A late post, my apologies. Today I will point out the importance and urgency of backing up one’s computer. Yes, these two subjects are related.
I normally write my posts using my laptop computer. It is relatively new - bought in December 2018. It is Windows 10 and I complain about a lot about it. But over the almost 2 years I have had it I have “moved in” and gotten used to it more or less.
I have a desktop computer upstairs in our office (which just to mention, no real need to do so, is Windows 7). I don’t like change and often say that change, especially unwanted change, is never good. I keep my laptop in the kitchen to use in the evening and I use it also when going to out to clients for work - it’s intended purpose, but has been rare use of it this year due to the Covid 19 shutdowns and limitations, as I went to my business client in January and February only - she has been closed since then and taxes were prepared by having clients mail their information to me.
I am VERY good about backing up my computers and my data. Husband usually thinks I go overboard. When he realized I was backing up my laptop also he sort of gave me a “yeah, well, I guess so” about it.
I keep my data on flash drives - you know, those little stick things. I back up the data after each session at the computer onto alternating additional flash drives - I call then A and B to keep track. At the end of each week I do another data backup onto a weekly backup flash drive -this one I have 6 of each the data backups and overwrite the oldest one each week - I do this because i had a problem with my calendar data once and did not realize it until I had overwritten both the A and B backup drives with the bad data.
In more recent years, and more important to this saga, I started backing up my entire computer completely to two external hard drives in addition to my data backups. I back up around the 15th of the month (too many things to do at month’s end and start) onto one of the external hard drives. I will back up, say February 15, 2020 for the month of January in a file labeled as 2020 Q1. I will then back up by updating that file on March 15 and again on April 15, starting a new file for second quarter on May 15. I do this with both my desktop and my laptop computer.
I also make a backup onto the other external hard drive quarterly - so at about the same time I make the monthly backup on April 15 (and so on) I also make an all new backup for the quarter to the other external hard drive. My husband thinks that all of this overkill.
And now the reason I mention all of this -
This past Sunday I used my laptop computer as normal to read the newspaper (we normally get the print edition, but, due to the Corona virus, we did not want the physical paper in the house each day, and are entitled to the online version, so I have reading same - I do not particularly like reading it this way, but as I have learned, at least I was able to read the paper), and I was able to start reading my Monday comics early, play a bit of Solitaire (I swear the computer cheats) and then shut it down to go to bed.
Monday evening after dinner I set up my laptop to read the newspaper. It would not turn on. The power indicator light was dark. The light next to the power button did not come on when I pushed it (over and over again). Nothing - dead - D E A D - dead. Battery should have been fully charged and even that did not help. Husband took it upstairs to see what he could do. He tried a variety of things. Unlike my other, older laptops it does not have removable battery - normal thing for them would be to remove the battery, while it was not plugged in and see if doing so and replacing the battery restarted it. He found online a way to do this with my computer and it did not work.
So on Tuesday I telephoned the store I bought it from (store gives a second year warranty included so it is still covered) and the information was taken and I have to send it to them for repair. Scares the heck out of me both because of our general problems with deliveries to the house (normally would have it come back to our PO Box, but since we are not picking mail, I cannot do that) and the fact that all of my passwords, appointment book, etc are in it and not on separate data due to the need for them to be on the computer itself and will be available to them to see when they get it running again.
Now, I understand that there is a check list for the employees to follow, but some sense is needed. My computer will not start - she told me I should make a back up - how the heck does one do that when the computer will not start - I pointed this out to her and said that I did have 2 backups about a week old. (And my data is backed up daily so I have that as my last session on the computer.) We then received the list of photos we had to take of the computer and email to them - first one, as well as several of the others requested was to be taken with the computer turned on? A photo of the problem - well here it is a blank screen - and we also took photos of the power lights not on. My husband had checked the electric cord with a voltage meter, so we know it is not the cord.
We were told that the box they were sending to us for us to use to send the laptop to them was coming by UPS 2 day. I sit here on the night of the second day after I called and still do not have it. It should come tomorrow by 9 pm. Today it was pouring and windy here. Tomorrow the remnants of Hurricane Zeta will passing through - presuming the box is dropped on our front steps or driveway as is normal it may blow away as well as possibly getting soaked.
In the ensuing time - I went to sign in on my older laptop (a Windows XP) to read the newspaper on Tuesday night. Uh oh! I have never done so before on it - and my password list from my laptop is ..... in a notepad file in the computer!! I finally found a piece of paper on which I had written down the sign in and password and tried to sign into the newspaper - it does not work. It works on husband’s cell phone and it works on my desktop computer, but not on my old laptop!
Last evening when I should have posted to all of you, I could not - as I did not the password to do so. Today, I copied out the passwords from my desktop computer onto a flash drive and will make a copy of them - and here I am.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you do not do so - start backing up your computer as soon as possible. One never knows when one will need it, as I so recently found out. We have also used backups in the past when something has gone wrong in one of our computers. And back up your data also and more often. More than one back up, as I do, is a good idea -just in case.
AN IMPORTANT REMINDER -
If you are able to vote in the U.S. - VOTE!! It is a privilege to be able to do so and this year more than ever, a few votes one way or the other can make a big difference. I say this not knowing if those of you out there lean the same way as I do and I very well might be sending more votes to the candidate I do not choose, but it is everyone’s right to choose and to vote and voting is a right which should not be taken lightly.
While speaking by telephone with my 91 year old mother a week ago, after we greeted each other, she told me that she had gotten her vote by mail ballot (she can not go out of her assisted living this year to vote) and her residence had an employee assigned to collect the completed vote by mail forms and bring them to their local polling place for the residents. She then made sure my husband and I had plans to vote - we did so already - as she knows the importance of voting. (And I am not sure that her national votes will not offset mine, but we all have the right to vote and should exercise that right.)
Showing posts with label backing up computer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label backing up computer. Show all posts
Friday, October 30, 2020
TO BACK UP OR NOT TO BACK UP, THAT SHOULD NEVER BE THE QUESTION!
Thursday, October 17, 2019
CAR - VAN - RV
Well we made it last Thursday to the RV dealer in PA – left at 8:30 am, arrived at noon – should have been 2 ½ hours was 3 ½. We were able to keep in sight of each other almost the entire trip – which kept husband happy. He was worried about traveling alone and we could not find anyone to go with him – the night before I had an idea (after he went to bed). I took 2 of the smaller stuffed teddy bears I have (under 6 inches tall), put them in a small box and sat the box on the passenger seat of our van which he was driving to the dealer (so we could come home after we left the RV) and seat belted the box in place – if he felt alone he could just glance down at them – don't laugh, it worked. We did have walkie talkies with us – which worked except for one spot that had static – so we could talk enroute. I was in front in our RV so he could see me ahead of him and I could also let him know what was happening on the road ahead. When we did this before (we had to drive the car and the RV both home from buying the RV) we would meet up at each rest area on the 2 turnpikes we drove on. This time there was only one of them available to us due to construction and closing of a rest area. As we approached it – he was maybe 2 -3 cars behind me – I told him that while we did not meet up, I did need to make a stop. No problem finding the RV dealer for either of us, which was good as they just got a new location for their service center. We left the RV and left in the van.
The RV dealer sales office was on one side of a road and the service center on the other. There is a shopping center a block from the dealer where we have spent many a day while having work done on the RV and were worried that with the new location we would not be able to do so. (Normally we just go in the RV and walk around the stores while they work on it, get the RV back and drive home or to Lancaster for a trip.) As we drove to the shopping center, we looked – it is less than half a mile further away and there is a safe place to walk the entire distance – sigh of relief. We went to the stores for lunch before starting home. Since it was only around 12:30 it was a bit early for us – who normally eat lunch at 2 pm, so we went to a small dollar store located in the shopping center. For some reason this dollar store always seems to have different things than other ones – found a small toy bear for the village. Lunch at Wendys. We then decided to visit a supermarket that was “sort of” on the way back to the turnpike. Then we started home. Boy, the rush hour traffic near Philadelphia is worse than that at home. We got home around 6:30 pm – ordered a pizza for dinner – something we rarely do as it is too high in carbs for our Diabetes. Husband went to bed right after dinner.
We had the weekend to recover.
Over the weekend we drove our van as we were concerned about the car and NEEDED IT to take mom to the doctor – she has trouble in getting into the car – the van would be impossible. Saturday night husband noticed the van was leaking “something”. Sunday we figured it was antifreeze.
Uh oh!! We needed the van to drop the car at the transmission shop Tuesday morning. We could not cancel taking mom to the doctor – her battery is running out – what could we do. Luckily our mechanic is 4 blocks from us and he – and his guys – are very nice and understanding. Husband was up first thing Monday morning, called him and we left the van with him right away, luckily mom was a 4 pm doctor's appointment. While at the doctor's office I called and the van was fixed, needed a new water pump, well $500 isn't $1,000 at least - we picked it up after we went home from mom's appointment and stopped in Tuesday to pay for it.
Monday we took mom to the doctor – this one is to change out her pacemaker for a new one – the battery had less than 2 months left on it when it was tested a week ago – and unlike cell phones and many other devices, there is no way to plug it in and recharge it. This doctor is from the hospital system with an office at the hospital itself, and we anticipated the same mess and confusion. We were happily surprised that it was not so. Mom was in the exam room just about the time of her appointment. They scanned into their computer the papers my mom and sister had filled in, which had been mailed to her in advance and handed the originals back to me. Doctor came in promptly – had a good, gentle personality. He agreed that she needed a new pacemaker (they do not change out the batteries). He also knew the doctor who had done the original procedure on mom 10 years ago. We were called the next morning as we had been told we would be to set up the appointments for the procedure (exam and surgery). We will take her for the exam – between driving out there in rush hour and needing about an hour and a half to get mom out and to a place 20 minutes from her we cannot get up early enough to get there for the surgery and my sister who lives near her will take her and we will meet her. Drove mom back – I had arranged for her to sandwich in room as she missed dinner (does anyone eat dinner at 4:45pm?) and we settled her back into room after going to the wellness office to let them what we did and what they should expect to be asked for from the doctor's office.
Dropped the car at the transmission place Tuesday morning. They could not find anything wrong – it is a little off, but not such that it can be fixed as it does not have “a code” yet. So we have it back, but are concerned about driving it.
So now it is Wednesday again. I did manage to scan some magazine articles I pulled out years to keep. I have not left anything undone that should have been done this past week. Laundry is in washing – the timer is about to go off for me to switch loads… there it goes, be right back.
Back again. I back up my computer each time I have a work session on same and then once a week I back it up onto another flash drive – monthly and quarterly on or about 15th of the following month I back up the computer again. I went to back it yesterday on the regular daily drive backup (alternate between two drives). It would not do so. I ended up copying my data drive over again new. I tried to delete the old backup which would not update – but could not. So I ended up copying everything else off that drive (flash/stick drive) to an external hard drive, then formatting the stick drive and then copying the data back to the stick drive – and we had terrible storms here that ended up with us losing our electricity mid copying back to the stick drive! I had managed to back up the computer, data, calendar, and client data for last month and last quarter before I went back to getting the daily (B) drive back for use. 2 posts about how, why and when I back up my computer - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2016/05/organizing-your-computer-data-to.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2016/06/organizing-computer-files.html
I think I also posted that husband is not as regular in backing up and this has led to problems – most recently when his hard drive died and then the new one did also. (He has had a lot of problems with his computer lately – all involved with electricity, so we just bought and installed a new surge protector for his computer – hope that resolves it all.
Oh, we were called by the nice lady in our RV service department – the new batteries we bought (elsewhere, our mistake, trying to travel not as far) for the RV are no good. Having read about the scam artists that the place we had them installed in is – we are not sure if there was a problem with the batteries or we were given bad batteries on purpose so that we would come back and give them more money. Our RV service department is seeing what they can do with the warranty on the batteries before we lay out another $1000 for new batteries again.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
As crazy as we both get – luckily generally not at the same time – everything works out somehow. One or the other of us will keep our head and get the other one/both of us through the problem. Husband figured out to drive mom to the doctor and take the car to have the transmission looked at the day after same instead of trying to squeeze it into last week and having the transmission place not getting it back to us in time. I figured out to put the little bears in the car to keep him company.
Let those around you help you when they can. Don't go crazy – look for alternative ways to solve a problem that seems too big to deal with.
Back up your computer – soon!
The RV dealer sales office was on one side of a road and the service center on the other. There is a shopping center a block from the dealer where we have spent many a day while having work done on the RV and were worried that with the new location we would not be able to do so. (Normally we just go in the RV and walk around the stores while they work on it, get the RV back and drive home or to Lancaster for a trip.) As we drove to the shopping center, we looked – it is less than half a mile further away and there is a safe place to walk the entire distance – sigh of relief. We went to the stores for lunch before starting home. Since it was only around 12:30 it was a bit early for us – who normally eat lunch at 2 pm, so we went to a small dollar store located in the shopping center. For some reason this dollar store always seems to have different things than other ones – found a small toy bear for the village. Lunch at Wendys. We then decided to visit a supermarket that was “sort of” on the way back to the turnpike. Then we started home. Boy, the rush hour traffic near Philadelphia is worse than that at home. We got home around 6:30 pm – ordered a pizza for dinner – something we rarely do as it is too high in carbs for our Diabetes. Husband went to bed right after dinner.
We had the weekend to recover.
Over the weekend we drove our van as we were concerned about the car and NEEDED IT to take mom to the doctor – she has trouble in getting into the car – the van would be impossible. Saturday night husband noticed the van was leaking “something”. Sunday we figured it was antifreeze.
Uh oh!! We needed the van to drop the car at the transmission shop Tuesday morning. We could not cancel taking mom to the doctor – her battery is running out – what could we do. Luckily our mechanic is 4 blocks from us and he – and his guys – are very nice and understanding. Husband was up first thing Monday morning, called him and we left the van with him right away, luckily mom was a 4 pm doctor's appointment. While at the doctor's office I called and the van was fixed, needed a new water pump, well $500 isn't $1,000 at least - we picked it up after we went home from mom's appointment and stopped in Tuesday to pay for it.
Monday we took mom to the doctor – this one is to change out her pacemaker for a new one – the battery had less than 2 months left on it when it was tested a week ago – and unlike cell phones and many other devices, there is no way to plug it in and recharge it. This doctor is from the hospital system with an office at the hospital itself, and we anticipated the same mess and confusion. We were happily surprised that it was not so. Mom was in the exam room just about the time of her appointment. They scanned into their computer the papers my mom and sister had filled in, which had been mailed to her in advance and handed the originals back to me. Doctor came in promptly – had a good, gentle personality. He agreed that she needed a new pacemaker (they do not change out the batteries). He also knew the doctor who had done the original procedure on mom 10 years ago. We were called the next morning as we had been told we would be to set up the appointments for the procedure (exam and surgery). We will take her for the exam – between driving out there in rush hour and needing about an hour and a half to get mom out and to a place 20 minutes from her we cannot get up early enough to get there for the surgery and my sister who lives near her will take her and we will meet her. Drove mom back – I had arranged for her to sandwich in room as she missed dinner (does anyone eat dinner at 4:45pm?) and we settled her back into room after going to the wellness office to let them what we did and what they should expect to be asked for from the doctor's office.
Dropped the car at the transmission place Tuesday morning. They could not find anything wrong – it is a little off, but not such that it can be fixed as it does not have “a code” yet. So we have it back, but are concerned about driving it.
So now it is Wednesday again. I did manage to scan some magazine articles I pulled out years to keep. I have not left anything undone that should have been done this past week. Laundry is in washing – the timer is about to go off for me to switch loads… there it goes, be right back.
Back again. I back up my computer each time I have a work session on same and then once a week I back it up onto another flash drive – monthly and quarterly on or about 15th of the following month I back up the computer again. I went to back it yesterday on the regular daily drive backup (alternate between two drives). It would not do so. I ended up copying my data drive over again new. I tried to delete the old backup which would not update – but could not. So I ended up copying everything else off that drive (flash/stick drive) to an external hard drive, then formatting the stick drive and then copying the data back to the stick drive – and we had terrible storms here that ended up with us losing our electricity mid copying back to the stick drive! I had managed to back up the computer, data, calendar, and client data for last month and last quarter before I went back to getting the daily (B) drive back for use. 2 posts about how, why and when I back up my computer - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2016/05/organizing-your-computer-data-to.html
http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2016/06/organizing-computer-files.html
I think I also posted that husband is not as regular in backing up and this has led to problems – most recently when his hard drive died and then the new one did also. (He has had a lot of problems with his computer lately – all involved with electricity, so we just bought and installed a new surge protector for his computer – hope that resolves it all.
Oh, we were called by the nice lady in our RV service department – the new batteries we bought (elsewhere, our mistake, trying to travel not as far) for the RV are no good. Having read about the scam artists that the place we had them installed in is – we are not sure if there was a problem with the batteries or we were given bad batteries on purpose so that we would come back and give them more money. Our RV service department is seeing what they can do with the warranty on the batteries before we lay out another $1000 for new batteries again.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
As crazy as we both get – luckily generally not at the same time – everything works out somehow. One or the other of us will keep our head and get the other one/both of us through the problem. Husband figured out to drive mom to the doctor and take the car to have the transmission looked at the day after same instead of trying to squeeze it into last week and having the transmission place not getting it back to us in time. I figured out to put the little bears in the car to keep him company.
Let those around you help you when they can. Don't go crazy – look for alternative ways to solve a problem that seems too big to deal with.
Back up your computer – soon!
Thursday, April 18, 2019
KEEP ON TOP OF CHORES AND APPOINTMENTS BY SETTING UP REMINDERS
Another week, another post. This is actually good for me. With the exception of, I think, two times since I have started this blog several years ago I have not missed posting on what is Wednesday night to me and Thursday (very) am to everyone else. (12:15 am Thursday as I start to write this, for example.)
Do you have trouble doing tasks which have to be done over and over on some sort regular basis? I did, well I still do although I am much better at it now. I use my mobile phone to help with this as I do for many other things.
At the start of the year (actually usually just as December is ending for the coming year) I will go through my Lotus Organizer and put in repeating tasks for the coming year. I have quarterly repeating tasks - such as doing payroll tax forms for clients or extra computer backups. I have monthly tasks - monthly computer backups, setting up new spreadsheets for our craft business to keep track of inventory (even though we have had no sales since December - I update the spreadsheet monthly anyway) and changing the sponges I use for cleaning. I have weekly tasks - laundry, changing towels - kitchen and bathroom, changing the bed, regular weekly data backup, and so on. I also have daily tasks - for example - check email - yes, I need a reminder for this. I do not need a reminder to wash the dishes from dinner and later at night from pre-bed snack as I do them as we finish the meal. I also have annual reminders - these I set up to repeat for 5 years (I am thinking of 10 years next time) - birthdays, anniversaries, when other tax forms are due (for clients & us), and so on.
I also will add various events as I find out about them. I know that our reenacting unit meets monthly on the a certain day of the month - I set up the meetings on my calendar (both in the Organizer and my mobile phone which keeps a separate calendar as it does not sync - the Organizer is synced with my old Palm Centro which I carry around the house as a PDA). When the events schedule is set up for the year I add those to both calendars also. My embroidery chapter has a “fiscal” year - the meeting year runs from September of one year through June of the next year and as soon as I know the meeting dates - again a specific day repeating each month - they are added to both calendars. I add appointments I make as I go along. I add trips we make reservations for to the calendar - I start the year with the one for our July 4ish trip already in the calendar as we have to book a year in advance to make sure we get the RV space we want - and we are generally not there on July 4 itself - we are not happy with the RV park and the area we visit being that busy.
What do you do to keep track of when to do things or what your plans are? When I was younger I was able to keep much of this in my head, but I no longer can. (Heck, I put down a check today and 10 minutes later could not remember where I put it down - finally remembered.) Having a reminder ring helps one stay on track. I am about to go upstairs as I am backing up my desktop computer for the month (did the quarterly back up while we had dinner) and the reminder just went off in my mobile phone to see if it if the backup is done - it was not finished when I checked half an hour ago. Be right back - feel free to talk among yourselves, get a snack, or make a bathroom run while I check........ No not done yet. I reset the reminder for another half an hour. But, the laundry will need to be shifted between washer and dryer - and another load put in the washer in 2 minutes, 24 seconds.
See how this works? Trust me if you just try to remember to do everything - it does not work. Don’t just use reminder on your mobile phone for personal stuff - use it for work also. If you work at computer at work (or home) you can put the reminders on it instead - or also. If you are low tech - and I find nothing wrong with low tech (I am the first one to scream if some company or government agency says that something has to be done by computer or with a mobile phone, not for me but for others - well sometimes for me as I prefer the privacy of not having any number of things on my cell phone for security) use a paper calender and an alarm clock to remind you - or even a timer if you have to go back to finish something. Darn laundry reminder has gone off. Be right back.......
Back again. You need to decide what you need to be reminded of. Some items all you might need to do is to put them on the date(s) or day(s) of the calendar so you will see them to do them. Others you might need to have an alarm go off to remind you to stop what you are doing and do what you are suppose to do. (My backup and laundry have sound reminders to remind me.)
Yes, sometimes life gets in the way (or you just really need as a personal matter not to do something on the day you have it scheduled) and things do not get done. I admit to not changing the bedding yesterday as I normally do on a Tuesday (gasps are heard “she did not do something on her schedule after she said to schedule things so you remember them). My elderly mom had a problem that started extremely early on Tuesday morning. Monday night to us and we had to run to help her just as we had changed and gotten into bed - at 4 am. By the time we were back home - and then only were able to do so by the grace my sister meeting us at the hospital with her husband so we could leave (and they had slept as normal people do from earlier in the evening). I had sent my husband out to the car for him to sleep but that had not worked. It was 10 am by the time we finally were able to go to bed. Husband, exhausted, fell asleep. I could not, while waiting to hear from my sister what the findings were about mom. After text messages and telephone calls I was finally able to fall asleep - for about an hour. When we got up for the day it was late in the day even for us and I just had no energy to deal with the bed and said to myself the very unladylike “F it”. (Mom was given a prescription to try for the problem and is staying with my sister at least through the holidays, which for us will run through next week and we will figure out what to do to keep her safe and well - she is 90.)
THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK -
1 - Use your technology to keep you on schedule or a paper schedule and clock if you prefer to use same.
2 - Realize that things occur which will throw you off schedule - it is called life and one never knows what will happen. Just get back on schedule as soon as you can. (And schedules are not written in stone - if you never get to do something, such as write your blog post on Tuesdays, you can move it to another day - Wednesday, for example the day you actually post it.)
3 - I wish you a good holiday with those you love.
Do you have trouble doing tasks which have to be done over and over on some sort regular basis? I did, well I still do although I am much better at it now. I use my mobile phone to help with this as I do for many other things.
At the start of the year (actually usually just as December is ending for the coming year) I will go through my Lotus Organizer and put in repeating tasks for the coming year. I have quarterly repeating tasks - such as doing payroll tax forms for clients or extra computer backups. I have monthly tasks - monthly computer backups, setting up new spreadsheets for our craft business to keep track of inventory (even though we have had no sales since December - I update the spreadsheet monthly anyway) and changing the sponges I use for cleaning. I have weekly tasks - laundry, changing towels - kitchen and bathroom, changing the bed, regular weekly data backup, and so on. I also have daily tasks - for example - check email - yes, I need a reminder for this. I do not need a reminder to wash the dishes from dinner and later at night from pre-bed snack as I do them as we finish the meal. I also have annual reminders - these I set up to repeat for 5 years (I am thinking of 10 years next time) - birthdays, anniversaries, when other tax forms are due (for clients & us), and so on.
I also will add various events as I find out about them. I know that our reenacting unit meets monthly on the a certain day of the month - I set up the meetings on my calendar (both in the Organizer and my mobile phone which keeps a separate calendar as it does not sync - the Organizer is synced with my old Palm Centro which I carry around the house as a PDA). When the events schedule is set up for the year I add those to both calendars also. My embroidery chapter has a “fiscal” year - the meeting year runs from September of one year through June of the next year and as soon as I know the meeting dates - again a specific day repeating each month - they are added to both calendars. I add appointments I make as I go along. I add trips we make reservations for to the calendar - I start the year with the one for our July 4ish trip already in the calendar as we have to book a year in advance to make sure we get the RV space we want - and we are generally not there on July 4 itself - we are not happy with the RV park and the area we visit being that busy.
What do you do to keep track of when to do things or what your plans are? When I was younger I was able to keep much of this in my head, but I no longer can. (Heck, I put down a check today and 10 minutes later could not remember where I put it down - finally remembered.) Having a reminder ring helps one stay on track. I am about to go upstairs as I am backing up my desktop computer for the month (did the quarterly back up while we had dinner) and the reminder just went off in my mobile phone to see if it if the backup is done - it was not finished when I checked half an hour ago. Be right back - feel free to talk among yourselves, get a snack, or make a bathroom run while I check........ No not done yet. I reset the reminder for another half an hour. But, the laundry will need to be shifted between washer and dryer - and another load put in the washer in 2 minutes, 24 seconds.
See how this works? Trust me if you just try to remember to do everything - it does not work. Don’t just use reminder on your mobile phone for personal stuff - use it for work also. If you work at computer at work (or home) you can put the reminders on it instead - or also. If you are low tech - and I find nothing wrong with low tech (I am the first one to scream if some company or government agency says that something has to be done by computer or with a mobile phone, not for me but for others - well sometimes for me as I prefer the privacy of not having any number of things on my cell phone for security) use a paper calender and an alarm clock to remind you - or even a timer if you have to go back to finish something. Darn laundry reminder has gone off. Be right back.......
Back again. You need to decide what you need to be reminded of. Some items all you might need to do is to put them on the date(s) or day(s) of the calendar so you will see them to do them. Others you might need to have an alarm go off to remind you to stop what you are doing and do what you are suppose to do. (My backup and laundry have sound reminders to remind me.)
Yes, sometimes life gets in the way (or you just really need as a personal matter not to do something on the day you have it scheduled) and things do not get done. I admit to not changing the bedding yesterday as I normally do on a Tuesday (gasps are heard “she did not do something on her schedule after she said to schedule things so you remember them). My elderly mom had a problem that started extremely early on Tuesday morning. Monday night to us and we had to run to help her just as we had changed and gotten into bed - at 4 am. By the time we were back home - and then only were able to do so by the grace my sister meeting us at the hospital with her husband so we could leave (and they had slept as normal people do from earlier in the evening). I had sent my husband out to the car for him to sleep but that had not worked. It was 10 am by the time we finally were able to go to bed. Husband, exhausted, fell asleep. I could not, while waiting to hear from my sister what the findings were about mom. After text messages and telephone calls I was finally able to fall asleep - for about an hour. When we got up for the day it was late in the day even for us and I just had no energy to deal with the bed and said to myself the very unladylike “F it”. (Mom was given a prescription to try for the problem and is staying with my sister at least through the holidays, which for us will run through next week and we will figure out what to do to keep her safe and well - she is 90.)
THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK -
1 - Use your technology to keep you on schedule or a paper schedule and clock if you prefer to use same.
2 - Realize that things occur which will throw you off schedule - it is called life and one never knows what will happen. Just get back on schedule as soon as you can. (And schedules are not written in stone - if you never get to do something, such as write your blog post on Tuesdays, you can move it to another day - Wednesday, for example the day you actually post it.)
3 - I wish you a good holiday with those you love.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
DO YOU BACK UP?
You know “the curse” I have been talking about? Well it hit again. Due to all of the craziness and lack of time in general plus time lost to the craziness and need to do things over and over, I had not backed up my main computer or my work laptop (the old one, not this new one which is still being slowly fed software) for the last quarter of 2018 - which I would normally have done around January 15 - nor did I do a monthly backup for December either. So last Friday I decided to do both. I backed up one computer to the quarterly hard drive and the other to the monthly hard drive at the same time. All went well. I also backed up my calendar, client who I have a separate flash drive for, and my data to each. All went fine. Saturday we were home as there was to be rain so I backed up each of the computers etc to the opposite drive. Still all okay.
I then went to back up for the week. I have a flash drive which holds 6 weeks of data, client, ad calendar files. I update the oldest one each week. This week if the data drive went bad and both of the regular “every session alternately” backups went bad I will have data from a week ago to work with. I back up with a software program that updates the files already in the file I am updating to. It finished running while we were out having dinner on Saturday.
When we got home the backup file did not show everything as finished. There were problems with several older tax client files - this is pdf copies of the returns, info used from the clients and my work papers. When I opened those files - it was all gibberish. Husband looked at them and told me that the drive had gone bad and the files were corrupted.
I did not panic - I have backups and they must be right as the backup program had not had a problem when making them. The back up from Saturday afternoon had the same corrupted files. I should say that, luckily, I had not gotten around to do any actual work on the computer for a couple of days - checked email, updated calendar, started one letter. I tried the backup from Friday and it was fine - whew!!
Husband tried to format the bad drive and it could not be done. So he broke it with a hammer to dust and threw out the dust. (Security is important when financial records are involved.) I had a new, larger flash drive and copied the backup from the day before to that drive. Husband suggested I use all new drives and change them annually from now on. I also have an archive drive - I will soon copy my 2018 files into my archive and remove them from the data drive I use to keep it more compact. Robert suggested that I get a new archive drive also. When I update the archive drive I also make 2 DVDs of it - one goes into my regular disk box and one goes into my “grab and go” accordion folder. This holds copies of our house and car titles, stock certificates, last month’s reconciled bank statements, wedding licenses (we actually have 3 - one government, one from each of our religions), medical insurance and the like. In case of an emergency we can grab this folder and have copies of our important papers to take with us - including DVDs of the archive and of my monthly backup to take offsite.
So I planned to go on Monday to a MicroCenter - a location of the chain and buy 3 new flash drives - one each for the session backups and a larger one for the archive. However, while at Costco on Sunday, husband noticed that my laptop dropped $50 in price since we bought it, so Monday we forgot about buying the new drives and went to back to Costco as they will refund the difference with the receipt. (This is a actually a very good idea. I could have returned the laptop and bought it again to take advantage of the price drop, and they would be stuck with a used laptop, this way I keep my laptop, am happy to get the lower price, and they don’t have to deal with a used laptop - and extra credit card fees for a return and another purchase.)
So yesterday, Tuesday, we bought the new drives. I made two new regular backups yesterday of data, client, and calendar files. I still have to check the hard drive backups and make a weekly backup for last week - though at this point, I will probably not bother and just do this week’s weekly backup on Friday. I also still have to copy the archive to the new drive.
I feel as if I am not getting anything done. I generally can tell how much I have been getting done by the number of papers I have to file at the end of a week, the number of items I have to mail out, and how deep the dust is in the house (okay, there is always too much dust in the house).
I have not finished client’s tax return yet - due March 15 - and need to have it finished and go to her with it before then. I have not heard from my other clients yet - they tend to contact me in March. I am still trying to get missing papers for our personal returns - one corrected IRA 1099 has not come yet - called yesterday about it - to be sent to us. I also have not received a corrected summary statement - but that is for something later this year. I did not get a dividend 1099 either, called up and I am not sure one was sent as the first thing the computer talked about was how much our dividends were and that we don’t need a 1099, but if we want one, they can send “a replacement”. So hopefully that will come soon. I know the amounts for all of these and can do the return without them, but need the paperwork for the same thing later in the year. We have two business returns to do for ourselves. One is due March 15 also and has no income - it is inactive, but we don’t want to close it down. So yesterday, just to get something done I did the inactive company’s tax returns. Well, something is done at least.
And - husband is thinking about going to a woodworking show out of state this weekend - which means Friday as we have the annual party for our reenactment unit on Sunday so we cannot go then and we cannot get up early enough to do that on Sunday and go to the woodworking show on Saturday. We will see. This was a nice show, but the venue it was in was closed and it moved to one that is not at all convenient to deal with. (A quilt show at the same old venue moved elsewhere and was awful and is no more.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
BACK UP! No, not away from the computer. Make sure that you are doing backups of at least important data and things like your important photos. We don’t use “the cloud” for anything including backup as another name for the cloud is “someone else’s hard drive, which is more attractive to hack than yours as they will get so much more” and most of the cloud drives have been hacked. An external hard drive is fairly reasonable to get and one can back up to it on a weekly or monthly basis if they don’t need to back up as often I do. (Remember a lot of this is work stuff I am backing up.) An external drive would also let you take the drive with you in an emergency.
I then went to back up for the week. I have a flash drive which holds 6 weeks of data, client, ad calendar files. I update the oldest one each week. This week if the data drive went bad and both of the regular “every session alternately” backups went bad I will have data from a week ago to work with. I back up with a software program that updates the files already in the file I am updating to. It finished running while we were out having dinner on Saturday.
When we got home the backup file did not show everything as finished. There were problems with several older tax client files - this is pdf copies of the returns, info used from the clients and my work papers. When I opened those files - it was all gibberish. Husband looked at them and told me that the drive had gone bad and the files were corrupted.
I did not panic - I have backups and they must be right as the backup program had not had a problem when making them. The back up from Saturday afternoon had the same corrupted files. I should say that, luckily, I had not gotten around to do any actual work on the computer for a couple of days - checked email, updated calendar, started one letter. I tried the backup from Friday and it was fine - whew!!
Husband tried to format the bad drive and it could not be done. So he broke it with a hammer to dust and threw out the dust. (Security is important when financial records are involved.) I had a new, larger flash drive and copied the backup from the day before to that drive. Husband suggested I use all new drives and change them annually from now on. I also have an archive drive - I will soon copy my 2018 files into my archive and remove them from the data drive I use to keep it more compact. Robert suggested that I get a new archive drive also. When I update the archive drive I also make 2 DVDs of it - one goes into my regular disk box and one goes into my “grab and go” accordion folder. This holds copies of our house and car titles, stock certificates, last month’s reconciled bank statements, wedding licenses (we actually have 3 - one government, one from each of our religions), medical insurance and the like. In case of an emergency we can grab this folder and have copies of our important papers to take with us - including DVDs of the archive and of my monthly backup to take offsite.
So I planned to go on Monday to a MicroCenter - a location of the chain and buy 3 new flash drives - one each for the session backups and a larger one for the archive. However, while at Costco on Sunday, husband noticed that my laptop dropped $50 in price since we bought it, so Monday we forgot about buying the new drives and went to back to Costco as they will refund the difference with the receipt. (This is a actually a very good idea. I could have returned the laptop and bought it again to take advantage of the price drop, and they would be stuck with a used laptop, this way I keep my laptop, am happy to get the lower price, and they don’t have to deal with a used laptop - and extra credit card fees for a return and another purchase.)
So yesterday, Tuesday, we bought the new drives. I made two new regular backups yesterday of data, client, and calendar files. I still have to check the hard drive backups and make a weekly backup for last week - though at this point, I will probably not bother and just do this week’s weekly backup on Friday. I also still have to copy the archive to the new drive.
I feel as if I am not getting anything done. I generally can tell how much I have been getting done by the number of papers I have to file at the end of a week, the number of items I have to mail out, and how deep the dust is in the house (okay, there is always too much dust in the house).
I have not finished client’s tax return yet - due March 15 - and need to have it finished and go to her with it before then. I have not heard from my other clients yet - they tend to contact me in March. I am still trying to get missing papers for our personal returns - one corrected IRA 1099 has not come yet - called yesterday about it - to be sent to us. I also have not received a corrected summary statement - but that is for something later this year. I did not get a dividend 1099 either, called up and I am not sure one was sent as the first thing the computer talked about was how much our dividends were and that we don’t need a 1099, but if we want one, they can send “a replacement”. So hopefully that will come soon. I know the amounts for all of these and can do the return without them, but need the paperwork for the same thing later in the year. We have two business returns to do for ourselves. One is due March 15 also and has no income - it is inactive, but we don’t want to close it down. So yesterday, just to get something done I did the inactive company’s tax returns. Well, something is done at least.
And - husband is thinking about going to a woodworking show out of state this weekend - which means Friday as we have the annual party for our reenactment unit on Sunday so we cannot go then and we cannot get up early enough to do that on Sunday and go to the woodworking show on Saturday. We will see. This was a nice show, but the venue it was in was closed and it moved to one that is not at all convenient to deal with. (A quilt show at the same old venue moved elsewhere and was awful and is no more.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
BACK UP! No, not away from the computer. Make sure that you are doing backups of at least important data and things like your important photos. We don’t use “the cloud” for anything including backup as another name for the cloud is “someone else’s hard drive, which is more attractive to hack than yours as they will get so much more” and most of the cloud drives have been hacked. An external hard drive is fairly reasonable to get and one can back up to it on a weekly or monthly basis if they don’t need to back up as often I do. (Remember a lot of this is work stuff I am backing up.) An external drive would also let you take the drive with you in an emergency.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
STARTING TO SEE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
Since I “spoke” to all of you last I have actually made progress catching up what fell behind the last couple of months.
I have all the bank recs done. I have posted all the checks I had written before. Papers are filed away. The leak under the kitchen sink has not returned - even when husband used it to wash his hair again.
Today we installed the new propane monitor. It involved screwing a piece of wood over the hold the old one left and then drilling a hole for the wires for the new monitor and installing it. It works correctly. The old one must be returned to the manufacturer - at our postage cost - but since we don’t trust it, we are just glad to return it. The carbon monoxide monitor is still not replaced, but we have replaced that one before and the new one is a duplicate of the old ones.
Today I just finished backing up my computers - a monthly backup and a quarterly backup since no monthly backup was made last month. This computer which I am working on was the last to be done. It is the least important and is very slow and needs a good deal of time to backup.
We managed to find a new insurance policy for our reenactment unit - almost all the board agreed and today the application and check were mailed out.
I did get pushed back a bit today and ended up putting some items into the folder that had held the unfinished items for lack of time today. I hope to be done with them by Monday.
My embroidery chapter has to send the dues collected from members to our region and our national by the end of the month - and I am sure that you can guess who does this - yes, me. I will have it done in time. I also have the June newsletter for the chapter due out next Wednesday. Thanks to a reminder in my computer calendar, an email went out today to the rest of the board to see what they want to include. Since we are having our annual end of program year meeting of a luncheon, I specifically asked the member in charge of the luncheon to let me know what people promised to bring so I could list same in the newsletter. One slight problem I might have is that we have been planning on and off to go away next week for a delayed Memorial Day trip (if we go on the actual holiday the areas which is heavily tourist based, is just too busy for us, if we go during the week before or after - it is much nicer) and I will need to send the newsletter out in the middle of the week. My plan is to write it before I leave and copy the membership’s addresses before I go away - or if I have all the info I need, it will go out early.
Tomorrow I am going to my client for my monthly trip there. I have paid the bills to be mailed out on Friday so if I get home late tomorrow it they are ready to go. It was good that I asked to come on tomorrow (Thursday) as today in the President is in this area - and a relatively short distance away our state Democratic party is having their convention - with the losing Presidental candidate from our last election as their speaker. All of the roads into and out of New York City in all directions were backed up this afternoon. Tomorrow should be (at least a little bit) a better drive. My client does not use the Internet or a computer. Last month her business telephone company installed a router for her. I read up on the default passwords during the month as I want to change them for her for general security purposes. I have an email address which I set up to use for her for assorted business matters. Since I could not use at her business I never set it up in my business laptop. I went to do so today. I have no problem signing in on my home computer - but the sign in screen on my laptop keeps coming up with new problems so I may not be able to use it to sign in on my computer at her place until next month. My attempts to get the email address set up on the laptop took about 45 minutes of wasted time.
But, I feel as if I am getting back to normal for me. Little step by little step - or sometimes big jump by big jump I am catching up.
If we do go away next week, there will be a good deal of preparation of the RV before we go away. The RV will need to have the bed made up - as I have mentioned before this is about an hour’s process as the bed goes wall to wall sideways and headboard to kitchen/toilet at the foot with only the head of the aisle at the foot of the bed (less than 2 feet wide) and one basically has to be in the bed to make it up. The usual fill the water tanks, pack snack foods, pack clothes and such - I will have to remember what packs where. It really is a lot more complicated than organizing a house - what is in your house does not have to be packed so as not to shift or bounce while moving - the “stuff” in the RV has to be. And remember, this is not a one of those huge RVs you see on TV (and the road) - it is a Chevy van converted to an RV - while the roof was lifted and part of the floor was dropped slightly, the square footage is the original van so there is rather limited storage.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Slow and steady wins the race. Working when one can on a back up of stuff to do will get it done. Maybe not as quickly as one would want, but eventually.
To those in the U.S .- a good Memorial Day.
I have all the bank recs done. I have posted all the checks I had written before. Papers are filed away. The leak under the kitchen sink has not returned - even when husband used it to wash his hair again.
Today we installed the new propane monitor. It involved screwing a piece of wood over the hold the old one left and then drilling a hole for the wires for the new monitor and installing it. It works correctly. The old one must be returned to the manufacturer - at our postage cost - but since we don’t trust it, we are just glad to return it. The carbon monoxide monitor is still not replaced, but we have replaced that one before and the new one is a duplicate of the old ones.
Today I just finished backing up my computers - a monthly backup and a quarterly backup since no monthly backup was made last month. This computer which I am working on was the last to be done. It is the least important and is very slow and needs a good deal of time to backup.
We managed to find a new insurance policy for our reenactment unit - almost all the board agreed and today the application and check were mailed out.
I did get pushed back a bit today and ended up putting some items into the folder that had held the unfinished items for lack of time today. I hope to be done with them by Monday.
My embroidery chapter has to send the dues collected from members to our region and our national by the end of the month - and I am sure that you can guess who does this - yes, me. I will have it done in time. I also have the June newsletter for the chapter due out next Wednesday. Thanks to a reminder in my computer calendar, an email went out today to the rest of the board to see what they want to include. Since we are having our annual end of program year meeting of a luncheon, I specifically asked the member in charge of the luncheon to let me know what people promised to bring so I could list same in the newsletter. One slight problem I might have is that we have been planning on and off to go away next week for a delayed Memorial Day trip (if we go on the actual holiday the areas which is heavily tourist based, is just too busy for us, if we go during the week before or after - it is much nicer) and I will need to send the newsletter out in the middle of the week. My plan is to write it before I leave and copy the membership’s addresses before I go away - or if I have all the info I need, it will go out early.
Tomorrow I am going to my client for my monthly trip there. I have paid the bills to be mailed out on Friday so if I get home late tomorrow it they are ready to go. It was good that I asked to come on tomorrow (Thursday) as today in the President is in this area - and a relatively short distance away our state Democratic party is having their convention - with the losing Presidental candidate from our last election as their speaker. All of the roads into and out of New York City in all directions were backed up this afternoon. Tomorrow should be (at least a little bit) a better drive. My client does not use the Internet or a computer. Last month her business telephone company installed a router for her. I read up on the default passwords during the month as I want to change them for her for general security purposes. I have an email address which I set up to use for her for assorted business matters. Since I could not use at her business I never set it up in my business laptop. I went to do so today. I have no problem signing in on my home computer - but the sign in screen on my laptop keeps coming up with new problems so I may not be able to use it to sign in on my computer at her place until next month. My attempts to get the email address set up on the laptop took about 45 minutes of wasted time.
But, I feel as if I am getting back to normal for me. Little step by little step - or sometimes big jump by big jump I am catching up.
If we do go away next week, there will be a good deal of preparation of the RV before we go away. The RV will need to have the bed made up - as I have mentioned before this is about an hour’s process as the bed goes wall to wall sideways and headboard to kitchen/toilet at the foot with only the head of the aisle at the foot of the bed (less than 2 feet wide) and one basically has to be in the bed to make it up. The usual fill the water tanks, pack snack foods, pack clothes and such - I will have to remember what packs where. It really is a lot more complicated than organizing a house - what is in your house does not have to be packed so as not to shift or bounce while moving - the “stuff” in the RV has to be. And remember, this is not a one of those huge RVs you see on TV (and the road) - it is a Chevy van converted to an RV - while the roof was lifted and part of the floor was dropped slightly, the square footage is the original van so there is rather limited storage.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Slow and steady wins the race. Working when one can on a back up of stuff to do will get it done. Maybe not as quickly as one would want, but eventually.
To those in the U.S .- a good Memorial Day.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
AMAZING WHAT HAS GONE ASTRAY IN A MONTH AND A HALF
When one thinks that one is sort of keeping up, well... one is not.
We received the new carbon monoxide monitor today - it looks right. We ordered a different propane monitor - same company as made the carbon monoxide detector and will send the one we have back - not comfortable with it not indicating that it is working properly.
So far the leak under the sink has not returned - might have been because husband washed hair in kitchen sink. We will see.
Spent much time trying to find a new policy for our reenactment unit. Today we found an agency that gave us a “maybe”, instead of a “no”. The company they use has written some policies for reenactors, not sure if they still are doing so. In doing the paperwork for them, I found an ad we received several years ago from a company that did these policies - husband contacted, they no longer carry these policies.
Yesterday I had a chance to do some of those bank recs which are sitting and waiting. Again, I started with the more important ones. I did the April one for our reenactment unit first and then same for my embroidery chapter. I could not find last month’s bank recs for them. In a panic I looked through the papers I previously set aside to deal with later. I checked the file drawers. I looked in my “to file” section in the stack of holders that sit on my desk (amazingly that has mostly been kept up through all this). I looked in the stack on desk. I looked in the financial folder for each in their slots in their sections in the same holder. Not there! Finally I remembered! Boy was I stupid. I don’t file bank statements into the file drawers when I reconcile them. I put them into my “grab and go” emergency folder and at that time file the one from the prior month. This is such an automatic repeating thing - how could I forget? So the ones I was missing were in the grab and go. Well, the one for our reenactment unit was. The one for my embroidery chapter was still missing. I finally remembered that it was set aside in the notebook I use to keep track of the money received for the group. I had forgotten (until I did this month’s reconciliation) that suddenly the statement shows a calculation of the monthly fees due on the account - all zero so far - and this account is not suppose to have monthly fees. I set it aside to take with me next time I go to that bank to ask what is going on and forgot. I will be going in to make a deposit for the group and will ask about the fee calculation.
I also had a chance to reconcile our business banking accounts for April. They go fairly quickly - very little business. This time I remembered where last month’s statements were - since I had just done the other two statements. I even had a chance to do both months of our lesser bank accounts (small savings accounts and a checking accounting to transfer money out of that bank easily). I did not get to the statements for our IRAs. They are quarterly statements and came at the beginning of April and are next to be done.
I still have not had a chance to post the breakdown of the bills I paid last month to the computer. I had posted them quickly when they were paid, entirely to “uncategorized expenses”. This way I us the program to double check my arithmetic - my balance and the computer’s balance for any account should be the same, but it saves the time of breaking down the expenses on a busy credit card statement. These statements are in the folder to have their posting fixed. By posting them to the “uncategorized expenses” category, one which I did not set up, but is place for the program to post expenses which were not posted by me, I know that when I have the program make me a statement for reference, if there is anything in that account - it was done and I better do it!
I also did not have a chance to backup my computers last month. I should have done the monthly and a quarterly backup of each (on two different external hard drives). So yesterday I did a back up on each drive for my main computer. I had been having a problem syncing my older mobile phone with the computer - it would not attach and I thought it was a peculiarity of the phone which sometimes happen - it is “old” and a pre Iphone or Android. I decided not to panic and set it aside. Then when I tried to attach the first external hard drive - it would not attach. I tried again in a different port - then tried a port on the back of the computer instead of the front as I have a hub attached to the back and the disks on same were fine. Did not work. Why should it - nothing else seems to work right.
I still did not panic and did what one does when nothing works right. I shut down the computer and rebooted. That did it and it worked. So I made both backups. Today I did same to my work laptop. I have to go back and backup some flash drives of data and then this computer will be backed up.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
To paraphrase a saying about setting aside projects partially done - . “If you don’t have time to finish it now and you set it aside, when will you have time to finish it?”
This is what has happened to me. New problems keep popping up which are mostly beyond my control.
Try to get things done in full - or get back to them right away - don’t set them partially aside. If by some chance you have no choice (as I did not) make sure you keep all of what has to be done together in a logical way so you can go back and remember what has to be done and how to do it.
We received the new carbon monoxide monitor today - it looks right. We ordered a different propane monitor - same company as made the carbon monoxide detector and will send the one we have back - not comfortable with it not indicating that it is working properly.
So far the leak under the sink has not returned - might have been because husband washed hair in kitchen sink. We will see.
Spent much time trying to find a new policy for our reenactment unit. Today we found an agency that gave us a “maybe”, instead of a “no”. The company they use has written some policies for reenactors, not sure if they still are doing so. In doing the paperwork for them, I found an ad we received several years ago from a company that did these policies - husband contacted, they no longer carry these policies.
Yesterday I had a chance to do some of those bank recs which are sitting and waiting. Again, I started with the more important ones. I did the April one for our reenactment unit first and then same for my embroidery chapter. I could not find last month’s bank recs for them. In a panic I looked through the papers I previously set aside to deal with later. I checked the file drawers. I looked in my “to file” section in the stack of holders that sit on my desk (amazingly that has mostly been kept up through all this). I looked in the stack on desk. I looked in the financial folder for each in their slots in their sections in the same holder. Not there! Finally I remembered! Boy was I stupid. I don’t file bank statements into the file drawers when I reconcile them. I put them into my “grab and go” emergency folder and at that time file the one from the prior month. This is such an automatic repeating thing - how could I forget? So the ones I was missing were in the grab and go. Well, the one for our reenactment unit was. The one for my embroidery chapter was still missing. I finally remembered that it was set aside in the notebook I use to keep track of the money received for the group. I had forgotten (until I did this month’s reconciliation) that suddenly the statement shows a calculation of the monthly fees due on the account - all zero so far - and this account is not suppose to have monthly fees. I set it aside to take with me next time I go to that bank to ask what is going on and forgot. I will be going in to make a deposit for the group and will ask about the fee calculation.
I also had a chance to reconcile our business banking accounts for April. They go fairly quickly - very little business. This time I remembered where last month’s statements were - since I had just done the other two statements. I even had a chance to do both months of our lesser bank accounts (small savings accounts and a checking accounting to transfer money out of that bank easily). I did not get to the statements for our IRAs. They are quarterly statements and came at the beginning of April and are next to be done.
I still have not had a chance to post the breakdown of the bills I paid last month to the computer. I had posted them quickly when they were paid, entirely to “uncategorized expenses”. This way I us the program to double check my arithmetic - my balance and the computer’s balance for any account should be the same, but it saves the time of breaking down the expenses on a busy credit card statement. These statements are in the folder to have their posting fixed. By posting them to the “uncategorized expenses” category, one which I did not set up, but is place for the program to post expenses which were not posted by me, I know that when I have the program make me a statement for reference, if there is anything in that account - it was done and I better do it!
I also did not have a chance to backup my computers last month. I should have done the monthly and a quarterly backup of each (on two different external hard drives). So yesterday I did a back up on each drive for my main computer. I had been having a problem syncing my older mobile phone with the computer - it would not attach and I thought it was a peculiarity of the phone which sometimes happen - it is “old” and a pre Iphone or Android. I decided not to panic and set it aside. Then when I tried to attach the first external hard drive - it would not attach. I tried again in a different port - then tried a port on the back of the computer instead of the front as I have a hub attached to the back and the disks on same were fine. Did not work. Why should it - nothing else seems to work right.
I still did not panic and did what one does when nothing works right. I shut down the computer and rebooted. That did it and it worked. So I made both backups. Today I did same to my work laptop. I have to go back and backup some flash drives of data and then this computer will be backed up.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
To paraphrase a saying about setting aside projects partially done - . “If you don’t have time to finish it now and you set it aside, when will you have time to finish it?”
This is what has happened to me. New problems keep popping up which are mostly beyond my control.
Try to get things done in full - or get back to them right away - don’t set them partially aside. If by some chance you have no choice (as I did not) make sure you keep all of what has to be done together in a logical way so you can go back and remember what has to be done and how to do it.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
FRUSTRATION'S ALL AROUND
Since the main Christmas tree did not go up until the last minute, I sort of figured that husband would be okay leaving it up a bit later than usual. Usual being this past Monday (3rd Monday in January - no reason other than it is a holiday here in the U.S. - honoring Martin Luther King, Jr - a civil rights leader - and therefore sticks out in one’s mind as it being the time to start taking down the tree and the decorations. But on Monday afternoon before I had a chance to bring up the subject, he asked when the tree would be down - so he could take back the living room for his weaving. He needs the length of the room to warp (set up threads on) his loom for his next project. He said that he regretted having to take it down, and the rest of the decorations could/should stay up for a while yet. This also led him to consider maybe putting the tree in the dining room next year to avoid this - the only time our living room is used for anything other than his weaving these days is decorating for Christmas, opening our limited presents on Christmas morning, and taking down the decorations. I told him that it was scheduled to start coming down the same day he asked and it would.
So after dinner I went downstairs and brought up box #4 for the tree decorations - last up, first off as it gets the outermost decorations. I started taking down icicles, plain balls, gold paper figures, etc used to fill in open spaces after the nicer decorations go on the tree. He suddenly realized what I was going and came into the living room, looked, and then said “Maybe it all should stay up a little longer.” I stared at him - “Yeah, I know it was my idea.” He then started helping me take things off the tree - actually trees as I have to pack the studio tree ornaments away at the same time as they are packed together and shared ornaments. I did most of 2 boxes of ornaments (out of 4). Frustrating - I would rather not have started yet - and then he says I shouldn’t have!
I am on a comics discussion group. As of a week ago Monday (maybe earlier, that is when I go online to the group to read a week’s worth of posts) the site was not so much there - and I was not sure if it was a problem with the site or my computer. A check with another computer showed that it was not accesible from that computer either. I figured all would be well the next day - it was not. I went looking back in my emails as I had a couple of email conversations with the fellow whose site it is. I never kept a record of his email address, because it is on the site. I found that, yes, there was a problem and it was “now” expected to be back by Thursday (last Thursday now) after it had not been back by “Tuesday” (2 days before last Thursday). As of last night it is still not working right enough to use. Frustration - I enjoy the company of those on that group and we have great discussions beyond the comics we are talking about.
I am also on an embroidery discussion group. This group is in the middle of migrating to a new site and “wonderful”changes. The site started moving in December and due to everything that was going on, I did not have a chance to register with and start to use the new site. The old site is still open (until at least the end of January) and I was communicating a bit with the members through that site. But it was now January and I signed up with the new site. Not as bad to use as I feared. There was one problem - either very few people were posting or I was not able to see all of the posts. The page numbers were listed at the top of the page - but when I clicked on any page number, I was still on the same page. Very frustrating I was missing seeing photos of everyone’s work and hearing about their holidays. I posted about this and finally had an answer appear as the last one in the list and therefore on the page I came on the group on - there was a problem and there was a work around. So finally last night I was able to move around in this group and read the posts for half of December and all of January.
Last night I went to make a monthly backup of my main computer, while at the same time making a quarterly backup of my work laptop -onto 2 separate external hard drives. The one I have been using for quarterly backups did not work. It had electricity, but did not show up on the computer. I then tried plugging it into my desktop computer - did not work there either. Oh, well, I had thought about replacing it, just had not gotten around to it. The biggest problem I had was this computer is wonky. The oldest back up of this computer is on the drive which did not work - and it is a “clean” backup which I need if I have to start this computer over.
I did what I hate to so. I told husband about the drive not working. This resulted in at least an hour’s worth of his repeating all I did with his computer. We then took apart the case the drive was in and took the drive out of it. When I updated the hard drive on my main computer we had bought an external drive case for the old drive so I could still access it when I found missing things. We opened that case, took out the old drive, and put the backup drive with the problem in it - it worked. I copied the needed file off it to the monthly back up drive. (And husband thought it a waste when I decided to back up the computers to 2 drives instead of one.) We then reassembled my old hard drive into the case and put the backup drive into a small box to keep it safe. I now will get a new second backup drive. (See backing up drives is important!) Now the backups are set up when I am going to backup and I walk away and they just run on their own. Very frustrating and a waste of time.
I have to go to my client in Manhattan as I have to do her payroll taxes - and the date for filing the company’s copy of her W2 has been moved up to January 31 from February 28. Last year I mailed the forms to her for her to mail out and it did not get to her - but came back to me in the mail, despite being correctly addressed to her. So I really wanted to get to her early this month in case there were problems getting the forms to her to mail. Then I realized something - she will have taken at most one payroll check last year (the business is not doing well) and I can make do the paperwork in advance and bring it with me. So I pulled out my typewriter and started typing the forms. I had ordered the forms from IRS in December to make sure I had them - 2 different forms and a different cover form for each - 4 kinds of forms in all. I was fine until I did the second form - there were no cover forms! I went looking and counting - they had sent me 2 sets of the other cover form. So I had to go online and order more forms - and I hope they will be here early enough to fill in and mail to her for her to sign. I am going to her tomorrow - I hope. We have had another snow storm - very light, but I didn’t want to drive in the snow. It was last night to today. So tomorrow morning I will get up and call the client and hope she says I can come there tomorrow - if not I hope I can go there next week. Not only do I have to do her work - I get paid quarterly and we need the money to pay bills. So, between the weather and IRS not sending forms it has been frustrating.
Now, tonight I took the garbage from the kitchen out for pickup tomorrow morning. Husband was having a reaction of some sort from the dinner we had and I did not want to open the garbage pail when he was in the room. I took it out while he was upstairs. I did not tell him I was doing so - I have taken the garbage out for the 29 years we have lived in the house and I just about never tell him I am doing so - unless there is some unusual reason to do so. I put the garbage at the street and came back to our side porch and pushed the handle button to open the storm door - the button did not move. I tried again several times - and it is cold out (not as bad as has been this winter, but still around freezing) and it did not work. I thought about the front door - but I had only cleared snow from half of the steps and I was concerned it might be icy since it would have melted and might have refrozen - so I pulled out my cell phone and texted my husband. He got the message and for a minute thought I was just telling him something - then figured out that I was stuck outside the house and came and let me in - and also went back and sprayed the handle lock. Following this I was told that I should never go out of the house without telling him! This led to an extensive discussion with no resolution as to my competence to go out alone without telling him - again, frustration.
I have been good at keeping up with my housework,, but - uh oh - I just realized that I never put in laundry to wash - I will do so as soon I get this posted.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Frustration takes so much away from us (or at least from me). It takes concentration (why else would I forget the laundry) and time - I have had to keep going back and checking to see if the two group sites are working that I could have used on other matters. But we have to deal with it and move on.
So after dinner I went downstairs and brought up box #4 for the tree decorations - last up, first off as it gets the outermost decorations. I started taking down icicles, plain balls, gold paper figures, etc used to fill in open spaces after the nicer decorations go on the tree. He suddenly realized what I was going and came into the living room, looked, and then said “Maybe it all should stay up a little longer.” I stared at him - “Yeah, I know it was my idea.” He then started helping me take things off the tree - actually trees as I have to pack the studio tree ornaments away at the same time as they are packed together and shared ornaments. I did most of 2 boxes of ornaments (out of 4). Frustrating - I would rather not have started yet - and then he says I shouldn’t have!
I am on a comics discussion group. As of a week ago Monday (maybe earlier, that is when I go online to the group to read a week’s worth of posts) the site was not so much there - and I was not sure if it was a problem with the site or my computer. A check with another computer showed that it was not accesible from that computer either. I figured all would be well the next day - it was not. I went looking back in my emails as I had a couple of email conversations with the fellow whose site it is. I never kept a record of his email address, because it is on the site. I found that, yes, there was a problem and it was “now” expected to be back by Thursday (last Thursday now) after it had not been back by “Tuesday” (2 days before last Thursday). As of last night it is still not working right enough to use. Frustration - I enjoy the company of those on that group and we have great discussions beyond the comics we are talking about.
I am also on an embroidery discussion group. This group is in the middle of migrating to a new site and “wonderful”changes. The site started moving in December and due to everything that was going on, I did not have a chance to register with and start to use the new site. The old site is still open (until at least the end of January) and I was communicating a bit with the members through that site. But it was now January and I signed up with the new site. Not as bad to use as I feared. There was one problem - either very few people were posting or I was not able to see all of the posts. The page numbers were listed at the top of the page - but when I clicked on any page number, I was still on the same page. Very frustrating I was missing seeing photos of everyone’s work and hearing about their holidays. I posted about this and finally had an answer appear as the last one in the list and therefore on the page I came on the group on - there was a problem and there was a work around. So finally last night I was able to move around in this group and read the posts for half of December and all of January.
Last night I went to make a monthly backup of my main computer, while at the same time making a quarterly backup of my work laptop -onto 2 separate external hard drives. The one I have been using for quarterly backups did not work. It had electricity, but did not show up on the computer. I then tried plugging it into my desktop computer - did not work there either. Oh, well, I had thought about replacing it, just had not gotten around to it. The biggest problem I had was this computer is wonky. The oldest back up of this computer is on the drive which did not work - and it is a “clean” backup which I need if I have to start this computer over.
I did what I hate to so. I told husband about the drive not working. This resulted in at least an hour’s worth of his repeating all I did with his computer. We then took apart the case the drive was in and took the drive out of it. When I updated the hard drive on my main computer we had bought an external drive case for the old drive so I could still access it when I found missing things. We opened that case, took out the old drive, and put the backup drive with the problem in it - it worked. I copied the needed file off it to the monthly back up drive. (And husband thought it a waste when I decided to back up the computers to 2 drives instead of one.) We then reassembled my old hard drive into the case and put the backup drive into a small box to keep it safe. I now will get a new second backup drive. (See backing up drives is important!) Now the backups are set up when I am going to backup and I walk away and they just run on their own. Very frustrating and a waste of time.
I have to go to my client in Manhattan as I have to do her payroll taxes - and the date for filing the company’s copy of her W2 has been moved up to January 31 from February 28. Last year I mailed the forms to her for her to mail out and it did not get to her - but came back to me in the mail, despite being correctly addressed to her. So I really wanted to get to her early this month in case there were problems getting the forms to her to mail. Then I realized something - she will have taken at most one payroll check last year (the business is not doing well) and I can make do the paperwork in advance and bring it with me. So I pulled out my typewriter and started typing the forms. I had ordered the forms from IRS in December to make sure I had them - 2 different forms and a different cover form for each - 4 kinds of forms in all. I was fine until I did the second form - there were no cover forms! I went looking and counting - they had sent me 2 sets of the other cover form. So I had to go online and order more forms - and I hope they will be here early enough to fill in and mail to her for her to sign. I am going to her tomorrow - I hope. We have had another snow storm - very light, but I didn’t want to drive in the snow. It was last night to today. So tomorrow morning I will get up and call the client and hope she says I can come there tomorrow - if not I hope I can go there next week. Not only do I have to do her work - I get paid quarterly and we need the money to pay bills. So, between the weather and IRS not sending forms it has been frustrating.
Now, tonight I took the garbage from the kitchen out for pickup tomorrow morning. Husband was having a reaction of some sort from the dinner we had and I did not want to open the garbage pail when he was in the room. I took it out while he was upstairs. I did not tell him I was doing so - I have taken the garbage out for the 29 years we have lived in the house and I just about never tell him I am doing so - unless there is some unusual reason to do so. I put the garbage at the street and came back to our side porch and pushed the handle button to open the storm door - the button did not move. I tried again several times - and it is cold out (not as bad as has been this winter, but still around freezing) and it did not work. I thought about the front door - but I had only cleared snow from half of the steps and I was concerned it might be icy since it would have melted and might have refrozen - so I pulled out my cell phone and texted my husband. He got the message and for a minute thought I was just telling him something - then figured out that I was stuck outside the house and came and let me in - and also went back and sprayed the handle lock. Following this I was told that I should never go out of the house without telling him! This led to an extensive discussion with no resolution as to my competence to go out alone without telling him - again, frustration.
I have been good at keeping up with my housework,, but - uh oh - I just realized that I never put in laundry to wash - I will do so as soon I get this posted.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Frustration takes so much away from us (or at least from me). It takes concentration (why else would I forget the laundry) and time - I have had to keep going back and checking to see if the two group sites are working that I could have used on other matters. But we have to deal with it and move on.
Thursday, May 4, 2017
BACKING UP COMPUTER FILES SO YOU DON'T USE THEM
I have written before about my regular daily back up of my data and my archiving it at the end of the year. There is other backing up that I do that I thought I would tell you about.
I was very careful about backing up - day after day - and then I realized I had problem with the data to my organizer. There was a problem (I forget what by now) and unfortunately both my daily backups (A and B) were bad - for over a week. Now I had to go and try to figure out what went wrong and when and come up with replacement info about what I had done. (Remember I use my organizer for appointments, to dos, anniversary/birthdays, my contacts directory and memos - things to buy, info I need, etc.) I managed to get it corrected. I was lucky that I make a monthly backup on an exterior hard drive.
Once a month I run software to copy my computers to an external hard drive. The idea is that if my computer hard drive crashes I can restore it quickly and easily. Of course this sometimes goes awry since one does not know if the backup worked unless and until one needs to use it. I also copy my data and organizer separately at the same time to the same external hard drive. So lucky me, I had organizer data from less than a month before to help me catch back up.
To prevent the loss of data backup from overwriting the backup daily - even with A and B alternating backups - I came up with the idea of - yes - another backup. I took a flash drive (you can see I love these things) and made a folder - “Backup” and another “Calendar” (meaning everything from the organizer), and another one “client name” for each client. On a Friday I backed all my data from these assorted sources to this drive. I call it my weekly drive. The following Friday I went and added the date of the first backup to the names of the backup files I had made and made new “backup”, “calendar”, and “client’s name” files. I ran the backups again. Now I have a backup as of the end of “this” week and one from the end of last week. If I overwrite the data and backups with the same error - I have a backup from only a week ago. I kept doing this for 4 weeks. At then end of 4 weeks I had the latest weekly backups which just had the names of the backups and 3 backups from the prior 3 weeks - each labeled with the date they were backed up. What then? Well, I again added the date to last Friday’s backups, but this time I removed the date from the oldest backups - putting them back with their original names and ran an update backup. This is what I do each week now - add the date to last week’s backups and remove the date from the oldest backups - and update them.
So now I am backing up my data and calendar daily to flash stick drives (A and B) and then backing up my data weekly to a different flash stick drive, and monthly to an external hard drive, when I back up my computers to same.
I think, but I am not sure, that I have mentioned I do a backup once a month to still another flash stick drive (and yes, they are very well labeled so I know which is which and what is on them) that also has a copy of my annual archive on it, which I bring to my bank safe deposit box for “offsite” storage. I used to send this drive to work with husband when he worked in an office which was not in our house. He would take the drive to work and bring back the one he already had there. Now I take the one I just updated to the bank box and bring home the one from last time. The one from last time will be updated just before it goes back to the bank box.
One would think this was enough backups - right?
My external hard drive was getting a bit old (and therefore is rather small). It suddenly dawned on me that if the external hard drive went bad, I would lose the data and if the computer crashed, well I would be stuck (sort of like when we bought a new internal hard drive due to problems with my old one and the backup had not worked).
So - I bought a new larger drive (the storage was a lot larger, the physical drive only a bit larger). So now I back up my computer and assorted data onto this drive monthly - and I have new software so hopefully if I need to use it, it will work. I then backup to the old external hard drive quarterly - just as, well, a backup of the backup. I work on the idea that more backups make it harder to lose data or computer hard drive.
Now, I know I am backing up way more than anyone short of a major corporation does, but I don’t want to lose my data or my hard drive again.
Do you back up? You really need to. I lose business type data - if you have your photos on the computer you could lose the photos if you lost your drive. At least get a couple of fairly inexpensive flash drives and make copies in an alternating pattern .
Oh, another advantage to my keeping my data on flash drives is that they are small. I can take them from once computer to another - very easily. I can also put all of my flash drives in the pocket of my jeans - at the same time - if I needed to take them - which leads to -
I have mentioned that I have a grab and go folder for financial stuff - last bank statements, insurance policies, copies of deed, mortgage payoff and car titles, duplicate birth and wedding certificates and such. I also have a copy of the latest archive on DVD. If we need to leave the house in an emergency we can grab this folder (actually a sectioned “file wallet” with a top that closes) drop in the lastest data drive and run in an emergency and have as much info with us as we can. If you have precious photos you can keep a copy of them in there also - DVDs are more definite than flash drives (another reason I keep a lot of backups - flash drives can go bad) and you will not have lost info you need plus personal photos and infos you would miss. (Remember you can scan in your child’s art work, etc. also.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It is May. While I know the weather is odd this year, we are over a quarter of the way through the year and well onto halfway through the year. Don’t wait any longer. Do something towards getting rid of clutter and beginning to organize and clean up.
Today I had my embroidery chapter meeting. We have the room until 2 pm. Most, sometimes all, the other members leave at the end of the program- between noon and 1 pm generally. I always have some embroidery project (or two) with me. Today two other members were staying and working on their needlework after the others had left. I took out one of the projects from my bag and started stitching. I did not get a lot done as this particular project is a slow one with tiny stitches and one strand of cotton embroidery floss at a time, but I am now that much further along on the project - not even a ful petal of a flower - but I am that tiny bit closer to finishing it.
Each step you take towards getting organized - throwing even one item out or otherwise getting it out of your house - is a bit less that needs to be done. Small amounts add to large ones. There is a quote (I think from Patrick Henry) “I have never seen a man devour an entire bunch of grapes at one time, but I have seen a man accomplish the same thing, by plucking the grapes and eating them one at a time.” In the same way we cannot accomplish everything needed to declutter, organize, and clean everything at once - but we can do this a bit at a time - so do something as the first step and then tomorrow do something else, and so on.
I was very careful about backing up - day after day - and then I realized I had problem with the data to my organizer. There was a problem (I forget what by now) and unfortunately both my daily backups (A and B) were bad - for over a week. Now I had to go and try to figure out what went wrong and when and come up with replacement info about what I had done. (Remember I use my organizer for appointments, to dos, anniversary/birthdays, my contacts directory and memos - things to buy, info I need, etc.) I managed to get it corrected. I was lucky that I make a monthly backup on an exterior hard drive.
Once a month I run software to copy my computers to an external hard drive. The idea is that if my computer hard drive crashes I can restore it quickly and easily. Of course this sometimes goes awry since one does not know if the backup worked unless and until one needs to use it. I also copy my data and organizer separately at the same time to the same external hard drive. So lucky me, I had organizer data from less than a month before to help me catch back up.
To prevent the loss of data backup from overwriting the backup daily - even with A and B alternating backups - I came up with the idea of - yes - another backup. I took a flash drive (you can see I love these things) and made a folder - “Backup” and another “Calendar” (meaning everything from the organizer), and another one “client name” for each client. On a Friday I backed all my data from these assorted sources to this drive. I call it my weekly drive. The following Friday I went and added the date of the first backup to the names of the backup files I had made and made new “backup”, “calendar”, and “client’s name” files. I ran the backups again. Now I have a backup as of the end of “this” week and one from the end of last week. If I overwrite the data and backups with the same error - I have a backup from only a week ago. I kept doing this for 4 weeks. At then end of 4 weeks I had the latest weekly backups which just had the names of the backups and 3 backups from the prior 3 weeks - each labeled with the date they were backed up. What then? Well, I again added the date to last Friday’s backups, but this time I removed the date from the oldest backups - putting them back with their original names and ran an update backup. This is what I do each week now - add the date to last week’s backups and remove the date from the oldest backups - and update them.
So now I am backing up my data and calendar daily to flash stick drives (A and B) and then backing up my data weekly to a different flash stick drive, and monthly to an external hard drive, when I back up my computers to same.
I think, but I am not sure, that I have mentioned I do a backup once a month to still another flash stick drive (and yes, they are very well labeled so I know which is which and what is on them) that also has a copy of my annual archive on it, which I bring to my bank safe deposit box for “offsite” storage. I used to send this drive to work with husband when he worked in an office which was not in our house. He would take the drive to work and bring back the one he already had there. Now I take the one I just updated to the bank box and bring home the one from last time. The one from last time will be updated just before it goes back to the bank box.
One would think this was enough backups - right?
My external hard drive was getting a bit old (and therefore is rather small). It suddenly dawned on me that if the external hard drive went bad, I would lose the data and if the computer crashed, well I would be stuck (sort of like when we bought a new internal hard drive due to problems with my old one and the backup had not worked).
So - I bought a new larger drive (the storage was a lot larger, the physical drive only a bit larger). So now I back up my computer and assorted data onto this drive monthly - and I have new software so hopefully if I need to use it, it will work. I then backup to the old external hard drive quarterly - just as, well, a backup of the backup. I work on the idea that more backups make it harder to lose data or computer hard drive.
Now, I know I am backing up way more than anyone short of a major corporation does, but I don’t want to lose my data or my hard drive again.
Do you back up? You really need to. I lose business type data - if you have your photos on the computer you could lose the photos if you lost your drive. At least get a couple of fairly inexpensive flash drives and make copies in an alternating pattern .
Oh, another advantage to my keeping my data on flash drives is that they are small. I can take them from once computer to another - very easily. I can also put all of my flash drives in the pocket of my jeans - at the same time - if I needed to take them - which leads to -
I have mentioned that I have a grab and go folder for financial stuff - last bank statements, insurance policies, copies of deed, mortgage payoff and car titles, duplicate birth and wedding certificates and such. I also have a copy of the latest archive on DVD. If we need to leave the house in an emergency we can grab this folder (actually a sectioned “file wallet” with a top that closes) drop in the lastest data drive and run in an emergency and have as much info with us as we can. If you have precious photos you can keep a copy of them in there also - DVDs are more definite than flash drives (another reason I keep a lot of backups - flash drives can go bad) and you will not have lost info you need plus personal photos and infos you would miss. (Remember you can scan in your child’s art work, etc. also.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It is May. While I know the weather is odd this year, we are over a quarter of the way through the year and well onto halfway through the year. Don’t wait any longer. Do something towards getting rid of clutter and beginning to organize and clean up.
Today I had my embroidery chapter meeting. We have the room until 2 pm. Most, sometimes all, the other members leave at the end of the program- between noon and 1 pm generally. I always have some embroidery project (or two) with me. Today two other members were staying and working on their needlework after the others had left. I took out one of the projects from my bag and started stitching. I did not get a lot done as this particular project is a slow one with tiny stitches and one strand of cotton embroidery floss at a time, but I am now that much further along on the project - not even a ful petal of a flower - but I am that tiny bit closer to finishing it.
Each step you take towards getting organized - throwing even one item out or otherwise getting it out of your house - is a bit less that needs to be done. Small amounts add to large ones. There is a quote (I think from Patrick Henry) “I have never seen a man devour an entire bunch of grapes at one time, but I have seen a man accomplish the same thing, by plucking the grapes and eating them one at a time.” In the same way we cannot accomplish everything needed to declutter, organize, and clean everything at once - but we can do this a bit at a time - so do something as the first step and then tomorrow do something else, and so on.
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