JUNE - ALREADY????!!!! SPRING CLEANING? - I JUST FINISHED STORING AWAY CHRISTMAS - LAST WEEK!!!!

 JUNE – ALREADY?!

I guess it well into “spring cleaning” time?  Anyone doing any?

Well ….  I have mentioned that I have a small “village” of small bears  - figurines, toys and such (about  ½ inch to maybe 6 inches tall each) in our upstairs hall.  If you have missed this – it started as a Christmas village populated by bears and grew to a year round village which is changed (more or less) monthly to match the month.  It is a terribly silly thing, but husband and like it and it gives us smiles – and during the worst of Covid it gave us someplace “to go” when we stuck in the house.

It gets overdone for Christmas – like a small village which is over crowded for the holidays with shoppers, a parade, carolers, Santas, skiers, skaters, booth selling hot beverages and renting out skis and sleds, bears finishing decorating the large tree at the center of the village…  The rest of the year the setup is much is less.  

I have mentioned that I am accountant.  I had an extremely odd and bad tax season this year so the bears have been having Christmas all the way into May (and the mom bears were upset at no Mother's Day) as I have not had a chance to store the Christmas part away.  I finally had a chance last Sunday to start taking it down.  Christmas in the village is almost done being stored now.  I should finish this Sunday and will jump ahead to wedding and later in the month graduation in the village.  (Same young bear couple get married every year.)

Sooo, who is doing spring cleaning – not the bears they are too tired from celebrating this long.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Things need to be done.  Sometimes something suddenly takes up a continuing huge amount of time and it needs to done and other less essential things put aside.  That is life and we have to take it as it comes and then catch up when we can.  

STILL WORKING ON STORING CHRISTMAS STUFF AWAY - BUT ALMOST THERE AND WOULD BE IF NOT FOR A RUBIK'S CUBE

 My goodness – where did January and February go?!!!

I finished a partnership tax return which is due by March 15. I still have to get back the power of attorney form from client – signed – so I can prepare her business's state exemption form. And – I have to prepare sales tax returns for all 3 businesses by March 20!

I am actually almost finished actually storing away the inside Christmas decorations. I had 2 large filled plastic boxes of inside decorations (as opposed to the tree decorations which were already put away). Being lazy I hate to make down the stairs and up again trips so they were sitting in the dining room. As I go down to change down to change laundry loads I have taken the two boxes down – last one just went down. Also took down the last couple of small fabric decorations which had been missed when the box they are stored in was filled. I do have a box left with a glass domed beaded tree (which I had made some years ago) in it and a smallish plastic Santa of Robert's from when he was a buy both of which I will take downstairs on later trips down for the laundry.

That leaves 3 decorative boxes which have to go to the closet in the Teddys' room with items I don't want stored in the basement as wax (would melt in basement) or otherwise need better care than the basement. Of course this is not easy this year. I have our suitcases which store in the bottom of the same closet out in the middle of that room. We no longer use them as we travel in our small RV, but have kept them as we like them, just in case we need suitcases in the future. (For example if one of us, God forbid, had to go to the hospital.) I took the suitcases out to solve a storage problem in our bedroom. Husband has more clothes than should go in his dresser than he can fit in same. Most of them he does not wear and a good percentage of them do not fit him (no, too big – not too small) but he does not want to get rid of them. The clothes he actually wears – such as his pjs – are sitting on top of his dresser. I came up the idea of storing the clothing he is not wearing and wants to keep in – yes – the suitcases. I got the suitcases out, but he needs me to help back them so they are in the middle of the Teddys' room until we get a chance to pack the clothes away – so there is no easy access to the closet. Oh, add in, part of the Teddy Village blocks the door to that room into the open position and the closet is, of course, behind that door – so I have to be able to move that section of the room into the room where the suitcases are to be able to put the suitcases and these Christmas boxes back. It is all sort of like a room sized Rubik's cube! But every step I take in all of this gets us that closer to being finished.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is amazing what a puzzle storage can be and what needs to be moved to get this or that to store it away or take it out.

STORED AWAY (MOSTLY) INSIDE CHRISTMAS DECORATONS FINALLY

 Well, over the last couple of weekends we have taken down all of the inside Christmas decorations (except one small beaded tree which still has to be put into its box) and stored most of what we took down in the basement.  

It was the most disorganized take down of decorations I have ever done!  Things are not in the correct storage boxes – so decorating next year will be a MESS!  But everything other than that tree is in its box.  

After the stuff was boxed I took the decoration boxes to the basement – stored in the finished half of same in a corner where the boxes fit EXACTLY in their space (so tight, husband could not get them out as they cannot be on any angle when being moved).  I stored my Christmas soft figures (teddy bears, large Mrs. Rudolph Reindeer I made etc.) and Christmas stockings in the box they all go in – also on that side of the basement, but in a different spot.  

The main tree gets carried downstairs section by section as they are heavy – and between same and the stairs I have to rest between the 9 sections.  I stacked them in the box in the order they have go into the box and added the pole, tree skirt and other similar items which fit into the box.  Doing well at this point.  

Then I made a big error which I did not realize until too late.  I had stored the assortment of various sized Santas and elves (varying up to about 3 ½ feet in height – some made by me, some were bought by us and a number of them were Christmas gifts from someone husband worked with) in their individual plastic bags on top of the big tree box where they go and put the basement back together again in front of the box and figures. The box stores under the stairs to upstairs so it is not at all easily accessible when everything else which stores in front of it is back in place.

We have two smaller trees (one goes in the dining room and one in our studio).  They each store in a box.  They also store on top of the Christmas tree box – but are suppose to be UNDER the figures to keep the figures from being squashed or damaged!  So now I have to move at least enough of what is front of the box to be able to reach the figures and remove them from where they are, put the boxes in places, get the figures on top of the boxes, and then put it all back together again.  I cannot do this until I get the laundry done as what is in front of the tree box has to be moved onto the washer and dryer to get them out of the way!!  

And my Teddy Bear Village upstairs remains as Christmas until I have a chance to put away the Christmas items and set it up for ?  Will be a bit late for Valentines Day – which is set up as bears in pairs kissing or holding paws and going to the Asian restaurant and the honey restaurant in the Village.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Always check twice  - and then check again and again – before storing seasonal items away to make sure they are stored in the correct order so they will fit where they need to be without damaging anything and so that what is needed the following year will come out in the correct order.

MORE THINGS TO DO - AS ALWAYS INCLUDING NEW SETUP FOR CHRISTMAS TREE AND DECORATIONS

 To pick up where I left off – 2 weeks ago – I finished my class and exams in 3 days.

We were way behind in decorating inside the house for Christmas. I used to do almost all of it, but in more recent years husband has been helping me. (“Don't climb up on that step stool, I'll put it on the tree for you.)

Our living room has changed over the past year. Back in my April 6 post I wrote about husband buying a small “big screen” TV. I was not happy about (and still am not). This involved rearranging our living room. We were careful to figure out how we would deal with our Christmas tree and decorations both in the living room and also in our dining room as a piece of furniture which used to pushed (it is on wheels) from the living room to the dining room to make room for the tree in the living room and holds a smaller tree in the living room – but could not longer be saved moved as it would be under the tree.

Moving a coffee table from the back of the living room to the dining room instead of the chest that cannot no longer be pushed there went fine. The tree went up in the new space at the back of the living room – doing well, it's working. Then we started putting the ornaments on the tree. I usually put them in a groupings – all the angels at the top of the tree, bear ornaments in one area, TV/movie characters in another area, souvenir ornaments in yet another area and so on. This was not working and we ended up just putting ornaments on the tree. We had a number of ornaments we did not put on the tree as we gave up – not enough room? A couple of days later I realized the problem – in its old location the tree used to have two “fronts”. Huh? Well the tree faced into the living room – a “front” of the tree. The side of the tree faced our entry way – another “front” of the tree. In the back of the living room it faced into the room – one “front” but two of the other sides faced side walls with no easy view of them and the last side faced the windows. Aha! There is less space for ornaments to be featured!

I have all sorts of Christmas decorations I put around the living room, kitchen and dining room – and a few I put in our entry hall. They hang from things, sit on things, etc. I started putting them out. I did okay in the kitchen – changed the decorations sitting on our window sill to the Christmas ones which belong there. Changed out some mugs from our travel mug collection for Christmas mugs.

I moved on to the dining room. I did not have the energy to put fake greens on the light fixture – so I just hung the “kissing ball” from the bottom of same. I set up the small Christmas tree we setup in there. We belong to Colonial Williamsburg and get an annual ornament from them – these go on this tree. Our dining room is decorated as a 18^th century tavern room so a tree is not really correct in there – but they are ornaments of 18^th century things. Normally this tree would go on the box wheeled from the living room, but the new plan was for it to go on the coffee table from there the main tree is now, moved into the dining room instead of the box. This went okay.

But now I started getting to figurines, stuffed animals, Christmas Lego pieces and such which would get setup in the living room – I did not have enough space for them. WHY? I realized that in the past we had two large flat surfaces for them – the coffee table (which would have been in the living room and without a tree on it) and the box pushed into the dining room (and would have the tree on it, with empty space around it). I was missing the equivalent space of the top of the box! I got most of the items out and setup on “something”. The stuffed Christmas bears still fit well on the sofa in the living room. Some large figurines (Santa, elves…) was a tight fit, but went in the area they normally do by the entrance into the living room – they stick out a bit further into “traffic” which worried my husband, but seem to be okay and have not caused any trips or falls by either of us. The Legos actually got to go on the table the TV is on – they are small enough to sit along the ends of the table and not affect watching TV.

Well, decorations are what they are for now. I will think over the problems for next year to see what/how I can improve where decorations and cut down on being upset at the changes his TV has brought.

I did not get a chance to decorate my “Teddy Bear Village” in the upstairs hall. Poor bears are still celebrating Easter! But I plan to do so during the coming weekend.

We leave our decorations for a while to enjoy them. The big items in the living room – such as the tree – will come down in mid January. I have an agreement with my husband. From mid December to mid January we decorate for Christmas. From mid January to mid December he has the room setup his loom and weave. Around then – or perhaps a little later the other Christmas will also get stored away.

For now we can sit and enjoy looking them.

Oh, I forgot our studio tree! We have a craft studio in what should be our “family room/den”. I put a small tree in the front corner of the room on a dresser (for storage) with some of the various ornaments we have made over the decades.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

I do hope that all have/are having a good holiday season!

TRYING TO FIT THINGS INTO SMALL SPACES OR LITTLE TIME

 Have you ever had to fit more in a space than fits?  Yes, I know – that is what is organizer is about, not having to do this, but sometimes…

Back in the normal times before Covid husband and I would go to the movies just about every week.  There was (is?) an independent theater in a nearby community that we would go to. While it had become a multiscreen theater it had not changed over to the terrible lounge seats – still had old style movie theater seats (same type as in school auditoriums, Broadway theaters, etc) and having once sat in lounge seats at movie theater, we vowed never to do so again.  It is currently still “temporarily closed”.  We went to “late showings” - which at this theater means the movie starts 9:30 to 10:30 pm, as opposed to when we used to go to midnight movies in the old days.  While it has some theaters which are rather small, it does have just about full size theaters.   And it was reasonably priced (even for so for seniors) and had a very nice staff.

This is something we have missed – last time we went to a movie was in late February/early March 2020.  We have instead been having our movie night at home watching movies on TV – which is not the same, not only due to small screen, but missing in the atmosphere of a movie theater.  

Husband has recently got into his head to buy a large screen TV for our living room.  I was shocked.  Husband spent a good deal of time decorating our living room in – more or less – colonial style – which is why I was shocked that he would put a big screen TV in it.  (The TV which is in there – not digital – is in a period looking piece of furniture to hide it.  It does not have a cable hookup as we tend to only watch TV in the living room while putting up and taking down our Christmas tree  - when we watch specific Christmas DVDs and New Year's Eve – when, most years we watch “the ball drop” in NYC through Roku – though one year we watched Animal Crossing's New Year Party instead – I actually liked that better. )  

Between this and the price, the idea of a big screen TV in our living room to watch Saturday night movies shocked me.  This discussion has been going on for about a month or so.  He has decided that the theater we used to go to will never reopen and we are too uncomfortable in the lounger seats in other theaters.  (Though we have found one other theater with “real theater seats”, but it is not near us.)

He has been going back and forth with ideas on what to do – then deciding they are no good, then a new idea and then back again.  Just when I thought he had given up – it is becoming reality.  He has bought one for his birthday which is coming up in a while.  

In doing this we had to figure out a lot of things.  His first idea was to have the TV hung on the wall.  Only wall possible was where the TV set furniture is now.  BUT – that is too close to the heat, would have to be hung off center on the wall, and he found out that one has to help the installer hang the TV – if we could do that, we would not need the installer.  

His second idea was to stand it on something.  An obvious choice to me was a large wooden chest he built – it looks like a hope chest – top lifts, lock on front – but on this one, the key in front is the handle to pull down the front and drawers come out with DVDs in it – so the top is stationary and can have (and does have) things put on it.  That is too low for what he wants – he want to “look up at the TV like one looks up at the movie screen in a theater”.  He went looking for a stand to put the TV on – either one that stands on the floor or one that stands on a piece of furniture.  

He found a stand that he liked how it held the TV at a chain computer store's website.  Problem is that the dimensions are obviously wrong – how could something 4 inches tall hold a TV which is so much longer than that?  We drove to the local location of the store – none on display.  We asked a manager about the dimensions – he went to his computer and looked it up – on their website and read the numbers off to husband.  Husband, a bit impatient, pointed out that he had read the same on his computer and how could the stand be 4 inches tall?  Manager agreed that had to be wrong (both he and husband decided it had to be the shipping box dimensions) – but when husband if the boxes “in the back” could be checked for the dimensions – he was told no, “It is a brown box with no writing on it” - then how do they know which item is in the box.  We left.  

He started thinking again – the TV comes with feet, if we got the smaller size than he was looking at (65 inch instead of 70) and we could figure out what to put over the chest of DVDs to make it longer for the feet – it should work.  

We looked at an assortment of ideas of what we could put the TV on.  (In this entire process since it started we have, in our minds, rearranged the furniture in the living room end wall to end wall, side wall to side wall, end wall to side wall and so on.)  

He finally had an  idea and in his words “went back to works” - Ikea.  We bought today a table from Ikea.  It should fit over and around the chest of DVDs – box stays in place and is usable.  Table is extremely modern in design, of course – but if it makes him happy…

We then drove to Costco to buy the TV and have it delivered – believe me, he has done extensive research on where to buy the TV, warranties, service contracts, setup etc.  Problem is that one cannot buy it at the store and have it delivered – it can only be delivered if it is bought online – we hate to order things and have them delivered, but that is what we had to do – after wasting about an hour and a half driving there and home – even worse these days – the gasoline that was used for the drive there and back!  He has ordered the TV.  The table will sit in our van until early next week when we bring it in and assemble it.  

In addition to this mess we had a “discussion” with our cable company over a 20% increase in price (which they lowered for us), the cold water started dripping in our downstairs bathroom sink – after an hour and a half on hold – they could not help us as they no record of our faucet model and were the Canadian office of the company (reached through the US 800 number) and transferred me to their US office – I hung up as I did not have another hour to wait.  And it is tax season and getting closer to when I have to finish returns for clients – and us.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – Doing anything today has become hard to do – nothing seems to be easy to do any longer and not just do to Covid and limitations arising from it.  Who ever thought buying a TV would take weeks – maybe even months – of planning, needing to change the plan several times including buying the TV?

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.

STILL SCANNING INSTRUCTIONS - AND - ABOUT TO START TAKING DOWN INDOOR CHRISTMAS

 Sorry to miss posting last week (again) somehow I “lost” Wednesday.

Been doing more instruction manual scanning. In addition since the last time I bought new USB flash stick drives was 2019 I need to buy new ones for at least some purposes as they do become less reliable if overwritten again and again. My husband should enjoy this – he will get to wander around in the chain computer store (which is technically up the street from us – albeit at least a mile away and in another community) when we go to buy them. The ones I need are not expensive especially since we buy the store's house brand of them. I will then copy the info on my older ones to the newer ones and have the older ones to use for “junk” storage.

It is now time for us to start taking down our indoor Christmas decorations. Tree will have ornaments removed and stored in their boxes, the lights removed, and then the tree will be disassembled and it all will be stored away in various places in the basement. The other decorations generally “visit” us a bit longer – but not much. Have you started (or maybe even finished) storing away your Christmas decorations? At least one house locally still has its outside lights on.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Please keep yourselves safe from Covid as it makes its comeback.

 or

Have to go finish the dishes now.

MISSED LAST WEEK'S POST TO DUE TO EXAMS AND LAST MINUTE CHRISTMAS DECORATING

 I hope that all had a good Christmas.  

Sorry I missed posting last week.  Having managed to get the paperwork (per my last post) to the county for our senior real estate exemption the day I posted last, I started on taking the courses I need to take – and pass tests about – 20 hours of classes and 10 hours of tests done online.  I passed all of them and can continue working in 2022.  I took them over the week and had planned to take the biggest of the tests on last Wednesday (12/22) evening but husband had something that had to be done – so I did not get it to it until last Thursday evening.  

I had managed to work at putting out our indoor Christmas decorations over the several evenings before last Thursday – small items which are put out in our kitchen, dining room, front hall and living room.  I skipped many of the decorations such as hanging (fake) greens along our staircase banister and small items due to time limitations.  I also had brought up all three of our Christmas trees (large living room, small dining room and small studio trees) and set them up earlier in last week – also in the evening.  One problem is that since it all kept in the basement and, in particular the big tree sections, much of it is rather heavy, so I have to carry up one of the 9 tree sections (plus lighter tree pole to hang them on) at a time and rest before going back down for the next section.  Then, of course they have to be arranged on the pole, extension cords setup to bring electricity to the tree (and of course the extension which runs up the tree with outlets in 3 different spots -  decided to fall off this year when I set up the pole and I had to wire that back onto the pole).  I did not get to work on the ornaments until the following day – Christmas Eve– and each of the 4 boxes also has to be carried up from the basement with a rest in between – though at least I can hang ornaments while resting.  Again, for the first time since we were married 40+ years ago, not all of the ornaments went on the tree.  Around the equivalent of a box of “lesser” ornaments (plain balls and such) did not make it onto the tree due to time limitations.  

December 26 (Boxing Day to those of you in the UK, Canada, and related countries) I went to work on my Teddy Bear Village.  Yes, I managed to get it set up.  I did some sections differently than in year's past to spread the bears around the 4 sections of the Village a bit more and leave some “breathing” room for the bears in the main section.  Husband guesses that there are 300 bears – I am pretty sure there are a lot less – maybe I will count them when I put them away.  Yes, that is the problem with having fun decorating – in a couple of weeks I will have to take down the tree and decorations downstairs and store them back in the basement (with many trips down and breaks between them again) and store away the decorations from downstairs.  The Teddy Village will stay set up until into early February and then it's residents also have to be stored away to make way for the Valentine Bears (much, much less of them).  

So, all of this diverted my mind from visiting all of you.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes work comes first – such as my classes and exams.   Sometimes what one enjoys has to take precedence over work which can be postponed.  One has to know the difference between the two.  

As I sit here is it December 29 – I wish a good New Year to all.  Keep in mind that small changes and specific ideas are more likely to continue to be done throughout the coming year, as opposed to making resolutions which are too big or non-specific to be kept.   

WHY ARE WE ROTATING THE DVD PLAYERS FROM ONE ROOM TO ANOTHER?

 Well at least I am back on schedule and on time this week.

Today we did some electronics organizing.  Huh?  Well, my husband told me that we needed to switch DVD players around the house.  I have learned that when he comes up with an idea such as this, it is much easier to just to go along with him and not ask why we are doing this.  

First we took out the DVD player which we use in the kitchen (it is actually located in our adjacent  craft studio – there is a large squared off arch between the two rooms so while obviously being two separate rooms they more or less continue into each other.   Our kitchen table is in the front of the arch (blocks part of the arch and part is still walk through – only place to put the table in the kitchen and it is a small table) and our kitchen TV is actually in the studio on a dresser in same, so we can watch TV at the table.  The DVD player is on top of a chest of drawers in the studio which is next to the dresser, but away from the arch.

We took the kitchen DVD player upstairs to our bedroom.  We then took out the DVD player in the bedroom (I put it on my chair in our office, across the hall from the bedroom) and we setup the DVD player from the kitchen in the bedroom – so far relatively easy.  Turned on the DVD player and it came on.  

We then went to our office and started to take apart the DVD player in same.  This was a bit harder than other two.  The DVD player sits on top of 6 foot tall bookcase.  The TV in the office sits on the highest shelf within the bookcase (which shelf is about 2 and feet tall in space above it).  There is a small hole cut in the back of the bookcase behind the TV for the wires to drop down behind the bookcase and come into the shelf.  AND to be seen while sitting at our desks the TV has to be pointed down – so there are small rectangle blocks under the back of the TV's base.  While I held the TV so it did not fall off the shelf – husband unplugged the wire from the back of the TV, climbed on a step stool, and pulled the wires out of the back of the bookcase and removed the DVD player from the top of the bookcase.  I set that DVD aside on my desk and brought over the DVD player from the bedroom for which the process was reversed – it was put on the top of the bookcase, wires had to be found hanging behind the bookcase and brought into the top shelf through the small hole (hardest part of course finding the loose hanging wire) and then the wire from player to TV plugged into the TV and the electric cord into an electric extension already there.  Turned on the DVD player and it came on.  

Back to the kitchen.  We now setup the DVD player from the office in the studio/kitchen and made sure it came on.

Now I finally asked the big question - “Why the heck did we do this?”  Turns out that one of the players does not take a USB drive and one of the other players also runs Blu Ray discs.   So the object of this project was two fold – we now have players  which take USB drives in 2 places he wants them and we have the player which runs Blu Ray in the kitchen.   

One problem was the need to do major dusting as we did this – on the drives themselves, the TVs and the shelves and other spaces where all of these items sit.  Husband did not wait for me to get a dusting cloth and instead started using paper towels – which, of course, are not that great for dusting.  

Part of the this plan, I am guessing, is that he got a hard drive for Christmas which records off the TV/cable and he has been recording some TV series which are on too late for him to watch and he will be able to plug the recorder into the 2 boxes which take USB and they are now both located where he would want to watch those shows and the Blu Ray is probably in the kitchen to be able watch same when we have our Covid substitute Saturday night movie dates while eating take out Chinese food – aka our Covid substitute Saturday night dinner out.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Sometimes something makes sense to one person and does not make sense to others.  

This is true for husband's need to rearrange all of the DVD players and my need to use the dining room and good china, silverplate tableware, and good glasses for holiday dinners even thought it is just two of us.  

If your significant other feels a need to do something that is is not a major problem/expense and what he/she wants to do makes no sense to you – humor them and help them with what they want to do.  And if you feel the need to do something like this – they should humor and help you also.  One never knows when a small change which seems to make no sense is actually a great idea.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE HALF AN HOUR OF CLEARING THINGS UP CAN DO

 I have probably mentioned that my husband and I are crafts artists.  One of the reasons we bought this house is that there is a family room off of the kitchen through a large squared off arch. I could cook dinner while working in our “studio” and we could (back then) turn the kitchen TV around to watch it from the studio.  Of course like every other room in a house it becomes a mess and needs organizing – again.

Early last year I had been working on clearing it up – and then Covid-19 hit.  I stopped working on the room.  I ended up bringing my sewing machine into the kitchen to sew our masks – and of course the patterns and fabric for it were dropped on top of paper cutter on one end of a storage dresser near the entrance to the room.  It had already had my various embroidered and sewn items from when I lived with my parents tossed onto my worktable – along with projects in progress.  

When the room is maintained it serves its purpose well.  We can easily get to supplies, tools, books, magazines and storage. But when it is not maintained – well, you know that how it is.  

We were doing okay with the room basically usable and then this past Thanksgiving was approaching.  I wanted – no, needed to have Thanksgiving in the dinner as normal. In addition to wanting to make it as normal (and as nice) as possible, we need our kitchen table clear to be able carve the turkey, put things we will need for dinner and so on.  But when last May we had ordered food delivered we had no place in our small house to store the canned, bottled, jarred and packages of food in the quantity we had purchased it. Our dining room table was covered over with towels and the canned, bottled and jarred items were put on the table.  Food in packages was put into very large plastic containers on the floor and smaller ones on the table. There was no way we could have Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room as it was – but where to move it all – especially the items on the table?  

Of course, they could go on my work table in the studio - if was cleared off of course.  So I did a quick job of clearing items off of work table – some, such as husband's sewing machine, were pushed onto his worktable, others stacked on the chair I use at the table and items put on the floor.  My work table chair area backs to a wall with with some storage, so there was not a lot of room there.

This all worked okay for Thanksgiving… - for Christmas husband's weaving items including loom were added to what was stored in the studio - and Christmas…  and New Year's, but it has become a giant mess in the studio.  When doing some household sewing I had to lean over a good deal of the mess to get out a different color of thread – and managed to drop the holder on which all (well, mostly) the started spools are stored onto the floor – behind the mess.  Luckily I could read a spool of light gray and since it was a work item I was making, that was close enough to the light blue I needed.  

But this cannot go on.  It is one thing not to be able to use my work table, but not to be able reach and find the items I need is not alright.  But like everyone else I look and sigh and think  - oh my!

A couple of weeks ago I went to work on a laundry basket in our studio. It held various toys and other items husband's niece used to play with when she would come here one day a week for us to watch for her mom.  This is back when she was maybe 4 plus or minus – she is 19 now, she will not be playing these items again.  I went through the basket and sorted it out.  I threw out items which were, well, actually garbage even though she played with them - no, we did not give her garbage, but children, well they find items to play with which are not toys – for example, the first time she came for us to watch her it was just after my husband's birthday.  He had received a HUGE birthday card.  She loved it and carried and carried it around the house and drew on it – garbage – out it went. Some items are things we want to keep – such as toy train set of my husband's which she had appropriated, some stuffed bears and such.  They were put upstairs in “the teddys” room to find a permanent home.  The other items, mostly stuffed toys are not something we want and are not garbage.  They have been set aside so that when the corona virus is under control they can be donated as they are in excellent condition.  The laundry basket was washed and dried and put in the basement as a spare, well, laundry basket.  

This week I went to work on one corner of the room.  This corner has a bookcase with our needlework and sewing books, some related magazines, and the bottom shelf holds the cookbooks I kept after a purge of cookbooks about a decade ago (and no new ones added since),  It also has loose shelves – wire ones that husband uses to dry woven items on after he finishes them and wooden boards we use as shelves at craft shows.  Also stored on the floor here are a few plastic bags with framed cut paper pictures that my husband made and exhibits – though no exhibits in a few years.  There is room for all of this in this area while still allowing access to the book shelves.  But of course, until the area was cleared out of unrelated items which had been dropped there – the books shelves have not been easily accessible in years – the books and magazines which had been pulled out had been stacked on a Ellison cutting machine – so, of course the Ellison was not that easy to use as it could not be accessed.  Once the book shelf area was cleared out – the books and magazines were put away where they belonged.  The paper cutter mentioned before had also been moved to this pile (on the opposite end of the same dresser) to put our studio Christmas tree. It was put back where it belongs.  

In doing this I found a package of paper towels near my work table.  A mystery solved.  In January husband saw me replacing a used up roll of paper towels and asked how many more rolls we had (remember he thinks we use about 10 times more of everything we use) and I told him that we had at least 2 more rolls in both size sheets we have.  To me this means “we have plenty” to him this means “we are about to run out of paper towels any minute now”.  I reminded him that we had also bought a new package of paper towels, but of course could not find it when he asked where it was. So we bought a new package of paper towels – not the brand we like as it was out of stock – when we went out to pick up prescriptions.  As I cleared these items out of the studio I found the package of paper towels I knew we had bought under some of the mess and of course showed it to husband to show that I was right.  Both packages of paper towels are now in the basement in the area where we keep replacement paper goods.  

I plan on continuing working on getting the area around my work table cleared out so even if I cannot actually work there for now due it being a food storage area, I can at least get to and use the various supplies stored next to it in the corner of the room and under it without any problems.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is amazing how moving something for temporary storage can cause problems that seem huge.  In less than half an hour  of work last night, I now can access my bookshelves and books, can use our Ellison machine and our paper cutter, and made a big dent in the clearing away of items temporarily stored  and blocking access to supplies and tools.   A HALF AN HOUR!  That was all it took.  Can't wait to see what the next half an hour of clearing away stuff manages to organize and clean up.  

WHEN IT IS TIME TO SAY GOODBYE TO CHRISTMAS?

 Today is January 6 – the last day of Christmas.

No, really, today is the last of the twelve days of Christmas – the day the three kings arrived to see the Baby Jesus.  In earlier centuries Christmas started on Christmas day and ended today – not as today, where Christmas starts at Thanksgiving (a totally unrelated holiday) or earlier in the year and ends on Christmas Day.  I have mentioned that husband and I are 18th century reenactors.  In normal years our unit participates in a Candlelight Nights event at the local restoration village (forgive me if I am repeating myself).  We explain to the public which comes through that Christmas was celebrated for the  entire 12 days – which by the way, does NOT include Christmas Day – which was religious/church day.  Starting December 26 (still called Boxing Day in many countries), which was the first day of Christmas there would be parties every evening.  Family and friends would come to visit (and as I explain to children – family might come from far away and therefore might not come to visit for the day or the week, but for weeks or a month) - it was a common time for weddings as a result.  Each night we are at the event after Christmas Day we mention what night it is – as in “Oh, you are here for the family's first night (second night, third night…) party.  Think of it 12 days of parties and fun for Christmas.  

One advantage to there being 12 specific days of Christmas with a definite day – today – to end the holiday is that one knew when the holiday was over.  I hate it when people run to take down their Christmas Decorations or toss their tree out the day after Christmas.  

I sort of mix it all together.  Today we used/are using our Christmas dishes (inexpensive Corelle) for the last time for a year.  I have put the Christmas dishes we did not use today (and will not use for late night snack tonight) on the table runner on our dining room table.  The dinner dishes are washed.  When I take out them out of the drying rack, they will join the others on the dining room table.  Tomorrow I will add the dishes we use for late snack -which will be washed and left to air dry before we go to bed tonight, box them up, and store them in the basement closet until next year.  The same with our Christmas glasses.  

But as good as I am about the dishes – I hate to take down the decorations.  The outdoor lights will have the timer in our basement which controls them shut off.  The wreath on the door will have it's timer shut off also (it runs on batteries).  I will leave the window candles (also battery and timer) up a little longer.  But the outside decorations – lights, flag on holder and decorations on our solar lamps' holders – will remain up until the weather is warm enough to take them down comfortably or the weather coming is bad enough that we better get them down – freezing weather or not.  

But in the house – generally the decorations – including the trees – will stay up a bit longer (no one sees inside the house to see that they are still up).  Several years ago we realized that we needed a definite point in time to take down the inside the house decorations.  When January started it was too soon. By the last week in January I was walking around thinking - “oh no, I guess I should start taking it all down soon, but who wants to now that the holiday is over”.  I figured out a definite point to signal to start taking them down – Martin Luther King Jr's birthday.  (For those not in the U.S. this holiday is on the 3rd Monday in January and honors the Reverend King.)  The holiday is of no significance to taking down the decorations – other than it is a set point to do so – well, at least to start doing so.  

Our dining room is already back to normal other than the decorations.  The board I added to the table is back in the board holder in the back of our front closet.  The tablecloths and napkins long washed and put away.  The foam table protector is also long rolled up and stored in the front closet.  The good china and silver tableware was put away after New Year's Day.   (This is not the same as my Christmas dishes.)

The rest of the decorations inside may stay out a bit longer this year – basically it a bit of “we need a little Christmas” so I will not rush to pack them all away.  Something to cheer the house while staying in to avoid the corona virus is needed, so it may stay a little longer.  My infamous teddy bear village stopped having a “Christmas Festival” some years ago – as the same setup called a “Winter Festival” can stay out longer- until February when, of course, the “Valentine Festival” happens.  

When we take down the decorations – outside and inside – I will note anything which needs to be replaced next year and list it in the shopping list in my cell phone under “Xmas” so we remember to buy what is needed and have it when we need it next year.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When there is a task to do which does not have a specific time it needs to be done or completed by – set a fixed time it needs to be done for yourself.  If it is an annual task – use the same fixed time point each year.  

I hope all have a good new year and stay well and safe.

NEW YEAR TO COME AND ADDEDUM TO LAST WEEK'S POST

 Before this weeks' post a followup –

I finally found the rest of the Christmas ornament hooks I wrote about last week (about 5 times more hooks than we used on the tree).  I always store things logically – problem is the logic is often forgotten.  I have two open plastic boxes under part of my teddy bear village which I keep various small items which are used at different times during the year – such as little park benches, chairs, tables…  I had been turning the idea of what would I consider a logical place to put the tree hooks under the circumstances of last year.  The idea entered my head that I have a bear in an airplane attached to the tree in the village (so he doesn't fall off and it looks like he is flying around the tree) with Christmas tree hooks and I did that since last year.  Yep, the hooks were in one of the brown baskets.  So the teddy bear village Christmas tree is decorated, but, sitting here the night before New Year's Eve, the rest of the village is only partly set up for the “Winter Festival” - okay it is called that instead of the “Christmas Festival” so it can be left up after Christmas.  Things keep happening.  


Now this week's post -

Of course a New Year's post is needed at this time.  I don't believe in making resolutions – they tend to be too big and grand and one does not carry through one feels like a failure.  Those of you who read my blog on an ongoing basis know that I believe that each day is a start of a new year.  

I like to work with the idea of trying to do something better, not making resolutions.  Pick something – relatively small and think how can you do better at dealing with it.  It may be organizing related or family relationship related, or work related or just something that you do or don't do which drives you crazy.  Decide that you will try to do better – and see what you can do about it.  Small steps – not big jumps.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

May the year to come be better for all of us.  

Please keep separate with your immediate family and wear your masks and gloves for awhile longer so you and I and most of us will be here a year from now and will be looking at back at 2020 at the end of 2021 thinking “Thank goodness Covid 19 ended this past year and we can all be together safely.”

CARS, MAIL, HOLIDAY DECORATING, AND YET MORE TURKEY

 Well, we have had leftovers from Thanksgiving twice again this week – did have to add some side dishes and we are almost out of turkey gravy – he doesn't like the jarred gravy, only the canned and we have one jar left and one package mix.  What is left at this point will likely be used in a soup or a turkey pot pie.  Last week I asked husband what we should we make for Christmas Eve and for Christmas Day dinners – I suggested ham.  (I know he does not like home cooked roast beef.)  Nooo, he wants turkey – again.  

I have set up some of the Christmas decorations in the kitchen, dining room and hall after storing my (much fewer) Thanksgiving decorations.  Husband has finished his weaving project and we stored his big loom folded up in our studio.  I still have some small items to put away and have not figured out what I will do with his (heavy, wooden) gate leg table.  I am working on ideas.  

We were planning to go food shopping next week, but due to rising number of corona virus cases and fear of people clearing the food store shelves, refrigerators and freezers again we have moved up the shopping trip to tomorrow.  I inventoried the food in the freezers and fridge, as well as canned, bottled, jarred and packaged foods.  I entered the counts in a computer spreadsheet.  Tonight we sat down and went through the list – we change the number of items we have of each item to how many we should buy and deleted the items we are not buying – whether because we have plenty or do not want the item again.  I then printed out the list to use while shopping.  

We discussed the idea of splitting the shopping into 2 trips into the store (my idea).  We end up with a huge number of items when we shop these days (as we try not to shop more often than monthly and have made a month and a half between trips sometimes) and it  hard to deal with all of it in the shopping cart and then ringing it up (we prefer self checkout even before Covid-19) and bagging it and getting all the bags into the cart.  My suggestion was that we go through the store and buy all the items which are not refrigerated or frozen, then ring it up and bag up and take it out to the car.  We will then go back into the store and buy the remaining item and repeat the process.  While it may take a little longer, it will be easier to deal with ringing up and bagging the items this way.

Tonight we made a trip to the gas station (less people, if any, around late night) and filled our van's tank as well as two gas cans for our snow-blower.  There has been talk on and off of snow coming and we figure we would be rather be ready and not need it, then not be ready. When we got into our van and husband started it and released the parking brake – the brake light did not go off and the brake pedal was at the bottom.  Earlier in the year our mechanic told us we are not driving the van enough and for the brakes, as well as the engine, it needs to be driven more.   We used it as we needed it for the gas cans, but no one was around and husband drove very slowly and carefully.  

The main reason we out tonight is to post outgoing mail – yes, we normally do that on Sunday nights.  We have an Etsy site of some of our craft items.  We have most of the inventory not listed now as we don't want to have to go to the Post Office to ship items out.  We left listed items which are mailed with regular postage in a regular manila envelope as they can be dropped in the outgoing mail box and downloads.  After all this time since the pandemic and stay at home started, we sold our first item of the year and had to mail it out to the customer.  (We did also have one download this year.)  So as long as we had to go to mail same, I paid the bills for the week and we mailed them out also – unless something comes up we won't have to go out Sunday night to post mail.

With all of this excitement I did not get a chance to post until rather late – around 2 am on what is actually Thursday not Wednesday night, hence the shortness of this post.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

As we head into the holidays, please continue to be careful – wear a mask, avoid crowds and so on as we wait for vaccines to be made available.  It is more important that we all are still here when we can again live life normally.  Take advantage of the time you are stuck in the house to go through various items and see what you can get rid of.  Straighten up a small area  - and then another.  Use the time you are stuck in the house to get some decluttering and organizing done.  One step at a time is all takes.  

For those who like me celebrate it – A happy Chanukah – may your candles shine brightly.

THANKSGIVING IN A YEAR WHICH IS NOT NORMAL

 First, a big OOOPS – and an apology.  For the first time since I started this blog in October 2015, I missed posting last week.  I may have otherwise posted a day (maybe 2 days once) late, I have not missed any other full week.  Even worse, I did not realize that I did so.  I was starting to write this post and since it about Thanksgiving last week, I looked to see what I posted about our holiday last week – and there was no post for last week.

I have mentioned before that husband and I used to have both our families for Thanksgiving dinner from 1984 through 2008.  I have probably mentioned that since we are of different religions Thanksgiving was the only family type holiday that both families wanted us to come to them for dinner.  (Meaning his family for Christmas, mine for Chanukah, his family for Easter, mine for Passover – plus mine for other Jewish holidays which are big family meal occasions.)  The first several years we generally ended up with husband's family for Thanksgiving.  

But in 1984 we decided to try something different – both families would come to us for dinner.  My husband thought the idea was crazy.  We lived in a small 3 room apartment and between the 2 families (including grandparents)  and us there were  about a dozen people (his sister and brother in law were on their honeymoon).  I had thought it all out.  His parents had 2 large folding tables – we could set up the 2 tables as one running the length of the living room.   My good china, glasses, silverplateware served 14.  (The china pattern was discontinued after we started buying it and we bought 2 extra settings in case anything broke.)  It could work if we borrowed some extra folding chairs in addition to the tables.

But the menu?  Surveys taken in the U.S. of what people have for Thanksgiving dinner all sounded the same - “turkey and all the fixings” until people were pressed in later surveys about which “fixings” they have.  It was then discovered that while turkey was generally a given (short of vegetarians or such) the side dishes varied greatly by the part of the country people were from, as well as their ethnic backgrounds – some even had chicken instead of turkey.  While my in-laws had been going out for Thanksgiving dinner for a number of years, when they had the dinner at home of course there was a macaroni with tomato sauce course and Italian pastries for dinner.  My family when Thanksgiving was at home would have chicken soup and then turkey, vegetables, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pies... My family though, for some time had been going out to a kosher deli for Thanksgiving dinner as an aunt was kosher.  Since mom would make a turkey for dinner (with lots of leftovers for other meals) a couple of times a year, when confronted with dinner in a kosher deli – my sisters and I went for corned beef sandwiches as we did not get them as often as turkey.  So compromise was needed in the dinner menu.  We settled on a traditional menu – turkey, corn, green beans, stuffing – I think the first year was the year I tried to make my own stuffing which included chestnuts which I had never cooked before – mashed potatoes, and I baked pies for dessert.  Somehow it all worked and worked well, so we continued making the Thanksgiving dinner.  We moved into our house during October – finishing up October 31 and still made Thanksgiving dinner in our newly bought house.  There were adjustments – dining room would not hold the two long tables end to end or next to each other, so we built a setup of plywood which clamped to our old kitchen table (which was in the dining room as it was too large for our small kitchen) to make a large, square table.  (Eventually we bought a dining room table which fit 14 if we squeezed in.)  Nieces and a nephew joined our number along the way.  Once or twice husband's best friend from high school joined us.  Husband's sister's mother-in-law joined us.

The annual dinner came to an end the year we had bed bugs.  Of course that year we could not have anyone as the house had been recently treated for the bugs and was in disarray (real disarray – sofa cushions and such all over the floor clothing, towels and fabric out – all due to the treatment) and we did not have the families in for Thanksgiving and we went to an inexpensive restaurant for our dinner.  Since then we have not felt comfortable having people in the house as we cannot deal with having bedbugs ever again and terrified of getting them.  After a few years of going out for Thanksgiving dinner, we started cooking dinner for ourselves.  

This year was a challenge.  Our dining room table was covered with the excess canned, bottled, jarred, and packaged foods we have due to the pandemic.  Husband suggested we eat at the kitchen table this year.  I pointed out to him (and after the holiday he agreed) that we needed the kitchen table for carving, filling bowls, storing items waiting to be used as we have very little counters pace and only 1/3 of it (about 30 inches long) would be available to use.

So I had to clear off my work table in our studio (dining room is on one of the kitchen – studio on the other side) and move all the food there.  Two evenings work – but everything was going well.  I even managed to put out my Thanksgiving decorations (not all of them are bears) including paper ones my niece made for me decades ago (she is 30 now).  

By now the setup is repetitive – I know which bowls and platters I will use for serving which food.  I know I need to add one board to our dining room so it is large enough to hold the bowls and platters.  I baked the pies the night before.  I got up early (well, for us) on Thanksgiving and took the turkey out of the refrigerator and turned on the oven to preheat.  Back to sleep for an hour and then down again to put the turkey in the oven and then back to bed again.  Everything was going according to plan – as it always does.  Each item being cooked at the time it needed to be – or so I thought.  

The turkey had come out and cooled off.  We were almost ready to eat.  Husband asked me where the mashed potatoes were – uh oh!  Normally I make mashed potatoes from scratch and use boxed stuffing mix.  This year as we are avoiding buying fresh produce due to the corona virus and not wanting to get items which were unwrapped when purchased and had been touched by others we had decided to go with instant mashed potatoes.  Well, at least they and the boxed stuffing were quick to make when we realized I had not made them – and while we were waiting for the water for each to boil – husband noticed that we had not heated up the (canned) gravy.  Yes, there is a reason I was so disorganized this year – actually 2 reasons – I had not bothered to periodically check my list of what I was making.  (I keep the list each year for each holiday dinner I make in a spiral notebook – I filled it front to back and am now using it back to front – the list was there, I just did not look.) The other reason – while this year husband is bored from staying in so that we don't get Covid-19 and decided to help. In telling him what I needed him to do, I lost track of what I was doing.  

Of course it was a great meal anyway.  So far we have leftovers for dinner 3 times and he had a turkey sandwich once.  2 people, one turkey is a lot of leftovers including turkey broth made with the carcass late Thanksgiving dinner.  

Every item used was washed that night & air dried in 3 groupings, some help with drying on the first 2 groupings.  The dining room was back to its prior state by the next day.  The good china, etc, was put away by then also.  

I have spent the week since clearing up what was around in the dining room before we started – reenacting items not stored in their box benches, stuff from my family house sitting on extra chairs as we did not know where to put it.  Small amount of stuff to go back out to our RV as we brought them to use them in the house in the past year.  Excess pans and racks which had been removed from the oven over the past year.  Dented food cans that husband still not will get rid of and we want to keep away from the ones in the studio that are okay to use are in a line under one of the box benches in the dining room.  3 large boxes of food still in dining room – I will try to move them to the studio, but need to move things from the living room there first or we will not be able to put the tree and other decorations in the living room.  If worse comes to worse, the food boxes can stay in the dining room (perhaps a table cloth over them?)  Yes, the dining room is back in better organization than it was before the holiday so that I can decorate it for Christmas.  

Next I start on the living room.  Husband has until the middle of December to use it as his “loom room” for his weaving (our agreement is he gets it from mid January to mid December as his loom room and I get the other month for Christmas decorating), but I can get started moving out his inventory and the large DVD chest (latter stores in the dining room for the holiday against the side wall and he made it on wheels so it is relatively easy to move) in the interim.  Since last year we did not get around to decorating in the house – I know if we don't this year, we may never do so again.  

Outdoor lights went up the day after Thanksgiving.  We found ourselves short 4 strands of lights  - they had expired last year or in the interim – one set only half the bulbs lit.  We did not want to the store (as we go out rarely these months for health safety) so decided to work with what we had.  Our the trees on each end each have only 2 strands not 3, the bush next to one tree has only the lights from that tree traveling over its top on its way to the electric outlet.  On the other end – we normally wrap red lights (with white wires) around the white post of our mail box – this year instead those lights are on the bush in front of the mail box.  On the other side of the front steps (back towards that first tree) are the remaining set of lights.  Not bad considering.  Our door wreath lights with batteries and is up on its magnetic hook (left from last year) and is lit up.  The battery candle lights are in the front windows on their timers.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

This year we need the holidays – whichever holiday or holidays one celebrates this time of year – more than ever to try to spark some joy (and a bit of almost normalcy) in our lives.  If one can not put up/set up everything one normally does, we must do our best with what we can setup.  It is a year like no other in the memory of most of us.  We must try to do what we can to make our holidays as normal as we can while staying distant and safe so we will be here for next year's holidays and celebrations.  

NOTE -

When I went to publish this post – I found  I had written a post last week – but since it duplicates part of this weeks post – I have deleted it. 

CLEANING, AND ORGANIZATION OR ONE CAN LOSE ONE'S TOYS

Have you found that time is passing slowly and too fast at the same time?  It does for me.  Like many others staying home during this Covid-19 pandemic I had big plans for the time we would be stuck home and made a mental list of what needs to be to done in the house and also of what I wanted to get done in the house.  Most of it involving either cleaning or organizing.  I am still inching along. 

I am not the best housekeeper in the world, but I used to be a lot better.  When husband was working full time – and out of the house --  I had a set a housework schedule.   I did housework on Wednesdays with the kitchen and the downstairs dusting and floors done on one week, then the upstairs bathroom, floors and dusting on the next, with the downstairs bathroom, dusting and floors  on the next, the upstairs dusting and floors done again on the 4th week of the month.  On months with a 5th Wednesday I would do tasks that did not need to be done as often. 

Then my husband quit his job – it was not a spontaneous choice, we had discussed it, set up rules (me - “You cannot be with me every minuted of every day or I will kill you.” and “It is not vacation so we cannot eat out everyday.”) and so on.  At first it all went as planned – we would eat lunch (at home) on Mondays and discuss the week ahead when I had things to do, he had things he wanted to do and when and what we do together or apart.  Housework was still done on a regular basis.  I still had several accounting clients so I was out of the house at least the equivalent once a week for work and he was working in his wood  shop making items for us to sell at craft fairs. First mistake I made – I used to go out for lunch alone on Fridays.  Mondays and Fridays I would run errands – and Fridays I would go out for lunch (inexpensively) by myself.  I called it “going out for lunch with the office” as I was “the office”.  First Friday he was home I offered for him to join me “this one time”.  Guess what?  Yes, Friday lunch out was added to our normal Saturday and Sunday lunches out and Friday dinner out followed along with our Saturday night dinner out and Sunday night take in Chinese food for dinner. 

This was about a year before the economic problems of 2008.  I lost clients as long time (and older) clients decided it was too hard to deal with their businesses, shut them down and retired.  So I was home more (and getting less done).  At the same time the price of gasoline jumped – high.  Husband pointed out to me that it made no sense for me to spend money on the gas to drive to the supermarket and for him to spend money on the gas to drive to Home Depot – separately – when both were in the same shopping center. 

Little by little this took over until we reached the point we were at before the pandemic – lunch out at Wendys 5 days a week, dinner out or Chinese food in – 3 day weekends, and spending almost all our time together.  Somewhere along the way I stopped cleaning the house on Wednesdays – or for that matter – mostly stopped cleaning it altogether.

I have been trying to catch up on cleaning and putting stuff away since we have been stuck home.  It is sort of working – not as regular as before, but getting done.  Much time is still taken up not doing anything.  We tend to stay at the table after lunch and watch TV a bit longer than we used to (or I would like).  I am am trying to get back to how I used to get the work done. 

Early in after Corona reared its head it dawned on me that if one of us became ill with it, we had no place for us to sleep separately.  We have a spare bedroom – with a bed – which intended as a guest room and was used as same 3 times in the earlier years in the house – all 3 times by my niece and once also by her brother, my nephew (they were small children at the time and could share the bed).  Since then my teddy bears have taken over the room – on shelves, pictures on the walls, sitting on the bed, and so on.  There are also older video games and such stored in the room.  Over the years our spare luggage and husband's out of season clothing moved into the closet in this room.  My dollhouse that husband made for me when we were dating is in the room.  Also in the room is spare things including a portable (analog) TV and a small wooden bench husband made (TV sits on the bench). 

Back in March the small floor space in the room was covered in bears and their things and the TV/bench.  In April when the thought of one of us needing to sleep in there came to mind, husband could not take any mention of either of us getting ill (not that he would be happy to hear about it now – but then it was no mention to be made.  Instead I told him that I had space in the trunk under the teddy bear village in the upstairs hall that used to be used for Christmas storage and I wanted to store items floating around the spare bedroom in it.  This process cleared out space to be able to get next to the bed and I also found stuff to use for the teddy village.  I thought I did a great job of making the room usable.

Two things this past month made me realize that I did not do such a good job.  When our bedroom air conditioner was not working I offered for husband to sleep in the (single) bed in the spare bedroom and I would make myself up something to sleep on the floor next to the bed.  He walked into the room and glanced around.  “Ummm, it will need a lot of work – it has not been dusted in years and if we slept in here we would get sick and be sneezing like crazy.  Also there is not enough room on the floor for you to sleep and me go to get up and go to the bathroom without stepping on you.  Not going to work.”  Okay, I tried – now I know I have to go in there and give the room a good cleaning.  Even worse for me, though, I had to move the teddy bear village to store in the trunk under it.  I had stored away the bears in the Christmas set up in the village to do so.  Well, now it was July and I went to set up an Independence Day village of bears and came up missing a bear that had been out for the Christmas village.  (These bears are figurines and small plastic toys not stuffed toys.)  As I looked for her, I realized that other bears were missing also.  I have looked everywhere for them – I cleaned up all of the packing, bears, and stuff that are used for the village during the year.  I went to the basement and unpacked and repacked all of the bears in the 3 medium sized boxes of bears from the Christmas setup.  I even took the village apart again and emptied out the trunk under it – no missing bears found.  My next step will involve clearing out and cleaning up the spare room some more.  At this point the only 2 things I can think of is that I shoved a box of bears under the bed or (horrible to think) I threw the box out!  So at time in the coming week we will see if the TV in the room still works and then – whether it does or not – we will move it and the bench out of the room so I have the room to lie down and look under the bed and hopefully find a box of missing bears with other items that I know are stored under there. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

I guess husband was right about not enough room for me to sleep and him walk in and out of bed if I cannot lie down and look under the bed.  I hate it when he is right.  Then again, if I had been more careful when I took the Christmas village down – I would know where the missing bears were. 

COVID 19 #10 PICKING UP MEDICATIONS AT PHARMACY AND ORDERING FOOD ONLINE FOR DELIVERY

To finish up about picking up our prescriptions – I called on Thursday to check that all had been renewed for each of us and all were ready.  We get our prescriptions at the pharmacy at a local Walmart – they have been really great and helpful even before the current pandemic.  They do not, however deliver.  For some reason none of the Walmarts on Long Island deliver anything – ever – or, currently, have pre order and pick up – they will, however, bring prescriptions out to the car.  So on Thursday we donned our masks and drove to Walmart.  We parked near the exit and I telephoned.  A very nice employee brought out our prescriptions and had a remote reader so we could use our credit card to pay for them – it is not usable for anything other than prescriptions – I had asked if they could add 2 tubes of denture adhesive to the order and they could not.  She sent me a text with a list of what had been charged.  We thanked her and drove home.

We had expected to see based on what we have seen on TV news shows and what I have heard on the various groups I read online that there would be a line to get into the Walmart (and the unrelated supermarket next to it) with one person coming  out of the store and one going in, people going in and out of the store wearing masks – spread out and not near each other.  As we sat waiting for our medications to be brought out – the Walmart looked more crowded than it does at Christmas!!  No spacing of people coming out.  Few people (other than employees) wearing masks – we were shocked.  The supermarket did not have anyone at the entrance either, though it did seem emptier than the Walmart from outside.  It was our first chance to see what was going “the world around here” and it was not what we expected, had seen on TV or heard from others online.

When we arrived home I stopped in the porch. I sprayed alcohol on pieces of paper towels and wiped down the medication bottles and handed them to husband in the kitchen.  One medication which we each take was not in a bottle as usual – it was in boxes with strips of punch outs for the individual pills.  I pulled the strips out of the boxes and did not wipe the strips, just handed to husband.  The boxes, along with the paperwork for each med went into a zip plastic bag to hold for awhile.  Husband's box of insulin pens, I should mention, was wiped down and put in the fridge first.  As I went along I realized that we were missing two items – husband's blood meter strips (had mine) and one of his blood pressure pills – not the one that we had been told we had to wait for Thursday to get them.  We also could not figure out the texted payment statement.

I telephoned the pharmacy – they had forgotten to give his meter strips.  They had not been able to renew the bp medication as it was too soon by 2 weeks. I expressed surprise as I had received paperwork from our medical insurance company had said that early renewals were allowed.  She went over the charges with me.  I then called our insurance company and complained about the no early renewal and questioned what we had been charged for the medication in strips – apparently we had received the name brand version not the usual generic, hence the extra charge – only US$14 extra for the two of us – so not much, just wanted to know why.  The other item that was a problem I knew what the problem was and it will work itself out and we get a refund of the overcharge. 

So next week – I will call in his strips and his missing medication again and we will have to go there again to get them.

On Monday, husband decided that we needed to order more food.  He had a list of what we needed.  I had a list of what we needed – no they were not the same, but there were overlaps.  He went online and put in an order from Walmart.  I had expected what happened with BJs would happen with Walmart – order taken, but then contacted that most things out.  No, Walmart listed items were in stock – some even said that were 3 or 5 or whatever low number were left in stock.  The first items were to be delivered today, Wednesday.  First item came yesterday!  6 boxes came today – 5 more items to come tomorrow – most items are coming sooner than told – that is good.  A number of cans were dented (40%), some cardboard box packages were dented.  Two bottle of cooking oil had been, we presume, jammed so hard into the box hat the top of them is bent and does not pop back up – maybe they will when they are opened.  Husband emailed Walmart.  They apologized and refunded the damaged cans.  Not happy with the damaged items – but at least they stood behind the deliveries. 

Again the boxes went into our side porch.  I opened the boxes and wiped down each item with alcohol sprayed paper towel pieces and handed to husband. If we could open a box in the porch and dump the contents into a plastic box of ours- we did and tossed the boxes.  After all this I then had to find “homes” for all we bought. 

No refrigerated or frozen items.  We will have to go out sometime in the next two weeks to buy additional meat items and frozen items – especially vegetables.  Husband said so to me – I have been afraid to mention to him and have him go crazy. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When an emergency comes along life changes.  Never thought we would ever order food delivered – but we need to avoid going out.  One does what needs to do to adjust and live on. 

Please make sure that you and your loved ones are safe and continue to be.  Wear a mask when you go out – if you don't think you need one - it couldn't hurt could it?  Stay away from others when outside – why take a chance?  I want you to be reading – or ignoring – me for a long time to come.

For those in the U.S.- have a safe Memorial Day.  For those who are veterans – Thank you for your service. 

Mom's house and doctors plus stored away Christmas

Mom is taking much of everyone's time again.  Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch once said of his mother - “One mother can take care of 6 children, but 6 children cannot take care of one mother”.  It is true.  I have 2 sisters, we each have a husband, but there is a niece and nephew – that is 8 adults to divide up taking care of mom.

The family house is cleared out – mostly due to my sisters, brother-in-laws, and niblings.  ( I had invented a genderless word for nieces and nephews combined as there should be one – niblings.  When I posted this on some group that I am on, someone replied that someone before me had come up with a word for nieces and nephews combined – guess what it was – yes, they also came up with niblings.  I am now spreading the word in hope that this long missing word becomes common. Now I need a common word for aunts and uncles – any ideas out there?)  There is a broker showing the house now.  So, new problems come up. 

The family house is in the county and township as husband and I live in. The county (and included townships and a city) has had for decades ongoing problems with the local real estate taxes and how properly the houses are assessed for the value to be taxed,  In attempting to fix one problem an entirely new one arose.  One can “grieve” their assessment (value of the house to be used for the real estate tax calculations) which means that one files with the county and says that the amount they say the house is worth is wrong and it should be less.  There is no downside to this – they cannot raise your assessment, only lower it if they agree with you.  One can do this one's self or one can use one of several companies which do the paperwork and deal with the county for you.  Husband and I have done this for a long time with a company and our house value has always been lowered.  Mom has not done in the past until last year (which is for next year's taxes) as she was afraid of losing her senior  partial exemption from part of the school tax (part of the real estate taxes), though I had assured her it would not.   

Two problems arose with the sale of the house related to the real estate taxes.  First one is that since mom has this senior exemption she amount she pays for real estate taxes is probably less than someone buying her house will pay (it based on income and being over 65 plus one cannot have children in school).  The second is that the broker told my sister that mom's taxes are terribly high – higher than the neighbor next door with the same model house, with additions that mom does not have.  So yesterday my sister emailed me for help with same – since I am in the same county/township and know the system.  First thing I did was take the copies of mom's tax bills that my sister emailed to me and add up what the tax would be without the senior exemption – took a little time as I had to add up all the lines of taxes – once I had the total percentage of the taxes that are charged all I had to do was multiply the assessed value (a small percentage of the actual value of the property/house) by this total percent of taxes and there it was.  Even with both the school and other real estate taxes added together it was much less than the broker said it was.  Also I telephoned the company which is handling the appeal and they said that due to the county revaluing all the properties in an attempt to even off the assessments mom's assessment will go down as she had not appealed her taxes while other had.  I emailed all this to my sister and mentioned that the broker should be able to figure out what the full real estate taxes on a property is. 

Well, a thought occurred to me today  - there is another house in the county, in a different township, which has the same address.  We found this out one year a couple of decades ago when mom's check to pay her real estate taxes was returned to her marked that the taxes had already been paid by someone else.  I was going to check on same, but found an email from my sister that she had already thought of this and the huge high taxes (the taxes on this house are so high compared to other houses on the street that it does not make sense at all and there will be problems selling the house) and checked – the taxes the broker has is about $6,000 a year more than per mom's bill or on line and is actually the real estate taxes for the other house with the same address.  My sister will tell this to the broker, as well as pointing out that the value of the house for the next year's taxes (starts in September) will be lower as value of the house is lower and I will get a letter from a the company handling the grieving of the assessment saying that same is being done.  (Based on mail I receive from them for our house this should not be hard and mom should actually have had this paperwork at home – but her records were lacking as well as the letters might be in the stacks of papers I still have here to go through.)

At the same time I was relaxing from taking mom to the various doctors and thinking “Good, we have time now and can get her to a plastic surgeon for the possible cancer growths on her face and get to Costco for hearing aids .  Oh, well,  It is about 3 months since we last took her to the oncologist, the surgeon for her cancer and the cardiologist who put in her replacement pacemaker.  Guess what – they all either wanted her back in 3 months or wanted blood work done.  So I have an appointment set up with her surgeon.  I asked doctor's staff if mom needed blood work and they had to check with the doctor and get back to me – did so today and I have to call back and give them the info for the “wellness” office at her residence as they will do the blood work there.  I already gave that info to her oncologist – I had given the wellness office two sets of paperwork for blood work in November, they did the first one and apparently lost the second one to be done now.  Hopefully the two sets of tests will be done together so poor mom does not have to be stuck twice for blood.  We have an appointment for to have her pacemaker battery tested at the doctor's office, but they were suppose to set up for when one of their staff goes to mom's residence (lots of heart patients there – not surprising) to do test the pacemaker there.  Have not heard back so I have to make sure they are set up to do that and then cancel the appointment.  So, we are back on the doctors-go-round, luckily the doctor from heck does not need to be seen for a couple of months.

And it is about to be my work busy season – income tax season!

I did manage to take down and store away our small Christmas tree and Christmas stuffed dolls, pillows, and stockings – a small assortment of what I normally put out.  I switched out a set of bear figurines that I keep in the living room and change by month to keep it seasonal and went from Christmas – the bears for same were only half put out on display – to February (Valentine's Day and bear “dressed” as cherry pie for Geo Washington's birthday).  The Christmas ones are all stored away in their boxes.  My Teddy Bear Christmas village never actually was finished and will be partially taken down soon, with some bears added and others rearranged for Valentine's Day.  One can only do what one can do – and this Christmas season was not one that had time to get everything done. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Mom's doctors, blood work and related comes first – health over all other things.  

HAPPY NEW YEAR - I STILL DO NOT MAKE RESOLUTIONS

Well, another year gone by – they really do seem to go by faster and faster. 

As those of you who have been reading my posts for over a year (and I thank you for doing so) I don't believe in making resolutions.  I never kept them and felt guilty for not doing so.  Instead I just decide that what is past is past and the future is a clean slate.

We still are running behind on getting things in life done. 

The Saturday before Christmas I realized that there was no way that our extensive (okay, overly and ridiculously extensive) inside Christmas decorations would be put up before or during Christmas.  We were doing three nights with our reenactment unit at an 18th century house in a local restoration village.  The event is annual, with the days for it changing every year.  It is a candlelight night event – each house is lit as it would have been in the period it is displayed and the Christmas decorations also match the period.  The other houses in the village are set in the 1800s; the one we interpret is set in the late 1700s – we say to the guests coming in that it is 1775, the year that our unit generally “is in”.  While it is an evening event husband and I have to start dressing by 3 pm to drive there and have the set up on time and by the time we shut the house down (a lot of candles to blow out and we have to make sure that no one in our unit left anything behind) , lock it up, drive home and change back to modern clothing it is around 11 pm and we are making dinner and sitting down to eat it.  So basically the days we do this event – we do almost nothing else.  So I would not getting to work on decorating the house on Saturday or Sunday night.   I had to take 2 more (online) exams for my professional education to work next year and I would have left – Monday before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, Thursday after Christmas, and Monday before New Year's Eve to take the classes.  Not being completely crazy I knew that I had to take them Sunday after the event and Monday nights, so that on the extremely, extremely rare chance I did not pass both exams and had to take one (or the other) class again, I had a chance to do so.  Hence, there would no time to put up the decorations, especially since our living room was not cleared up from husband's weaving due to a recent sales event we went to, the dining room still had stuff for the RV in it (I tried to take same out the week before – but it was COLD and husband did not want me to open the RV door as it would make it cold inside(?).)  Plus reenacting stuff that stores in the box/benches that we bring to event and they are kept along the dining room walls – and they needed “straightening up”.  So as all this hit while at the reenactment event, I fought back a couple of tears and decided that even if 80 or 90% of our Christmas is the decorations, it just would not be this year.  Since we were married the only year we have not decorated for Christmas in the house was the year we had the bed bugs – oh, well, 2 years of 40 is not a bed record. 

I thought about what to do as an alternative.  I was concerned about telling husband about the no decorations – he looks forward to them.  I came up with I would set up the small tree that we normally set up in our studio covered with ornaments we have made, in the living room on a table and put a limited number of favored ornaments on it.  I approached husband about this and said to him “We are not going to have decorations this year.” His reaction was that he had already realized this and had been afraid to say anything to me about it as he did not want me to take it as a challenge. I told him of my plan about the small tree and he thought it a great idea. 

I set the tree up on Christmas Eve afternoon.  I also wrapped the gifts for his nieces and for him that afternoon.   We have most of the decorations in 6 large plastic boxes.  I store the boxes in a corner of our basement.  To make life easy when I put the house decorations on top of the pile, so I just took those boxes off the stack and put them aside (on matching boxes that hold the bear village Christmas stuff in a separate pile as the stack would be too tall otherwise for the room).  I store the ornaments in 4 boxes which are numbered so the nicest ones are in box 1 to be featured and get prime choice of locations, down to box 4 which has the fill in at the end decorations.  So I opened box 1 on the top of the pile and looked in – I made the angel we use on the tree and she has two friends that husband I also stitched – they came out.  Then I was looking at what else was there and convenient.  I took out more ornaments that we have made and went upstairs to set up the tree. 

I had planned to put the tree on an outdoor type of table with slats that husband uses for setting up his loom – but the feet of the stand did not match the slat positions.  I stood and tried to think where I could I find something to put on the tabletop – thought of a small table that we take to reenactment events and  the top of it was in the dining room.  It fit the table perfectly and even though there is hardware under it to attach the legs, it did not rock.  I was concerned the three might scratch it and that might upset husband so I went looking for something fabric to put on it.  I found two old, worn hand towels in green.  I covered the table, set up the tree, and then folded the towels over the stand to make a tree skirt – perfect.   

I put the ornaments I had brought upstairs on the tree.  Much too bare.  Back to box 1 in the basement.  Hmmm, ornaments dated with the year we got married – good, ornaments of Geo Washington and Thomas Jefferson and their houses, good.  What else?  Luckily I label the small (old gift) boxes that hold the ornaments as several are packed in each one and the only way to get them back in the boxes is to know what goes in each, so I was able to scan the outside of the boxes and find some ornaments from a Folk craft festival we have gone to since we started dating.  I left it at that – with actual blank space on the tree.  As I went through wrapping the gifts and such I found a new ornament we bought (crafts store going out of business $1 teddy bear ornament for 50c – had to buy same) and the membership one we received from Colonial Williamsburg for 2019 – both of them were added.  I did not have the on/off switched extension cord,which is stored with the large tree, so found a regular one and we plug and unplug the tree by hand. Oh, and there was a large light up teddy bear on the box stack, so I brought him upstairs and sat him on the bench husband uses when weaving.  Finished, such as it was to be.

We went out for Christmas Eve dinner to the Asian buffet we go to a weekend night.  When there we discussed the decorations.  Husband said to me “How hard would be it to get out the Christmas stockings also?” So they went out also when we got home.

As the week went alone we decided that we missed the Christmas and Chanukah teddy bears (and some stuffed friends of theirs.  New Year's Eve I managed to pull most if not all of them from their storage box and put them out.  I also decorated the tree in the Teddy Village the same night.  Right now it is New Year's Day night – I had planned to finish setting up the village with the bears “that come to the parade” today or tonight, but husband had plans to go out for dinner (Wendys) and then a movie so I did not have a chance – just got home from the movies and I am writing to all of you (will get them) out tomorrow.

So, we did what we felt was the minimum decorating  for the holidays that we felt comfortable with.  The walls of Jericho did not shake and fall.  Most people might even think it plenty of decorating.  I plan next year to make sure it all goes up on time.  Today when we shut off the RV from charging its batteries (plugged it in yesterday) I finally moved the rest of the stuff for it back into the RV for the winter and got my spare pair of warm socks out of it to wash and use during the winter.

Normally on Wednesdays I start laundry for the week - not this week, as we went to the movies.  The laundry will get done tomorrow and Friday, maybe even Saturday.  I write and send out the newsletter for my embroidery chapter the last Wednesday of the month as we meet the first Wednesday – since this month we are meeting the second Wednesday (a meeting on New Year's Day would not work), I started it before we went out for dinner – it will be a day late – hey, sometimes that happens, it will still be in plenty of time before the meeting. 

There is only so much time that I have use and I have to deal with that idea.  What can be done is done, what cannot, has to ignored and/ore delayed.  I hope over the next year in general to be better caught up on everything which has been slipping our fingers this past year plus and get life back to a normal level of unfinished things. 

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

You can only do what you can do with the time you have – try to let the small things go.  If you did make resolutions last year and did not keep them, see what is important and try to do better at one or two of them and don't make a long list of resolutions as then you will not keep any of them.  Just try to deal with one or two problem and see where you go from there.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.