm late Saturday we had 16-18 inches of snow. The general advice on the weather reports was to wait until Sunday to clear the snow as it was fluffy, light snow and would remain same.  After the snow stopped on Saturday we heard a snowblower close by – looked out and a man was clearing our sidewalk.  He went on to clear our two driveway cuts and run the blower one trip through our semi-circular drive – he also cleared the sidewalk in front of the house north of us – and then he went across the street to the one house there which faces our street.  Our best guess is that he is the neighbor who lives 2 hours south of us – we met him once, during another bad snowstorm when he was helping the neighbor in the house between us as her husband has medical problems.  I am am going to mail a note to him thanking him (hope it was him).  

Sunday we went out and cleared the snow remaining in front of our house.  It only took us about 2 hours and husband felt much more comfortable and better as we could easily get out of our driveway in an emergency.  

Since the salting process Thursday night we had not seen anyone from the county come through – no plow – the road on Sunday had one lane centered on the two lanes that actually exist in each direction which had been worn through the snow by vehicles traveling on the road.  

Sometime between when we went to bed on Saturday night around 4 am and when we woke up Sunday (early afternoon) the plow finally had come through.  Both cuts of our driveway now had about 3 ft of heavy, packed snow in them!  

We ate a quick lunch, dressed in heavy winter clothing and went out to again clear the cuts.  We were working at it – using a light duty snow blower,  snow shovels and a metal spade shaped garden shovel (to slice/hit the packed snow and break it loose).  Husband was just this side of crying.  Then a miracle.  In the 30+ years we have lived no one has stopped to help us before the neighbor went through with his snow blower  - a fellow in a pickup trip with a snow plow on the front saw our situation and came to help – he drove his snow plow into the packed snow on one of our driveway cuts – the “exit” side no vehicles parked there.  The broken up snow we could deal with.  He was then going to do the same with the “entrance” side of our driveway,  but -

The plow was coming through again – he was waiting across the street to come back, but someone got out of the plow truck and talked to him and apparently told him he had to leave!  

So the cut we had just cleared had snow in it again and we still had the second cut to clear.  We recleared this cut (and we have to be careful not to block the adjacent driveway of our neighbor, about 2 ft away from ours, when we clear ours).  We then went to the other side – husband pushed our snowblower into the snow again and again and would break apart part of what was there until we able to clear a path through the packed snow that looked wide enough for the car to fit through.  

Well, it is wide enough if we make a left turn into the driveway from across the street so that we come in straight.  Monday he cleared a bit more away from our “exit” cut so we could leave on a bit of an angle.  

More snow might be coming early to mid week next week!  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One can only do their best – we still have a lot of untouched snow around the driveway near our house as we did not need it cleared.  

Sometimes “angels” appear to help.