SORRY I HAVE BEEN MISSING - DOUBLE POST - CANCELED CAR PURCHASE/BANK LOAN PROBLEM AND LAUNDRY BAG CORD AROUND AGITATOR

 A bit of a followup to my post of (can it really be this long) over a month ago.  

Two weeks after we went to the car dealer and then decided  - while at the dealer – not to buy the car and canceled the transaction, we received a letter from a bank denying our car loan.  This shocked us for two different things.  

First, we know what our credit rating is and it is about as high as one can have.  

Second – We had canceled the car purchase – without signing any paperwork for a loan – though the “finance manager” had told us she as entering our info that we had the loan.  

We wrote a rather extensive letter to the bank which had turned us down.  (One reason given my credit report was locked – something I had done with all of our credit reports long and ago and forgotten about  - which makes me wonder why husband's was not locked.)  And we told about all that went on that day and we had NOT applied for the loan!  Waiting to hear from back from same.  


NEXT– LAUNDRY FUN.  

I do three loads of laundry most weeks -clothes, towels, and bedding.  Dirty clothing, bedding and upstairs towels go in a large laundry bag in our upstairs hall closet.  Dirty towels from the kitchen and downstairs bathroom go in a smaller laundry bag which hangs on the basement side of the door to same in the kitchen.  I throw the laundry bags into the towels load to be washed weekly.  Something I always wondered about happening – happened.  The string from the downstairs laundry bag wrapped around the agitator in the washing machine and would not release from it – even after I cut the cord and only left a short piece in the washer.  Husband and I finally gave up on getting it released.  With much trepidation about the mechanisms in the washer getting the piece of the cord wrapped further around the agitator and breaking the washer completely I kept doing the laundry in the washer.  Two weeks later – MAGIC -  I found the piece of cord loose in the bottom of the washer – relief!

To prevent this from happening again – even before the piece came loose – I now take the cords out of the bag before throwing the bags in the washer.  Yes, it is a bit more work each week – but stops me from worrying about a repeat.

I no longer put the cord in the downstairs bag at all.  It is short now (since I had cut off the piece which was stuck) and I knotted the ends together.  Short of it being there having been a holiday that week and having used fabric tablecloth/napkins, there is not much put into the bag and the kitchen/bathroom hand towels are relatively small.  I have a medium sized safety pin which I use to attach the remaining small, knotted piece of cord to the bag so I can hang up the bag on the hook on the back of the basement door during the week to collect the laundry in it.  

I have a large safety pin which I use to push the cord through the channel of the larger, upstairs bag so I can hang the bag on the 3 hooks in the closet which hold the bag open to make it easier to throw the dirty laundry in the bag.  

Yes, it is more work than before – but having worried for 2 weeks about the possibility of having to repair our washer if the cord wrapped further around the agitator or needing to buy a new one and the cost and mess involved in doing so.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

If it is not one problem – it is another problem!   While both of these problems wasted time, caused great annoyance – they are minor compared to what can happen in life.

Any one have a problem like either one of these – what did you do?

CATCHING UP FROM CHRISTMAS AND LEARNING NOT TO ASSUME ALL CLEANING PRODUCTS FOR A PURPOSE ARE THE SAME - WHAT AN ODOR!

 Ah, the swift passage of time.  Three weeks have passed since I last posted.  So much for doing better in the new year.  

Well, I did get all of the reenacting clothing washed and stored away – though I still have his neck cloth which needs to ironed – it is sitting on the dining room table as reminder to do so.

On Monday, the sixteenth, I set my desktop computer to start its monthly backup and I went to start taking down the ornaments from our Christmas trees. Our agreement is that husband gets the room to use for weaving (called his “loom room”) from mid January to mid December and I get it for Christmas for the other month.  He was at his desk and I told him what I was about to do.  “NO, NO! I am not ready yet for Christmas to be over and packed away!”  So our indoor Christmas decorations are still in place.  (We did take down the outside lights that weekend so neighbors would not think us crazy.)  

We have figured out how to deal with the window candle lights I like for Christmas (goes well with the house which is colonial in style) for the future.  I figured out that if we pulled the hope chest shaped DVD chest out from under the TV table I could carefully climb under and reach the windowsill as well as the electric outlet under the window and we can use the plug in candle lights we have from years ago  (in recent years before the current one we had switched to battery operated ones).  If I do this once next year and plug them into a timer which can be controlled from a cellphone, we can leave the lights in place permanently and husband can turn them off after Christmas.  We can continue to use the battery lights upstairs and turn them off after the holiday by hand.  

I am not the best at cleaning to begin with – and since Covid and being in the house most of the time, even worse. (So bad, husband has started helping me, though he says he does out of boredom.) Last Saturday night I was in the kitchen and decided to clean the bathroom immediately next to the kitchen – and I do mean immediately next to.  As I sit here at our kitchen table the wall in front of me is the shared wall with the bathroom which is a small “cozy room” and the kitchen wraps around it – the door to the bathroom is on the side of it and faces the “pantry” closet in the kitchen.  This was while I was waiting for husband to be ready to order take out for dinner our “Saturday night substitute for date night dinner out”  

BIG MISTAKE!  I had not been able to find my normal toilet bowl cleaner and the one we had bought had a LOT of bleach in it.  The kitchen reeked of bleach – especially by the kitchen table where we would eat dinner.  I closed the bathroom door to keep the smell in it, figuring that later when we were in the living room watching a movie (for Saturday night date night movie substitute) I would open the door and let the odor dissipate.  First thing husband does when he comes down to go out and pick up dinner as I say “NO, DON'T!” is open the bathroom door and let the bleach odor overwhelm us.  The odor did dissipate later that night.  And, yes, while out on a shopping run this past week I bought a bottle of the non-bleach toilet bowl cleaner I normally use – though it seemed to be the last and the company has changed it – but time enough to worry about that in the future.  

At the same time, while the cleaner had sat in the toilet bowl, I also “Swiffered” the kitchen floor – which I had done in the bathroom as well as I could (bathroom is too tight to easily use the Swiffer, a broom or mop in it) – the floors really NEED a washing – but we are always here and using the kitchen so washing it and letting it dry is not easy.  I also cleaned the sink in the bathroom.  

One semi clean place in the house.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Two of them really, first, watch what your cleaning products have in them and second, it is not THAT hard to find a small amount of time to do something about cleaning.

EVEN IN A PANDEMIC - THINGS BREAK AND NEED TO BE REPLACED

 The time had come – we had to replace one of our toilet seats – the one in the upstairs bathroom.  We have been in the house for about 33 years.  We have 2 bathrooms and have replaced each of the toilet seats at least once.  The upstairs toilet seat apparently had a plastic film seal over the seat and the hole that had suddenly appeared in the film was getting too big to ignore, so a new one was needed.  (I am a big believer in “whenever you can ignore a problem – do so”.)  I had not actually completely ignored the problem  - I had given a bit of a pull to the edge of the hole to see if it would expand...

Now a toilet seat might seem a generic item and replaceable with no thought, but having grown up in a home where the bathroom was alternatively referred to as “the reading room” and “daddy's office”, I can assure you it does take some thought – especially when one is on a budget.  First I read up on toilet seats as I knew that these days there are different shapes and though there might even be different sizes – only different shapes.  I was pretty sure ours was a “round” as opposed to an “elongated” - the latter being a newer style of toilet than ours – which predates our buying the house.  I was right.  So size was determined – round.  Price is always a factor and we did not something fancy – so next question was plastic or (not, not paper) wood?  We have one of each (our half bath in our kitchen* has a wood seat).  Husband studied the seats in both bathrooms and decided on plastic.

Then the hard question – Home Depot or Lowes?  I noticed that Home Depot had a lot more choices than Lowes, but husband had to go to both stores.  He bought the plastic, round seat, near, but not at the bottom of the price range, we had figured would be good for us and we took it home.  

At home  - after it sat around for a few days, of course, he opened the box and took the seat to the bathroom to see how it would be.  He then went to the Home Depot website and decided that maybe we should have a more substantial seat and found one.  Back to Home Depot and bought that seat.  We had not returned the original so we could think about it.  

He decided the new one was more substantial and decided to put it in.  It was another manufacturer and had a more complicated installation than the other (and our old) seat – involving putting in the hinge and then pushing the seat connectors into the hinge.  When he took the seat out of the box it had several large scratches on it.  Back to thinking.  One thing he mentioned that was that the scratched one was slightly, but measurably thicker - “Does that matter?”  My first response was “no”, but then I thought about it.  This toilet is somehow taller than the one downstairs (which should be the same size) and the downstairs one is a slightly more comfortable height for me  so I changed my response to “yes” and explained this to him.  We decided to go with the first seat.  

We went to install the first seat we bought.  We took off the old one – cleaned the toilet well (my job) and went to install the new seat.  Unfortunately no one thought that one have the toilet sitting almost against the side wall.  (I often joke that we should take out the toilet paper and find someplace else to put it so my leg does not touch it when using the toilet – it is that close a space.)  Installing the left side of the seat was complicated by this problem, but we managed to get installed.  Well, that's something accomplished.  

The seat does have a new feature – s l o w  c l o s i n g.  I am used to holding the end of the seat to keep it from falling too quickly and have to learn to let go and let it fall. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

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

COVID 19 #9 PATIENCE WITH ERRORS AND DELAYS

I hope that all and their loved ones continue to be well.

This week in the wonderful world of isolated at home we have been working on two problems. 

First over a week ago I found that the hot water tap in our downstairs bathroom was leaking.  I tried to use the shut off valve under the sink – but of course it did not turn. I had to call husband to deal withit.  He could not turn that shut off valve either but, being taller than me, he could reach the bigger shut off – just for that sink – in the basement.  So no leak and no hot water in the sink in the bathroom off the kitchen.  Hands either had to be washed upstairs, in the kitchen sink or in cold water.  Since I would forget to wash my hands before coming downstairs to work in the kitchen and did not want to risk washing virus into the kitchen sink – it was wash with cold water. 

In normal times we would have gone to Home Depot and bought the replacement cartridge and fixed the sink – after much screaming and yelling about what was being done.  (It is not a household repair around here unless there is a lot of screaming and yelling.)  But we were not going to go out and look for the part in Home Depot.  Husband looked it up online and found that the Home Depot we go to did have the part and would bring it out to us in our car - but in looking to see this, he found out that there is a lifetime warranty on the cartridge and the manufacturer would replace it free – and by mail.  So I telephoned and they were mailing the cartridge.  Tuesday we had not received it and I called to check and it was traced and here at the post office – along the lines of  “a small world” the woman who checked for me happened to mention she used to live in this area – in the community I grew up and I told her that.  She then mentioned the school her children went to – and it was the one that my sisters and I went to – gee, they might have gone to school with one of my sisters (I am too old to imagine that for me as she would be, well, as old as my 91 yo mom). 

The cartridge arrived in the mail today and with a small amount of concern of everything going right – we now have hot water in the downstairs bathroom – and it does not leak – my hands are very happy not to be in cold water again.  Well, the isolation led to us saving the cost of the cartridge as he would not have looked online and found out about warranty on it if it was not that we are not going out.

Second – we have put off renewing our several medical prescriptions until now when they have to be renewed – will be out of one medication for husband on Friday morning and he did not like my idea of splitting up some old pills of same medication to make the correct dosage for him. 

On Monday during the day I telephoned our pharmacy – Walmart – about what arrangements they had for pickup as we did not want to walk into the store.  Around here,  Walmarts are not delivering and there is no pick up service currently in general.   They do have pickup service for prescriptions only (not even denture adhesive could be added). I was told to call before we come and then again when we are in the parking lot and we would pay at our car. I telephoned on Monday night and put in the renewals through the pharmacy's computer.    

On Tuesday (yesterday) we received a call that they were out of the strips for my Diabetes meter and it would take until “Wednesday” for them to come.  I told them that was okay – and then asked about same for husband – since I had listed his prescriptions first, he had gotten the last of the strips.  No problem, we had figured on going today (Wednesday) any way.  So far, so good.

Today I telephoned the pharmacy to check that the strips had come in.  They had, but now they were short one of husband's blood pressure medications and it would not be in until “Thursday”.  Okay, we can go tomorrow.  The employee was looking over the list of the medications to make sure all the rest were accounted for.  She happened to mention his insulin and the price - $141.  Problem – it is suppose to be $47.  I double checked that they only were filling same for a month.  (Our other medications are for 90 days, but he only wants one box/month's worth of insulin at a time since if something happens to our fridge it will go bad and is expensive (more than it appears from the copay for it).  It was for a month. 

So I telephoned our insurance company.  I got a very nice employee – he explained what it could be – I explained that the deductible had been met for the year.  He checked the records and agreed it should be $47.  While we were speaking there was an echo on his phone – whatever caused that made it so he could not call our pharmacy and he transferred me to another employee – with apparently notes about our discussion on our files as I did not need to give her the pharmacy's phone number again.  She though insisted the $141 was correct as it was for 75 days of insulin!  I explained that it was for a one month supply and the prescription is written for same – one month, one box.  She finally figured out the problem and called the pharmacy to change the price.  I then called the pharmacy to make sure it was all corrected.  So hopefully when I check tomorrow all the prescriptions will be ready and we will go and get them.

Third – Yesterday in the mail we received mail from our cable company marked “urgent” - so I opened it before sealing the mail in the “Tuesday” plastic zip bag for mail.  I left it open and facing the bag to be able to read it while it was in the bag.  It said that our cable would be shut off as we have not paid our bill.  Back last month when the cable bill was due we were short on money in our checking account due a timing problem to pay our cable bill.  Normally we would have gone and transferred money from another account – but if we cannot go out, we cannot easily transfer the money.  I tried telephoning our cable company to new avail, then we tried to “chat” online with same – to no avail until I went to what I had learned to do during the crisis – I went online in the middle of the night to chat with them.  A very nice employee when I explained the situation and asked for the courtesy of an additional week to pay the bill told me that he did not give me the time – there was an automatic 60 day allowance on payment of bills.  I checked with him again that nothing needed to be done and he said nothing – it was automatic.  So we paid our cable bill from last month and our cable bill from this month – together – earlier this month  - 30 days after the first bill was due and in time to be on time for this month's bill. 

Then yesterday I received the notice.  I tried calling the cable company to no avail – busy.  Meanwhile husband went online into our cable account online – it showed the payment and but had for an unknown reason a $10 balance.  I checked with our bank and the check had cleared our bank on April 11 – seems to me that it should have reached them timely if it was back to our bank by then.  I checked the notice – it mentioned a $10 fee if one did not pay by automatic payment – was this something new that they had done? 

 Later that night I again went on the cable company's website and turned on chat and waited for about 45 minutes.  I put in the background of what had happened and then asked about why I received the notice if I had 60 days grace on the late payment from last month and this month's was timely paid – and did I now have to pay a $10 fee for paying with a check instead of by automatic payment?  Per this employee - there was never a blanket 60 day grace period – same was for people who lost their jobs, was only offered through mid March, and people had to apply for it.  My check reached them – one day late, due per her May 8 and arrived on May 9 (mailed on May 3). I mentioned that we have been with them over 30 years and  NEVER paid late.   I was not charged for a fee for paying by check – it was for late payment.  She waived the fee.  She also said that she would let them know about the incorrect information I had relied on which I had been told during the earlier chat in case other customers were told the same incorrect info.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Everything now takes a bit more time and more checking to make sure it is correct.  Try to keep calm (I did with all of these problems) and be nice – so many people are so upset and on edge that customer service people appreciate even more when a customer is nice to them.  (And believe me, I can terribly nasty when something has gone wrong due to stupidity -such as employee giving incorrect information.)  I have also been sure to thank the employees for continuing to working for all of us to have the needed services/items and say that I hope they and their families stay well.

NOW WE NEED TO PUT EVERYTHING BACK TO WHERE IT BELONGS

In preparing for the old refrigerator to leave and the new one to come in - the first time - we had to make room for the crew to bring the fridges through the house.  Being lazy - plus going away in the middle - we left the house as it was after the first new fridge - until the second one was here and installed.

I am not so much talking about moving clutter as moving furniture and household items in common usage.  We have a small house. The new fridges had to come in the front door go to the left into the living room, close the front door, then double back in the opposite direction into the dining room through a doorway.  We took the floor mats out of the front hall - put in living room.  We have a standing chest for our good silver/tableware  - it blocks the doorway into the dining room.  It had to be moved - which we did, moving it further into the dining room.  A wooden box with husband’s reenacting gun stuff that is kept under the silver chest also had to be moved into the room.  We set up in the dining room a table which we take when go to reenactments to set up some stuff we put out for education and sales at events to put stuff from the kitchen/fridge on.  So this gave a wide pathway through the dining room into the kitchen.  What is on your fridge?  We have 4 magnetic pockets on ours - one each with stuff to take when we go out, one with pencils and pens (and emery board) and one with papers which we need in the kitchen - maybe a dozen recipes or package instructions and other items.  Magnets that hold our keys - 2 each.  Magnetic calculator.  Decorative magnets which hold small items.  On the front of the fridge we added 2 years ago a large dry erase calendar - we use it to keep track of TV shows we want to watch since seasons no longer run as long as they used to - held on with magnets.  Much of this went onto the table we set up in the dining room - the small magnets and the, oh, forgot to mention, the clippers I keep on the side of the fridge near the stove, held with magnets and potholders hanging on magnets went into a plastic basket that is normally next to the silver chest in the dining room - it normally holds items we have bought or received in the mail that we are concerned may have bed bugs and we need to heat in our Packtite heater until we have enough items to run it - this basket went into our studio behind the office with the magnets in it, and during the following week the items we wanted to heat were added.  (Doing laundry and running the Packtite as I write to you.) The food that did not actually need to be in a fridge - soda, condiments, beer (hey, we did not even know we had beer), and the like took over the one open kitchen counter area.  Our kitchen chairs were in the back room during the time(s) they were actually moving the fridges.  Things were so confused that the first time I went to cook after all this, I stuck my hand out (by habit) to grab a potholder - and there were not only no potholders - but no hook for them either and I could not for the life of me remember where they all went.  (I used a kitchen towel as a pot holder.)  If I had to write something down no pen or pencil, no paper?)  Leaving the house - where the heck are our keys?  A couple of days after the second fridge was put in place and we knew it was staying we started putting stuff back.  We also were adding back the soda, condiments, and such to the fridge - a little bit at a time to keep the temperature in the fridge from going up.  I filled plastic bottles with water.  It is recommended that the fridge be kept half full and we generally don’t have that much in it - and certainly we don’t now.  So bottles filled with water are going in.  We found out that the drawers stay a little warmer than the rest of the fridge, so husband’s insulin pens will go in there as too cold is more of a problem than them being a bit warmer than the food needs to be. 

Then it hit us.  Our reenactment unit’s big event at our headquarters would be on Sunday (this past).  We needed the table we had set up.  We needed access to 2 large box/benches that we bring for storage - and where the heck are the folding seats we have we bring with us?  So we did a lot of putting back quickly - the silver chest and goes under it, as well as what was on the table.  We broke down the table- the legs unscrew - and put the legs together in their carrier.  We took out the box benches to the middle of the room so I could sort through - make sure we had what we needed for this event and not bring things we did not - this including checking that we had money for change if we sold anything and setting my embroidery so I could work on the area I intended to stitch without taking out anything modern.  Husband packed a small loom he was taking with what he needed to work with it at the event.  This all went out into our van on last Friday - Saturday was to be rain and we did not want to load it all in the rain if we could avoid it.  Event went extremely well - hot day, but bearable, good sized crowd - no rain.  Everything from the event is back in place in the house.


Yesterday we went and visited my mom.  She has moved into what is called the “assisted living” building at the facility she has been in.  My sister’s plan had been for mom to go to same for a few weeks so mom would realize that she cannot be home alone and then move mom home with her and then into an apartment with aides.  Mom has liked it here so much that as of now we plan for to stay as long as the money can be found for her to do so.  (It is not cheap.)  It is the same group/agency as the one that runs the physical rehab she was in and it seems a wonderful place.  We had not visited since her move to assisted living until yesterday.  She has a small apartment - tiny main room with microwave and fridge and kitchen cabinets (no stove).  It is set up to put one’s own TV and attach to the cable.  It comes with a love seat and chair, as well as table and 2 chairs.  (My sister plans to bring the living room chairs from mom’s house and get her a drop leaf table.)  There is a good sized bedroom for one it is - another TV cable connection in same - she has a small TV for right now.  The bathroom has a walk in - no lip shower and seat to use in same.  Very nice, very modern, and housekeeping will keep it clean for her.  She has a key and locks the apartment when she leaves.  There are pull strings in case of emergency to get help.  Talk about an efficient setup that is nice.  Her meals are included so the cooking/fridge are just extra or if she wants to cook for herself.  The breakfast is served too early for her and instead they bring cold cereal and muffin for breakfast to her apartment.  There are trips - including shopping and entertainment trips that one can sign up for.  They will take her to the doctor.  Of course, she can go out with us whenever she wants and I am pretty sure she could call an Uber, Lyft or cab to go out if she wanted. Movies in a theater twice every day.  Other programs are in a large space which also functions for religious services.  My sister has decorating plans for it for mom with items from the house.  Husband and I were highly impressed. The halls look like one is in a hotel.  We were very impressed.  She has made friends already which is good as before she sat home alone.  The apartment is a model of efficiency and organization.

On the other hand the family now has to go through the house and deal with everything in it.  My sisters, their husbands and the adult children of one of them started last weekend.  (We couldn’t go as we were at the reenactment event.  I have to clear out the stuff left in the last bedroom I used in the house (and maybe in the other bedroom I used for awhile) and help with the rest of the house.  Since the house was hit by Hurricane Sandy the basement is empty.  I am actually glad of same now, as the toys down there would have been the hardest to go through and get rid of it.  I am not sure what is still in my old bedroom, but I think I can deal with it okay.  I let my sisters know that I embroidered a tablecloth when in high school and when I got married I could not find it  - I gave a description and told them that if they came across it to hold onto it for me.  I am lucky that one of my sisters has a plan for items that are not toss, donate or take - but try to sell as they are of value and will follow her suggestions.

Today the monitor we ordered for me came in.  I like it much better than the one we bought quickly at Walmart - it is squarer (more similar to my old one) and it can be turned vertical for when I am reading pages so I can see the full page.  We are not sure we may return the one we had bought for me or we may keep it in case we have another problem like this and need a spare monitor that is easy to move around. 

So last night - husband’s computer started shutting itself down while he was working on it.  We spent most of this afternoon pulling it out from under his work table, clearing off a space on the top of one file cabinets for it stay now.  We opened it and vacuumed it out.  (He read that too much dust in it would make it overheat and shut down.)  We then rewired everything so instead of connecting to the computer on the right side of his desk on the floor, it does on the left hand side of his desk on the file cabinet.  We may be getting rid of a printer that is rarely used and was where the computer now is.  Some small items have to be rearranged - including a label maker that may end up on top of our secondary printer and then be moved when that printer is needed.

Weather is very hot - over 91F today - and humid (thunderstorm tonight), plus everything we had to do - and I never even checked email yesterday - so we stopped at the supermarket while we were out and bought sliced deli turkey for us and potato salad for husband - added to bread in the house and turkey gravy we bought yesterday made a quick relatively cool dinner.  We normally have soup with dinner, but skipped it tonight.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Oh, so many this week -

Make dinner quick and easy, even if it costs more than normal dinner, when you need to.

Just because a facility is a care facility does not mean that it cannot be nice.  (Oh, I forgot, mom had her hair cut and dyed today - first time in year.  She looks 20 years younger than she did before - she is 90, but to be honest, husband and I both liked her hair better how it was.)  One has to be open to what help one needs as hard as it is to admit to needing it and moving to have the help.

Keep your computer clean - outside and inside.

Hurricanes have a good side - I hate to think what it would take to go through the basement and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. 

WHAT EATS UP MY TIME THESE DAYS?

Do you have control over your time?  How much of you time is governed by other people who need you or make plans which involve you - and are not the king of people you can say no to?

When my husband worked full time at his job all of my time during the day on weekdays was my own.  Yes, I had to go to work and I went to my embroidery meetings, but I could easily plan what I was doing when back then. 

Husband and I were in what is called a rotational art exhibit - okay, we were each in two of them.  In this type of exhibition (run by two different township park departments) the artist, after having his/her work reviewed and approved, goes to a showcase.  Different venues - town offices, libraries, local businesses... sign up with the program also and come to the showcase.  They select which artist’s works they would like to have in their venue and they and the artist agree on which month (or two month period) the exhibition will be for. There would be months when we had 3 shows at 3 different venues (he had work in 2 different media in the show).  Since he was working full time I was allowed to represent both of us - I also set up and took down the exhibitions.  I could schedule the exhibitions, set them up and then take them down.  When husband quit his job and worked part time from home we would do all of this together and there was always a problem with him as to when we were doing it, why we were doing it (we only sold 3 small pieces over the time he exhibited, my work was not for sale, so I did not sell any).  It amazed me how much easier it was when I did this all alone, then when we did it together.  Due to the fact that one of libraries may be where we got bedbugs, we stopped doing the shows - and it was relief to stop - although before he started coming along, this would not have been true.

When he first quit his job we had an agreement that we would each go our own way during the day - and we did for awhile.  Then gasoline prices went up and up and up and husband pointed out that we were wasting money at the high price of gas for me to drive to the supermarket and him to drive separately to the Home Depot in the same parking lot and we started sort of car pooling for errands like this.  Before I knew it, we were together all day, every day (except the days I went out to work and the days I went to my embroidery meeting). 

Clients of mine, older senior citizens, had to shut down their business due to the economy and gradually I ended up with only one monthly business client. I used to go out to clients at least 8 days a month - some days to multiple clients - and had no problem scheduling them - now the 1 client is a problem to schedule. 

I am not the world’s best house cleaner.  I had a schedule - on Wednesdays I would clean - First Wednesday of the month I would dust, vacuum & wash floors, and clean the toilet upstairs.  Second Wednesday of the month I would do the same downstairs.  Third week I would do the upstairs - except the toilet - again.  Fourth week I would do the same as the second, but would clean the kitchen instead of the bathroom.  On the occasional fifth Wednesday I would do another chore that had not been done and needed doing.  Now - forget it!  It is hard to clean toilets or wash floors when as soon as one is mid cleaning one’s husband appears and says “I have to go in NOW.”  And there is always a reason that the other bathroom is not where he wants to be.  It has gotten so bad that I ended waiting until he fell asleep at night and then cleaned the upstairs bathroom - at 3 in the morning!

This comes up right now as the past 2 weeks I feel like screaming!  Last week on Tuesday he decided it was time to put up the Christmas lights, and then looked at the bushes and the piles of fallen leaves and said “We can’t put up the lights with all these leaves here - there will be a fire.”  Okay, so we are going to suddenly clear up the leaves.  He found online at a home store near us a rack to hold the garbage bags and it was in stock at the store.  We go there  - I really don’t think we need the rack - without even knowing what it was.  The store does not have any, even though the company website says that they do - and, while it is still November at that time, they don’t have it because it is a “fall” item and the main office therefore took all of them back! Oh, and according to them the website saying they have something does not mean anything - good thing husband did not buy it online and go to pick it up at the store.  We lost an hour and a half of limited sunlight (remember we get started late and had already run errands) on that fool’s errand.  We come home and we start clearing the leaves.  Over the years husband has come up with a variety of methods to do this - vacuum them, shred them with a vacuum, and I don’t know what else - my system is a snow shovel  - yes, a snow shovel.  First I quickly rake the leaves out from between the bushes onto the driveway in a line of leaves.  I shovel them into the garbage bag in the garbage pail, stop periodically to tamp them down with the shovel, then when the bag is full (probably overfull) I close the bad with a bag tie, drag the garbage can to by the curb, lay the pail down on it’s side, stand it up again with the open end down, pull the can off the bag and there it is - a bag of leaves where it needs to be for pickup.  I am doing the work due to the pain that is still healing in his left arm and shoulder.  He has to help (you know, like small children have to help).  He wants to hold the rake for me to push the leaves against when shoveling, this is not needed as there is a line of leaves to push against and at the end I use the pail.  Then he decides that too many leaves are falling and puts the rake over the leaves - resulting in almost all of the leaves falling off.  I convince him to go and get more bags and bag ties to keep him busy.  We eventually end up with about a dozen or more bags sitting at the curb - they were picked the next day as Wednesday is yard pickup.  Wednesday we run errands and then go to clear the last of the leaves - these are leaves around the driveway where he is worried that mice will nest - he is shocked that new leaves are where we cleared the day before!  Now, if I was involved in planning this ahead of time - we would not have had errands to run - I would make sure they were otherwise scheduled - and we would have eaten a quick lunch at home to give us enough time, instead of our daily half hour plus leisurely lunch at Wendys.

We had checked the light strands ahead of time, as we had not had a chance to check them when we took them down (I made a reminder in my cell phone for the middle of October about this, as well as about the 2 strands that went out while out last year and had purchased replacement lights.  We had to wait after clearing the leaves for a day that was not below freezing and it was not raining.  Over the weekend we put out the lights.  I am, again, doing the work.  We did a little bit different setup as he had some ideas, All was going well.  We have a holly tree and the lights have to be (literally) thrown onto the upper part of it as neither of us likes to go on a ladder.  I was trying to figure out how to put the higher lights on it - figuring a ladder will be needed - and he grabs the strand and throws it - and then is reminded of his shoulder and arm - and was back in pain like a few weeks ago!  (Yes, the lights are up, look nice - one of his ideas I thought was terrible works very well.)

We spent yesterday evening taking apart his computer as it had stopped working - believe it or not it as the battery that keeps the time and such going as this is his desktop computer.  So the time I would have spent washing dishes - I was lifting his computer (because even before he threw the light strand he should not have lifted it) as well as clearing off my desk for him to work on.  I did some of my magic - “It needs a CR2032 battery, I guess we will have to buy one.”  I go to our bag of button batteries (travels with us on trips) and find one, still sealed in the package.  Then I did the dishes after we changed the battery, put the computer back on his side of the office on the floor and he had restarted the computer.

I have to take 20 hours of classes to do tax returns next year - I took 2 hours of them the other evening and I should have much more of them done by now - only 26 days to go - 6 days of which we will be involved in reenacting, two days of which will be Christmas Eve and Day, that leaves 18 days left!  And Christmas decorations, shopping for one of his nieces (other is  finished) and regular housework is left - oh, and he is still trying to fit in a one day trip to Lancaster, PA.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is hard to make our time our own to be able to schedule what work needs to be done, but we have to do it.  This time of year, especially, we have to make time for what we need to do as well as what we have to do. 

TINY BATHROOMS - I MEAN REALLY TINY!

Okay, let’s get back to the idea of trying to get organized.  We have a full bathroom upstairs and and a half bath downstairs.  For those from other places, this means that our bathroom upstairs has a commode, sink, and bathtub/shower, while our downstairs bathroom has only a commode and sink.  They are small.  The downstairs bathroom is just less than 4 feet by 4 feet.  The upstairs one is about 6 feet by 5 feet - the 5 feet being the cross measurement of the bathtub. I am not sure that in some of the new houses being built the “toilet room” in the bathrooms are not larger than our bathrooms themselves.

When we moved in the downstairs bathroom had a decent sink and fairly new small vanity.  At some point the floor had been retiled as it ceramic tile and based on what I know of tile at different points in my life, I would say it had put in within 10 years of when we bought. The walls in both bathrooms have plastic tile - something I have never otherwise seen and I presume is older.  The vanity had a drawer below the door section. 

The upstairs sink and vanity were not that nice - and much older looking.  At some point we decided to replace them.  We then found out that our bathroom sinks are below the smallest standard size.  Back then we had a choice of two, now I am not sure that this size is still made.  We looked and looked and managed to find a duplicate of the downstairs vanity - with a drawer at the bottom.  No other vanities in this size had any drawer and there were maybe 3 of them to choose from.  Understand I don’t mean that we went to a store and the store had 3 of them.  We went to ALL the stores and found 3 total.  We replaced the upstairs sink and vanity, putting in the new setup ourselves.  When we moved in there was no electric outlet in either bathroom - yes, I just said that there was no outlet in either bathroom when we moved in.  We are not sure how the families before us dried their hair and the men must have shaved with blades, not an electric shaver.  We are not sure this would be allowed under the current electric code where we live.

When I read organizing books there is an assumption that there are lots of drawers, a large cabinet and a counter top.  We have no counter in either bathroom.  We also cannot put an “over john” in the upstairs bathroom.  (This is a set of shelves intended to stand around the commode and put shelves over it.) Why?  Well, the window is over the commode and it would be blocked by the over john unit.  What we did end up doing is making a 2 shelved wheeled cart that just squeezes in opposite the sink and next to the bathtub.  It can be wheeled out when one is taking a shower or cleaning the bathroom and then wheeled back in.  The bottom is used for storage and the top for counter space.  Spare towels and related are kept in a small closet in the hall outside of the bathroom.  We also put up a wooden ladder shaped hanging, that we made, on the wall adjacent to the commode - this is for magazines, but they get a bit icky where it is located, so very little is placed there.

The drawer in upstairs bathroom is husband’s.  He has to put his razor and related items somewhere and the drawer is where they are.  Since he gets dizzy when he bends over, it is not the best place, but it is what we have.  In the cabinet I have a plastic shoe box without a lid.  This holds our first aid stuff for upstairs.  It can be pulled out to be taken to where it is needed.  We have spare toilet paper and mouthwash in the cabinet, as well as a spray bottle of shower cleaner.  That fills it.  In the “medicine cabinet” over the sink, husband has his teeth related items on the top shelf in what is sold as drawer divider box.  He can take the entire divider box out, put it on the cart to use it, and then put it back.  Small bathroom related items - including over the counter pain killers - are on the other two shelves.  We do not keep any prescription medication upstairs.  Why?  I have to count it out once a week into boxes (so if one of us says “hey, did I take my pills?” we can easily check if it was taken) and I do this in the kitchen, so the prescription medications are kept in the kitchen.  I keep my teeth related items in the hall closet - it just leads to much less arguing. 

We do have this closet just outside our bathroom and bedroom.  It had shelves so it is used as a linen closet for the bedrooms and the upstairs bathroom.  We put a wire shelving unit on the inside of the door and I try to keep the items there in sections by what they are for to be able to find them - such as all of the “Band aid” type items are on the same door shelf.  Cleaning items for the bathroom are on the bottom door shelf.  A roll of paper towels is also kept in this closet for upstairs use. 

The hand towels in use hang on a towel bar on the door - we went to change this when we moved in, but it is set into a cut into the tile around the tub/shower and could not be changed.  The started shower towels hang on the door of the shower.  I also have 2 “utility” towels in the bathroom. These are towels to wipe up spills and messes. 

I keep the box of tissues on the top of the commode.  Also there and on the window sill are pump hand soap and pump hand sanitizer .  For fun and decoration there are some small “rubber” duckies in a line across the window sill.  There is a holder for small paper cups on the wall between the sink area and the tub.

When it is time to clean the bathroom, I wheel the cart out of it.  I do have to lie across the (closed) commode seat to be able to reach behind it to clean it and the floor.  To clean the tiny space between the sink/cabinet and the tub, I have to kneel in the tub to be able to reach the floor there to clean it.  

The day after we moved in we had an electrician in to put in an electric outlet.  The choices were limited.  It could be on the wall that is behind one, when one is standing at the sink - not convenient. or we could move the lighting fixture and put the outlet where the light had been.  The light was moved to the eave angle of the ceiling and an outlet put in.  I can sort of reach the outlet, but not really.

The upstairs does have ceramic tile on the wall and on the tub surround so they must have been replaced as they are not plastic, although they look older than the ones in the downstairs bathroom.                     

Ah yes - I wanted to mention that we always seem to manage to drip some water off the back corner of the sink onto the floor (on the commode side) and I have started folding a paper towel in quarters and putting it this corner of the floor to absorb any water that drips. 

The downstairs sink has a bit more flat surface around it and I have the pump soap and pump hand sanitizer on the back corners of the sink.  I cut a paper towel in half and then cut it to match the curve of the sink and keep the pieces under the two pumps to keep the sink top clean - I change them when I clean the bathroom.

I also have to lie down on the commode to clean behind it.  There is a perhaps 1 inch to 1.5 inch space between the vanity and the side wall - it is next to impossible to clean.  A damp paper towel folded and shoved in and moved with a yard stick is about the best that can be done.  The cleaners are kept in the vanity.  The drawer here holds some magazines (BBC History magazine to be specific.)  The hand towels and some utility towels (no other towels needed for here) are also kept in the vanity.  I hang a set of hand towels on a towel bar.  The owner before us also had 2 large rings for towels and I hang a utility towel in one of them for wiping up. There is a cup holder attached to the wall with a metal cup in it.  We use this bathroom when cleaning up from doing crafts and the cup holds paint brushes that need to dry.

For an electric outlet in this bathroom we installed (ourselves) a combination piece which has one outlet and the light switch in what would be the second outlet area.  It has not been working right lately (only when I am using it of course) and we have bought a new matching unit to replace the old one. 

The medicine cabinet has more of the same over the counter medicines.  (We keep older bottles of them when we buy new and split the new between the upstairs and downstairs bottles, putting the new expiration dates on the older bottles as we never use them up before they go bad and do not want to buy 2 bottles.)  We get our prescription medications in 90 day supplies and I keep the bottles in this cabinet.  Since it is not a shower bathroom, it does not get steamy so we can do this.  I count the pills into smaller bottles (again ones from earlier prescriptions that match what is in them) of a month’s worth when I use up the month’s worth in them.  These smaller bottles are kept in the kitchen cabinet. There is first aid stuff in this cabinet also - not as much as upstairs, just so we don’t have to always run upstairs for stuff. 

Again the tissue box is kept on the back of the commode.  A basket with “for show”guest soaps is also on the back of the commode.  Over the commode (which is a wall here, not a window) we have a shelving piece with odd shape small shelves for husband’s small glass animals collection.

This room seems to have originally had a window.  Above the plastic tile is wood paneling and there is a ceiling exhaust fan that does not seem to be original.  There was a room added to the back of the house that sits behind this room and we assume that there was a window and was covered by the paneling when it was blocked off by the addition of the back room and the exhaust fan was installed at that time. 

So that is our bathrooms.  Each of them is probably smaller than a closet in the world of organizing books.  Do you have a bathroom like our ours or do you have a nice big one.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

If you have small room you have to figure out how to make them work for you.  When we started we were not sure what to do.  Over the years we have managed to make them work for us.  They are far from perfect or convenient, but they work.  (And, as small as they are, they are bigger and more convenient than our RV bathroom - if you can call it that.)

I would love to hear from you about your bathroom and what you do to organize it.

Both bathrooms are at the back of the house.

REMEMBERING TO DO CHORES

I have mentioned that I use my cell phone to remind me to do things.  Before I had a cell phone or a computer calendar, heck, back before I had a computer or used my husband’s comptuer  - I needed a way to remember to do things. 

When we lived an apartment chores were a lot easier.  My husband would come home exhausted at the end of the week and go to bed early on Friday nights - very early - so I would clean the apartment while he was sleeping.  I changed the bedding on the weekend.  At first when the laundry bag filled up - about once a week to a week and a half - I went to the laundry up and across the street and wasted time doing the laundry - it came home in the same bag which also was washed. Then someone left a lipstick in the washing machine there - the washing machine I put all our clothes, towels, and bed linens in.  Most of it had to be thrown out.  Even then we were “odd sized” and had trouble replacing the clothes - plus the expense of replacing same and the rest.  So we looked around and bought a very small washer and a very small dryer - really small.  This turned laundry into an ongoing process most of the week.  On Monday I would put the first load in the washer - a week of our shirts was all it was hold in one load.  The dryer was about the same and did not have an exhaust hose, it exhausted the hot air into the adjacent air in the apartment and it took about twice as long as drying a full load of clothes does now.  So this was a laborious process for most of the week - and very hot in summer with the air from the dryer heating the apartment beyond the summer heat, even with an air conditioner running.

When we moved to the house I needed to find ways to remember and “force myself” to do the household chores.  I found it helpful to associate the chores to things to remind me.  We have garbage pickup on Monday and Thursday - so, I started changing the towels on the same days - new towels went out on Mondays and Thursdays.  Eventually I decided that I needed to change the kitchen towels more often and they became Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, while bathroom towels stayed the same.  (Shower towels are taken out when they will be used and used once.)  Works well.

I used to change the bedding on Mondays as it was a new workweek.  This worked okay until we started traveling for weekends more often as we often stayed away through Mondays.  Since then Tuesdays is the day I change the bedding - unless there is a reason to do it on another day.

I started doing the laundry on Wednesday nights.  Why?  If we were going to take a weekend trip it definitely would not be while we were away and we would have clean and folded clothes for a trip leaving on Friday.  I used to do the entire washing and drying on Wednesday nights, then husband started watching TV in the kitchen and blocking the basement door, so I could not conveniently do the laundry while he was sitting there and had to wait for him to go upstairs to his computer, so I ended up splitting the laundry between Wednesday and Thursday nights - and folding them Thursday and Friday mornings.  Yes, “West Wing” changed my laundry schedule. :-) 

Even this blog is tied to something, it is written on Wednesday night and posted late on same  - or technically early on Thursday - as I do the laundry at the same time.

Actually cleaning and dealing with the house was easier before husband quit his job and is now with me all the time.  My time is no longer my own - similar to him sitting in the way of doing  the laundry on Wednesday nights. I may plan to do one thing - but he needs help warping his loom.  I plan to do things during the afternoon - not even house related - and he has other plans.  Today the eyeglasses he ordered came in, so everything I hoped to do was gone.  We drove 45 minutes to Walmart in the next county (the only one with a vision department around here) plus the time there and then the drive back - and while driving home I remembered we needed to buy milk at Walmart and had to stop at another one and buy it.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

Are there automatic reminders which you can tie your house chores to?

ORGANIZING AND STORING IN OUR TINY RV - PART 1

I have mentioned that we have a VERY small RV.  We went away for Independence Day weekend in it.  We spent 6 days and 5 nights in what is basically, as my husband sometimes refers to it, a large metal can.

Life in this RV has to very organized or it becomes a giant problem.  Items have to be stored in such a way that they will stay in place while we are driving.  Roads around here tend to have lots of potholes and lots of repairs so it is a bumpy ride.  While the cabinets and cubbys come with devices on them to hold them closed, we found that the drawer (notice I said “the drawer” as in the only one - technically there is a shelf which also moves like a drawer, but there is only one drawer) kept opening when we bounced.  We would be driving along and we would hear different odd sounds than ones we normally hear and I would turn around and the drawer would be open.  My husband finally figured out a way to install heavy duty hook and loop tape to keep it closed.  The drawer holds an assortment of small items that might be needed to be at hand.

We all know the concept in organizing of items should be stored near where they are used.  Sometimes this does not work in our RV.  I have to fit the items to be stored to the size and location of the space.  Once the bed is made up  - and it stays so for at least an entire trip, if not two or three short trips in a short amount of time - we cannot easily access two of the cubbies both of which are located over the sides of the bed.  Therefore while it makes no sense to store one’s spare shoes over the bed - that is where they are kept.  In the back of this long cubby, which is on the “kitchen” side of the RV I keep a spare backpack (I forgot mine on a trip and need it when we are away from the RV and cannot easily get back to it during the day), some plastic covers for the bed and “car” seats, shower shoes (for using the showers at RV parks), a spare pair of slip on sneakers for me (in cold weather we can’t use the toilet in the RV and this way I don’t have to deal with shoe laces if I have to “run”), and the shoes we bring with us for the trip.  Unless it is a longer trip I wear either a pair of sneakers or shoes (which can be worn in the rain) and bring and store the opposite pair.  Husband will also wear a pair of sneakers or shoes and store the opposite plus another pair of shoes.  We will put some of the plastic covers on top of the shoes to keep them from bouncing around and making noise.  Generally if we need different shoes for change in weather I take them out in the morning before I am out of bed and put the pair each of us had been wearing away in the cubby so this space we cannot easily access when out of the bed is a good use of the space.

Over the opposite side of the bed I keep spare bedding in the cubby (on the “toilet” side of the RV) and there are the entertainment controls - cable/antenna connections and switches and related.  They are at the front of the cubby right inside the door of it where they can be reached while standing at the foot of the bed (these came installed here, although we have added some additional items).  The spare bedding is in further (these two cubbies, unlike other cubbies are long and extend further towards the rear of the RV) as if I need to access them I will be taking the bed apart and will be able to reach them.

In front of the cubby with the shoes (on the “kitchen” side) is another cubby - same door and opening, but it does not extend in any direction and is therefore maybe half the size of the rear two.  In this cubby we keep items we need to be able to reach when getting up in the morning and going to bed at night.  It is also located over the bed, but since it is at front of the bed, it is easy to reach without climbing on the bed. Our first night in the RV we had to keep taking things out, putting them away, taking out something else, etc. to get ready.  As a result of this I came up with the idea of a plastic box each.  We each have a flat plastic box with the personal items we need at bedtime and in the morning - hair brush, comb, tooth brush, toothpaste - I keep my cell phone cords in mine, husband does not keep his in his box, and such.  These stay in the RV all the time.  There is a third box which goes back and forth to the house each trip - our medications and small items which need to come out to the RV for the trip are in this box.  At night I take out the 3 boxes.  Husband’s box goes to the right side of the kitchen counter (on the glass of the stove) and all his needed items for preparing for bed will go on that side.  My box goes on the left side of the counter (which is an actual counter top section and is on the side towards the bed) as does our checkoff list, refrigerator thermometer and some other items for the evening.  I will take out the “day of the week” box marked with, of course, the day of the week which has our pills for that night and replacement pills for those used during the day and morning pills for the next day.  (Sunday box, for example, has the pills which we will deal with Sunday night - Sunday bedtime pills, replacement pills for those used Sunday during the day and needed for Monday during the day, and Monday am pills.)  I put the pills we are taking at night in two plastic bottle lids (because they are the right size and shape and they were kept for free when their bottle contents were used up and their bottles tossed) and place the lids on the counter.  I get out my pocket pill box and get husband’s from him and replace the pills used.  When we take our night pills the bottle lids are put back into the box and the box goes back in the cubby - while the other two boxes stay out to be used in the morning.  Husband has the day of the week pill box for the morning on his side - he takes his pills and puts it on my side of the counter (did I mention the only sink in the RV is in the center of the counter, between our two sides?)  for me to take my morning pills.  The box is then put back into the box it came out of. 

Also in this cubby is a SMALL plastic crate which holds husband’s electric shaver and some other items we need - including a very thin tarp, which folds down to nothing, to put on the bed if we have to get on it in our street clothes (including for emergency shoe changes) as we did not like going on the bed in street clothes before we had bed bugs, and certainly not after..  We keep a plastic shower curtain folded in this cubby on the top of the other items - when it is not in use it helps keep the other items in place.  It is used when it will be raining during the day.  I cover the rear end of the bed (which is the head of the bed at the rear of the RV/van) so that when we open the rear doors during the day the bed will not get wet.

Oh, my, an article already and we have only covered what is over the bed.  I guess this will be Part 1. 

Understand that everything in the RV has to be secured and in a specific spot so we can easily find it and then after being used it is returned to it’s spot (unless it is disposable) so we can find it again and so that it will not go bouncing when we drive - or flying around when we stop, start or make a turn.

OUR "OTHER HOUSE" - A TINY RV

Well, now that the weather is turning nicer - finally - thoughts turn to vacation.  Since we had the bedbugs we will no longer stay in a hotel (although we don’t know that we got them there, many other possibilities).   We instead bought a very tiny RV.

This is not one of those behemoths one sees on the road that look like an interstate bus nor one of those cute things with the overhang over the front seats, noooo.  This is a Chevy 3500 van conversion.  You know, those vans that tradesmen use for their tools.  It is, as I like to say, cozy.

The bed when made up - and we keep it made up as is it hard to make it up, takes up over a third of length of the van.  The front seats turn around to sit in at night.  Between the two there is a mini kitchen behind the driver and a toilet cabinet behind the passenger seat.

Why am I writing about this?  If you have think you have a small space with no place to put things - the RV is about 20 x 6.5 feet on the outside and, unlike Dr. Who’s Tardis, it is smaller on the inside.  So to be very generous we have about 120 sq feet inside and it is 6 feet 1 inch inside in height - except where it is shorter.  I am 5'1" and hit my head frequently.  With the bed made up there is about 5 feet by 2.5 feet of walking around space inside. 

Now imagine a house that small, with limited storage, and everything in it has be stored in such a way that when the house is moving (especially at high speeds on bumpy roads) the stuff will not move around and will make as little noise as possible.  Noise can drive one crazy when one is driving and it is “bam, bam, bam, bam...” all the way.  It takes much planning to get everything inside it as we are not minimalists!

When we first got it and looked at the storage - 3 small overhead cubbies over the bed, a small size cabinet overhanging the foot of the bed on one side (with the TV attached to arm on the rear of the cabinet which banged a lot until we figured out how to tie the frame holding the TV together and keep it from moving), small size cabinet under the 2 burner propane stove, 2 shelves with doors on the fronts of them over the “kitchen”, a closet about the height of a shirt with holes for 12 hangers, an overhead drawer over the driver and passenger seats, and a couple of shelves which have a high edge so small items do not fall out .  Of course we also have 2 map pockets and the glove compartment and the seat back pockets of the van.  Outside there is a compartment, perhaps a foot tall any maybe 4feet long,  along the bottom of the driver’s side which holds the electrical cord for hook up at RV parks and has room for similar related items for setting up the RV.  There is some storage under the bed about 2 feet deep from the back door of the van and inside there are 3 small cubbies under the bed - one also has one of the water tanks in it and the other the jack for the wheels.  Since we keep the bed made up we have additional storage under the bed in what would have been the aisle between the two bench seats which turn into the bed.  There is a third “car” seat behind the front passenger seat and it has storage in its base.

At first I planned it all out very well and I managed to get everything we thought we would need into the RV.  I bring lots of plastic store shopping bags - good for garbage and also great for stuffing in the assorted compartments around stuff we bring to keep the stuff from moving around.  Normal logic has nothing to do necessarily with where things are kept other than items used outside are stored in the outside compartment or inside the rear doors, food items in the cabinets around the kitchen area and items which need a refrigerator in the tiny one it has.  Over the several years we have had it we found much of the items we anticipated needing we did not need and have brought less and less to the point that I sometimes have to move items to other cabinets to fill them enough to keep items from shifting and making noise.  It never occurred to me when we first got the RV that I would have too much space, I could not figure out where to fit everything!    

One of the reasons the RV came to my mind right now is that today we are doing something called dewinterizing.  If you live in a cold area you know that in the winter water pipes can freeze, well imagine if the water pipes were in a completely unheated, barely insulated house.  In the fall we have to get all the water out of the pipes, tanks, etc. and add a non-toxic antifreeze made for this purpose.  Now that it is spring we have to get the anti-freeze out of the system and sanitize the system against anything which might have grown in it during the winter.  This involves filling the 2 clean water tanks and running water through the water lines until the antifreeze is out - the antifreeze is pink, so the lines are run until they run clear - sink, inside shower, outside shower and toilet.  Then the tanks have added to them a bleach and water mixture - just a touch of bleach - ½ cup in the larger tank and 1/4 cup in the smaller.  Then water is added to finish refilling the tanks.     Today when we did this we had not used a gallon of water out of each tank and when we went to add the water and bleach we had to run more water out of the lines to fit it in.  Then the fun part - we back down the driveway and stop short, up the driveway ditto, several times to mix the bleach and the water.  Then the easy part - we then let it all sit for 4 hours to sanitize the tanks.   

After the 4 hours - or more - we drain the tanks.  Since this is clean water we can just unscrew a cap on the bottom of the RV (guess who gets to crawl under) and the water drains out onto our driveway and into the street.  Now, I say “just unscrew” - the drain points to the side of the van that I am sitting on when I do this and is right next to the side.  So, especially when bleach is in the water coming out, I have to unscrew it (with my left hand as that is the direction it points) and when the water starts spurting out as the cap comes off - get up as quickly as an overweight 60+ year old woman can to avoid getting wet.  When we put the cap back on, if it is while the driveway is still wet from the water I let out, I side on a plastic garbage bag to keep dry.  We then refill the tanks and run the clean water through the lines to get rid of the bleach smell.  (Not too much run through the lines or we will have to “dump” the grey (sink and shower ) water tank and the black (toilet) tanks and we have to drive to the next county for that, so we run just enough through.  The clean tanks are then drained again.  Now the instructions talk about doing this multiple times to get rid of the taste of bleach in the water.  We have found that rather than waste water, when we go out the first time we bring water in bottles (which we fill at home) to drink and by the end of the first trip the bleach taste is gone.  The bleach has long ago changed to water and is safe to use or even drink, even with the taste.

Today we got to the refill the tanks after the bleach part. We have a problem when we do this.  The rear tank, which is smaller, seems to have a problem with the bleach having been in the water in it, and will not fill.  When the water is put in after the bleach water is let out, the water spurts back out.  There seems to be an air bubble formed.  My husband has made a long thin tube to deal with this, which lets us fill the tank from the bottom and allows the air in the bubble to leave.  This seems to only happen when we are doing this.  We had to do it in the dark tonight.  We still have to deal with the bleach water in the hot water tank tomorrow.

So, next time you look around your house and think you have too little space and too little storage think about this - there are couples who live full time in these tiny RVs - with large dogs!

Organizing books don't work for me.

How about a bit on organizing books and how I have found they don’t relate to me?  Do you find this to be true?

I have read my way through all sorts of books on organizing, decluttering, etc.  I have found that none of them really seem to apply to me and my situation.  I am guessing this is true for many people.                         

My house must be the smallest one there is.  For example, my bathroom is, according to several organizing books, smaller than the average closet.  It has no counter, one small drawer at the bottom of the cabinet, no room for permanent storage to be added to the bathroom.  It has a cabinet and sink so small, that when we went to replace them to the current ones we have, we had a choice of almost no sinks or vanities.  The ones on display in various stores did not fit into our bathroom.  And this is our larger bathroom!  This is far from the extensive bathrooms described in books. 

Front entrance hall? Another example.  Just about every organizing book I have read has an extensive section on the front entrance hall of the house.  The latest book I have read talked about what needs to be in the front entrance hall.  Maybe it would all fit in Downton Abbey’s entrance hall, but not in my front entrance hall.  There is a small closet.  There is a small mirror on one side of the front door and the door bell mechanism on the other side.  There is no room for a shelf or piece of furniture. With either one will not be able to walk through this tiny space.  Even more unlike the description of this room in books, we do not come into the house through it.  Our kitchen door is immediately adjacent to our driveway and much more convenient so that is what is used.  There is no mud room or other room when one enters through the kitchen.  When one walks in, one is between the stove and the counter.  No place for items waiting to go out (unless they are hung on the door knob), keys, shelves, storage etc. 

Alternate ideas had to be found and they were found more by logic than by suggestions from books - this is an important idea one must use logic in organizing.

Next week, I will tell you how I got started trying to get organized and my early efforts.