MUST BE ABLE TO THINK QUICKLY OF WHAT TO DO OR SUBSITUTE WHEN SOMETHING IS NOT WORKING

 Sorry I haven't posted. Life has been a bit crazy. I even still have one tax return to prepare – for a business.

I am guessing that I have posted before around 2010 we had bed bugs and that has shaped a good part of our life since then. Husband decided he needed a new bed pillow. (None of the spare, un - or rarely – used ones could even be tried.) He thinks his head/face hurts due to his pillows. Today we were at Walmart and he bought a new pillow.

After we had the bedbugs we bought a device called a Pack-tite. One is suppose to put their suitcase(s) in it after traveling and heat the suitcases and contents so that if one has brought back any bed bugs they will die from the heat. We no longer travel using suitcases as we dealt with this problem by buying a tiny Class B RV (think Chevy van, not big RV lumbering down the road or in a movie). So when he bought a pillow today I had to put it in the Packtite to heat it – just in case.

I do laundry on Wednesday nights and so it was no problem to heat the pillow at the same time as the Pack-tite is in the same room in the basement. Or so I thought. The remote read thermometer I use to monitor the temperature in the Packtite stopped reading while the Packtite was still heating to temperature. I have to make sure the air in it does not go over 120F. It uses one of those “button” batteries – we have all different sizes of them in a bag in our bedroom. Up two flights of stairs. Thought I found the correct size battery. Back down 2 flights. No, it was the wrong size. Back up 2 flights. We do not have this size battery! Heating already started and husband wants to use the pillow tonight – what to do?

We have two double read thermometers in the kitchen – both read the temperature in the kitchen. One also reads the temperature outside the house. The other one reads the temperature in our refrigerator in right near husband's insulin. Which to take? Well, it was just after midnight so the temperature outside does not matter and I took that thermometer. Since I do not have the remote read – I have been running down and up the stairs every 5 -10 minutes. There is a maximum temperature and it has to be shut off when same is reached. On last trip down – that occurred.

For some reason these past few years life seems to get crazier and crazier.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

We all have to learn to think “outside the box”. When something does not work or is missing one has to think of alternative methods or items to use.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? AND PACKING AWAY CHRISTMAS FOR THE YEAR

 Where is what coming from next?  

Last week my husband complained that the basement that the basement smelled and I should come down and check if it smelled like (natural) gas.  It did not and the smell was coming from the other room in the basement – near our oil burner.  (In this area fuel oil is one of the common heating sources – it is the same as diesel.  It is dyed so that if one uses it in one's car because there are less taxes on it than on diesel it will obvious. ) We contract with a company to deliver our oil automatically so we don't run out and also we have a service contract with them to deal with any work any needed on the furnace.  It is a hot air furnace (meaning hot air is blown through vents running through the heat to heat the house). The smell was not of the oil itself, but sort of like it smells when burned.  We looked around the furnace and saw nothing and figured it was a one time thing.  Our carbon monoxide monitors had not gone off – even when we took one to the basement and put it near the furnace.  

Friday we went out for one of our corona virus food shopping sprees – 4 hours for a 15 minuted drive each way and shopping.  An hour and a half to wipe it all down and store it.  Smell still there.  It was still here over the weekend.  Monday husband decided that “we” had to do something about it.  I telephoned the company that we contract with for this and explained -also that we had forgotten about the annual cleaning and checkup.  (Okay, a bit of a lie.)  They were very nice and when I said - “in the afternoon, please” gave us an appointment for Tuesday afternoon.

We are entitled an annual cleaning of the furnace – replacement of filters, etc and they check that the furnace is running properly.  It would normally be done in the spring or summer  - their slow time.  I did not call to have same done in 2020 as we did not want anyone in the house due to Covid-19, and figured by the time winter was taking hold the pandemic would be over and we could deal with it then – ha ha.  So we figured the problem was that the furnace needed a cleaning and the filters needed replacement, but were afraid of a major repair or the need to replace our 70 year furnace and pandemic or not it had to be done. 

I spent a good part of Monday evening making room for him to walk around and work.  In addition to the usual items out in the basement – husband's foldable work table, laundry sorting cart, sewing machine cover, and such – I had moved things around to take out our Christmas tree and the Santa/elves figures we keep down there – under the staircase.  This also involves moving our Packtite heater (to kill possible bed bugs in items coming into the house) which is about 5 ft long.  It sits out of the way in a corner of the basement – but right in front of the Christmas items stored.  When we are dealing with decorating inside for Christmas I put the Packtite on top of the large piece of wood we use for its base normally, on top of the portable worktable and then put the Packtite on the piece of wood.  This stays like this until I finish putting away the inside Christmas decorations.  I had finished taking the ornaments off the tree – but not had not chance to move these items to get to the box to store them in.  So I had to move the Packtite and board back to where they belong so he could move around where he needed to.  I also moved a number of items to the other side of the basement including my wheeled laundry sorter and the portable work table.  (I folded up the work table before moving it – easier to carry and smaller to store – husband was surprised, it had not occurred to him to do so.)  

We woke and were getting dressed just before 11 am – the appointment was for 12-4 pm, so an hour before seemed like plenty of time.  I heard a vehicle door close outside and looked out the window – it was the serviceman.  Since I sleep in jeans and tee shirt (and these days sweatshirt also) I went downstairs to let him in while husband got dressed.  

When we got down to the basement I explained.  He immediately found the cause of the smell – the exhaust pipe from the furnace had partially popped out of it's mate in the wall – the furnace exhaust had been leaking into the basement!  I was astounded that we had not noticed this.  Later husband said that he looked at the exhaust several times and did not notice it.  The pipe was put back into it's mate and taped into place (it has always been taped into place).  The furnace was cleaned, tested, and everything changed.  In the interim husband and I had changed places  - with me going upstairs to get dressed and him staying with the serviceman.  (Having worn my sleep clothes around someone I through them in the laundry.)  Most of the smell was gone from the basement.  

After the serviceman left – due to the crazy people we become – I sprayed where he had been, left his jacket, his tools, etc. with a bit of our precious Lysol just to be careful.  The next day when I went down to the basement I smelled the Lysol with perhaps a whiff of the other smell.  Husband insisted he still smelled the smell.  Finally today – 2 days later the basement has cleared itself of the smell and all is well.  We cannot open the windows in the basement for a variety of reasons to air it out and I did not want to leave the door to the kitchen from the basement open as that would bring the smell into the rest of the house.  

Tonight I put back what I had moved so I could store the Christmas items away.  I like to do move the heavier Christmas items up and down the stairs while I am doing the laundry.  A trip down with laundry – throw it in the washer, bring up a box when I come upstairs.  Trip down to shift load to dryer, put new load in washer – bring up another box.  I had meant to bring the first box down when I came back down – but was not done with it yet.  I took the ornaments off the tree in our dining room and put them in the box in which they are kept (one of the fancy boxes we put under the tree to make it look like there are gifts for us).  I stored that tree in its box.  I then brought up the box for the tree in our studio – the ornaments were already off them as I took them off when I took the ornaments from the main tree.  I took apart and packed that tree in it's box also.  I taped both boxes closed.  Next trip down I will bring them to the basement and put them aside – they store on the main tree box so cannot be stored until that tree has its light removed and is dissembled and boxed – I did bring up the plastic bags to store the lights from the main tree on one of these trips – that is the next step in storing the main tree in it's box in the basement.  (Box remains in the basement as it to large and would be too heavy to carry the entire tree in it's box and sections are put in the box down there – one by one, each a trip down to due size and weight.)

Tonight we went out and drove the USPS mail collection box we are using – we are to get a snowstorm and we did not want to pay our real estate taxes late.  I had wanted to mail it last Sunday as it was the only mail for this coming weekend's trip to send mail, but husband had said to wait, so we had to go out tonight.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Okay, two of them -

First, make sure that all service and cleaning is done timely on your large appliances.  Second – make sure to allow time to pay bills before snow or other bad weather.  

THANKSGIVING IN A YEAR WHICH IS NOT NORMAL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

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

NOTE -

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

COVID - 19 # 18 HAVING SERVICEMEN IN THE HOUSE

Last week since I diverged to the car accident clean up I did not finish the story of our bedroom air conditioner replacement from the week before.

We purchased the air conditioner from a local appliance store that has been around “forever”.  We have purchased air conditioners from them before, as well as other appliances.  I do not really like them as I think they overcharge and they don't seem to understand how our state sales tax applies to air conditioners.  If we were not in the corona virus situation, I would suggested to husband that we should shop around before buying, but since we are that in situation – I said nothing as we needed to resolve the matter quickly.   

In our state sales tax does not apply to things which are are “capital improvements” to one's house.  For those who might not understand this, a capital improvement becomes a permanent part of one house – a  window (new or replaced) is a capital improvement, a window shade or curtain is not.  If one buys an air conditioner and sticks it in their window opening it is not a capital improvement as one can easily remove it from the window and the house would not damaged from doing so.  The exact same air conditioner if it is installed through a hole in the wall, as our is, – a permanent installation – is a capital improvement.  In both cases it does not matter if it is a new unit (and new hole in the wall for the permanent install) or a replacement unit (even if through an existing hole in the wall).  If one only replaced part of the air conditioner it would be a repair not a capital improvement whether the air conditioner was in a window or through the wall. 

So basically- we should not have paid sales tax on the new air conditioner, but we were charged sales tax.  This has happened in the past when we have replaced air conditioners (all through the wall) from this store and is one of the reasons I don't like this store.  I have argued in the past to no avail and did not want to get excited and make a fuss this particular time, so after one questioning of the salesman, I went did not make a fuss.  (His story was that there is sales tax except on the first air conditioner installed – I did double check at the state tax website that there should not have sales tax on the air conditioner, and I downloaded the form from the state tax website to apply for a refund of the sales tax we paid. 

I will say that I am giving the store (employees) the benefit of the doubt that they are not trying to rip off customers and they actually think that they should charge the sales tax and are sending it to the state when they send in the sales taxes they have collected.  I hate to think (though I do) that they are knowingly charging sales tax which they should not and either keeping the sales tax collected themselves or are charging the sales tax and sending it to the state as it is too much trouble for them to bother to deal with sales that should not have sales tax charged.

Now our house is rather, ahem, “casual” – as in my dresser has all manner of bric a brac and other items on it.  In addition our rooms are small.  The day before the air conditioner was to be installed I cleared off the dresser (left the clock , my eyeglasses holder and my day of the week pill box).  I packed it into a large plastic box (husband was nice enough to remove scarves he wove that were stored in the box so I could have it.  I wrapped the items – most being breakable – in two of my worn tee shirts and some spare underwear and socks to keep them from breaking.  In the hallway at the top of the stairs – an area of limited space – I have my teddy  figurine village and I was concerned that since the area is small one of the installers might bump into the village – so its “residents” were stored in the same box as the items from my dresser and the “buildings” were moved to the table in our living room that husband uses when weaving (at his suggestion). 

That night we took clothes for the next day out of our closets and then moved our night stands to in front of the closets and pushed my dresser along its wall towards the closets to give the installers the most room possible by where the air conditioner would be placed.    In doing so my lack of vacuuming the room was obvious, so we had to vacuum.  We also pushed our bed to husband's side of the bedroom as far as we could – against his dresser and a bookcase – he had to get into and out of bed at the foot of the bed – had to vacuum under the bed also.  Prepared for coming adventure we went to sleep.

Now, in addition to fear of catching Covid-19, I am still terrified of having bed bugs again.  It was an exhausting and expensive process (1/3 of our income for the year) to get rid of them 11 years ago, and we have been very careful and worked hard to avoid having them again.  Service people who walk in and out of people's houses can easily pick up bed bugs at one house and bring them to their later stops and this was not just someone coming in the house - they were coming in our bedroom!  So the next morning we covered our bed with 2 plastic tarps that we normally use on the bed in our RV when it made it up (in this case to keep the bed clean and so anyone looking in would not see a bed in the van).

When the installers came husband opened the front door.  (We had rearranged our vehicles on the driveway the day before to allow them the most access to the house we could.)  The main installer walked in – he did have mask – sitting below his nose – but no gloves.  Husband made a comment about the mask and it was put into proper place, but when asked about gloves – he said they don't use gloves.  (If me and another time I would refused the air conditioner – but we were stuck.)  Husband dealt with showing him where it was to go, etc.  I stayed downstairs as I felt myself getting upset with virus and bed bug fears.  The assistant installer was outside unpacking the new air conditioner on the driveway – his mask was around his neck as he breathed and sweated all over the air conditioner.  When the main installer went out to him he said something and the assistant's mask was put on properly.  I am under the impression that if nothing had been said – the masks would not be on or at least not properly on.

I stayed mostly towards the back of our living room breathing deeply in an attempt to keep from being upset over people in the house.  It worked – more or less. 

When they were done and left husband sprayed Lysol on the air conditioner, wherever they had been working or put their equipment down, the covers on the bed, etc. We moved the furniture back into place.   It took me well into the next day – as I put the pieces back on my dresser before I stopped feeling in a panic.  The teddy figurine village took another day before it was put back together. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When something is unpleasant (such as having people in our house – in general and especially right now) one has to go ahead and get whatever it is done and over with. 

RV, VAN AND OLD PAPERS

Another week, another post.  Mom had 2 surgeries within a week and is now back in her apartment at the assisted living facility.  We will taking her Friday back to the doctor who changed her pacemaker for a checkup and I have to make an appointment for same with the doctor who did her cancer surgery as well as with the one involved with her leg scan as it still has not has been discussed with her.  We did squeeze in appointments with our doctor for us last week – dealing with mom, we had forgotten to make same until the doctor refused to renew our prescriptions because we were so late in doing so. 

Friday we drove to Pennsylvania and picked up our RV – the batteries are working and the entire electrical system was checked and was fine.  Husband is concerned about driving such a distance alone (as I probably mentioned when we had to drive it there) and also concerned about driving alone in the dark – the combination of the two, even more so.  We kept calculating when to go and what to do coming home.  We figured out that we had two choices – both involved trying to get the dealer as early as possible, having lunch at Wendys very quickly and starting home.  In one version we would immediately drive home, this way we would miss Philadelphia rush hour and hoping to avoid rush hour from NYC headed towards our home. The other version involved again leaving immediately after lunch to avoid the Philadelphia rush hour and driving to near the Golden Corral in New Jersey that I am sure I have mentioned before.  We would then go to some stores in that area to spend some time, then have dinner at the Golden Corral and then head home. With this version we should avoid the rush hour from NYC to home, but would be driving in the dark home from Golden Corral.  We figured we would decide after we picked the RV and while eating lunch.  The golden morning time to leave home and head off Long Island for us seems to be 8:30 am – we are following at the end of rush hour and are before the construction work on two of the major roads starts.  We we were out at 8:20 -since we were driving only our van, we did not have to waste time backing the RV out of the driveway (a process that involves walkie talkies and me standing in the middle of a 4 lane road road that has traffic that all speeds – which is why it a problem to begin with.)  We had figured we would get to the dealer between noon and 1 pm.  We got there just after 11 am.  We picked up the RV - “schmoozed” a bit, gassed up the RV and the van for the trip back, spent about 15 minutes having lunch and started home – confident that we would miss the rush hour traffic at both cities.  We did fine in PA – no traffic, NJ not bad almost no traffic.  One very quick stop at a rest area for me to use the facilities – so fast, I left my cell phone in the RV and husband waited out there so we did not have to shut everything did – I ran literally both ways and we were off again.  Then we hit Staten Island  (NYC) and there was traffic, but it was not bad – 15 minute part of the trip maybe was 25 minutes.  We then crossed the bridge to Long Island.  The limited access roadway we have to taken home was BAD.  How bad?  The signs on the bridge said not to exit to it, to exit to a local street that allows later connection to the roadway – which we take anyway.  It took us 2.5 hours to the dealer – it took us 5 hours home – and that was with arriving in NYC at 3 pm.  Another day of our lives – gone.

But the RV is home and working properly again – so all is well – right?  Driving home husband found that the brakes were squealing so today they were at our mechanic again.  He said they were okay to use – a problem sometime down the road as there is rust. 

Wait a second, have to run to the basement to switch laundry loads and check the heat in the PackTite.

Back.  Normally I have a load of clothes, a load of towels, and a load of bed linens each week with a load of jeans every few weeks.  With all this going on, I have not changed the bedding in a couple of weeks – no time to do so and saves a wash load (yes, I think ewwww also, but it will done soon).  This week I have a load clothes, a load of sweatshirts and nightgown – I bought 3 new ones and have worn a few of them and they don't fit in the general clothes load, a load of towels, and a load of jeans.  I also have a load of white reenactment clothing (much “small clothes” - undergarments, all of which are white) from our last couple of events and a second load of the rest of our outfits – next time we will need them is December and I want them clean so I don't have to run at the minute to wash them – some of the pieces need ironing also.  Just put the general clothes load into the dryer and the sweatshirt load into the washer. 


At the same time I have been going through the bags of stuff from the family home.  Being a crazy person who had bed bugs. I fill (lightly) our PackTite heater with some of the stuff and heat at it night – mixed with whatever fabric or paper items we have in addition to be heated.  Then the next afternoon I go through the stuff from the house after putting away the stuff from our house that was added in.  Today I went through the papers from our wedding – 40 years ago.  All of the response cards & envelopes – shredded, set up invitation with all the papers which were included and put it in the shoebox that I have as a “memory box” of the stuff I am finding and want to keep from all this, shredded the other invitations, tossed out the other response cards (no names, etc. on them), I kept the blank envelopes for the invitations – can always use larger envelopes, have set aside the unused response envelopes they do have my parents and name and address, but I will see if labels will cover same and decide if we are keeping them or they are being shred, shredded the receipt for the wedding (what a waste of $8,000 – I was right, we should have just gotten married & not bothered with a wedding), and shredded the seating charts and other papers.  I kept the box that it was all in.  Good box.  Apparently there is much more than my stuff in what my sister set aside for me – work papers of my dad's and other financial stuff.  I have a found a certificate given to my other sister when she graduated from high school (she is 55 now).  I scanned it, emailed it to her and asked if she wanted the certificate or what.  I found old bank statements and similar of mom's and even some of dad's (he died in the mid 1990's).  I found a dividend check for $4.50 that was never cashed – I will see if it can cheaply somehow be replaced – but 1994 was a long time ago.  More to do tomorrow after the current load is heated – this load also has some yarn husband bought for weaving project to sell and a new sweatshirt that I bought  - both today. 

At least every year I go through the papers from 10 years before and get rid of almost all of them – 25 years is a long time to keep bank statements and a check.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

So progress is being made on the stuff from mom's house. I am trying to keep up on household chores – dishes washed after dinner and after night snack (only meals we eat home).  Obviously laundry being done.  Towels changed and into the laundry.  (If only I did not hate changing the bedding and folding same after it is washed even more than more than cleaning toilet bowls – I figured it out – my arms are too short to deal with sheets easily.)

Any suggestions for my family and me about dealing with all of the stuff from the house?

CLEARING OUT THE FAMILY HOME.

I have several large plastic bags with stuff that we took from my family home.

I am not calling it mom's house as my sisters and I do as it is really the family home. My family moved there when I was 5. My (now) middle sister was 6 months old and “baby” sister was 7 years in the future. While I remember the apartment that my parents and I – and middle sister briefly – lived in before the house, my sisters have no memories of any other home growing up. It was a huge house to me coming from the 3 room apartment we lived in before. When middle sister was born I was moved from sleeping on the opposite side of my parents bedroom from where they slept (I often wonder how they managed to create my sister with me sleeping in their bedroom) to a cot in the living room. Since the only TV (a large 1950s console set) was in the living room I got to watch such late night shows as “the Late Show” (old movies) and the early versions of “the Tonight Show – back when Johnny Carson was just a page at NBC, California with my parents – or they could not watch them. I have been thinking a lot about those early days of our family lately – both as my mother is 90 and with the clearing out of our house for the sale of it. I have not taken a lot of family stuff as I am in my mid 60s and have no children to inherit any of the family house – it will eventually reside with my niece or nephew any way.

Since we had the bed bugs here in our home I am always concerned about getting them again. We have a device called a Packtite. It is the size of a very large softsided suitcase with a rack and a heater in it. It is intended to place suitcases in after one has been on a trip to heat the suitcases and what is in them to kill any bed bugs that might have come home with one. Because I am a crazy person, we have it set up with a laundry basket – that we drilled in holes in the bottom of to allow for air flow – in it and we heat any soft items – paper, fabric and the like that we bring into the house – that we are concerned might have bed bugs in them. So the items from my family home - mostly papers and needlework of mine from when I was much younger – all has to be heated.

I am doing so in small batches and have finished two large bags so far. I am going through these items I took when there or my sister set aside for me. (She said she had a box for me – I expected an office files sized box- there were two of them plus other stuff in the box she left.) It is a trip down memory lane and a record of what I considered important enough to keep at one or another point in time. I have found work appointment books from my early days in accounting (could have used one of them when I was positive that I knew a building in a scene on “Blue Bloods” and went crazy to find it and then figure out how I knew it – it was where a client had his factory – the work appointment books also have clients contact info). School grades – I did as badly as I remember. Lots of occasion cards – birthdays, engagement – ours and friends, anniversaries, Valentines (old boyfriends same went straight to the paper shredder), and so on. I have been weeding through – baby age birthday cards, one copy of wedding related paper items, cards from certain people – parents, sisters, husband, a few very good friends, a special aunt &uncle, my grandparents were kept – others were shredded. I found some remembrances of things such as graduation or awards programs – kept, articles I had published in the college newspaper – kept, personal diaries – kept.

Of course I am keeping my needlework – finished or not. I did leave behind two latch hooked throw rugs that were finished except for the edging as I figured they might sell and make a couple of buck for mom, plus husband said to me as I looked at them “Where would we put them?”. I did decide after leaving them if when we went back they were still there I would take them – but we did not get back while they were still in sight.

So I am trying to figure out what to add to the mess of stuff here in husband and my home, without going overboard. I was a bit “lucky”. My toys would have been the hardest to deal with and decide who “lived” and who “died” but the house was hit by Hurricane Sandy and the basement where most of the toys were flooded and they had to be tossed out then by the crew that came in and worked on the basement. Not only were they not there for me to deal with, I had already “mourned their loss”.

There were 5 items in particular that I was looking for. My Girl Scout sash -with my few badges and my annual star pins on it. I had put together a loose leaf book with hand copied lyrics to old folk songs. My dad had given me one of his army shirts from when he was in same during World War II during the late 1960s/early 1970s when wearing army shirts was popular. There is a stapled binding, thin, soft-covered book about our family in “the old country”. Lastly, when I was in high school I embroidered a table cloth. When I got married we could not find it, I figured if any of it ever would turn up – it would be as the house was emptied. I have the army shirt and the loose leaf book of song lyrics. The other items did not show up.

There has been a tag sale by a company that my sister found and much of the contents of the house are gone. We have to go in and clean and fix it up a bit before we sell it. The next day neighbor already is telling us about someone she knows who is interested in the house.

Just in case anyone is interested – mom has had her pacemaker (or its battery – story of what is to be done was different to my sister and me) replaced, so we won't have to figure out how to plug into a wall outlet if it dies. :-) She has also had (within the same week) surgery to remove a lesion that was causing her anemia. As of tonight she is back in her apartment at her assisted living facility – pretty good for a 90 year old woman I think.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK - If you were getting ready of your family home – or your own home – what would you be looking for as you would want to make sure that you kept them?

CLEARING OUT MY OLD CLOSET AT THE FAMILY HOME

Last Thursday husband and I went to my family home to deal with “my stuff”.  I knew that there should be certain things there that I wanted - not many - and I sort of figured that there would not be much more in the closet I had to go through.

A digression - yeah, I always do same, without labeling it - I am the oldest of 3 girls and there are big age jumps between us - 5 years to #2 and another 7 years to #3.  When my family bought the house I was 4 or 5 years old  - it was then built to order in a 1950s subdevelopment - and my sister #2 was born several months before we moved in.  The house as shown in the model house had 5 bedrooms - 2 regular and a master bedroom on one floor and another 2 bedrooms (and a 4th bathroom) on the floor above it.  The house is a split level so floors not on top of each other they alternate back and forth.  My parents did not need the extra 2 bedrooms or the 4th bathroom and wanted to save money, so that floor was not finished into rooms when we moved in.  I had one bedroom of the 2 regular ones and my sister #2 - baby in a crib - was put in the other one.  The house stayed with this layout and each of us in our bedrooms for about 7 or 8 years.  At that time sister #3 was born.  My parents idea was that they would now finish the upstairs and have a bedroom for me, an office for my dad, and the fourth bathroom up there.  Being only about 12 and not knowing that in the future I would love the idea of a bedroom so private, I refused to move up there and sleep alone.  So instead my parents made it into a second (larger) master bedroom.  Sister #2 moved into my bedroom.  Dad got an office in her old bedroom.  Sister #3 and I moved into the original master bedroom.  This worked great.  When sister #2 got married a year before I did over 10 years later, I left sister #3 with the original master bedroom and moved back to my original room - which by then had sister #2's furniture in it, except her desk, and I left my furniture with sister #3 = except for my desk.  The house arrangement remained the same after that until I married a year later and moved out and then sister #3 moved out some 10 years later when she was married.  So, the room I had to clear out was not filled with items from when I was a child, but rather items I had after college.  I took almost all of my stuff either when we were first married or 9 years later when we bought a house.  Just a cute story - I had picked this bedroom originally as the room in the model had a little rocking chair - no one told me that the house did not come with what was on display in it and I thought I would get the rocking chair - boy was I disappointed. 

So, back to clearing out the room.  I had expected to walk in and see my old bed and a room as I left it.  Hah!  Either my mom had turned it into a mess of a storage room or my sisters had been throwing stuff in there to decide what to do with as they have been there several times to work on clearing out the house. 

My desk was not there as I have it here and use it as my desk - and still hit my knee on the leg of it as I did when I was a child.  I looked at the dresser in the room and started opening drawers.  As I thought they were empty but with 2 exceptions.  When I was baby I had a dresser set (not a child’s set, a grown up person’s set).  It had 2 small china dishes and a china box with lid.  I have one of the dishes still on my dresser and thought the rest gone - I knew the box’s lid and the other dish were broken and presumed that I had forgotten about breaking the box - but there it was!!  And in it was my girl scout knife and a couple of other small items.  Took it and the contents to go through - the box will go back on my dresser.    In another drawer I found a small tack hammer and two small boxes of tacks - not mine and I left them. 

It was rather hot when we were there.  I had asked sister #2 - who is coordinating all of this as she seems to know what to do - in advance if the air conditioners were working - she said yes, but not well.  Husband put on same in the original master bedroom and the one in the dining room (covers same, living room and kitchen).  Not much cool.  So as I am working he is starting to get overhot.  I sent him to the dining room then to outside several times to cool off.

I should say at this point - this entire process would have been harder for me if not for Hurricane Sandy.  Most of our toys were in the basement.  If I had to decide which toys to take and which to donate or toss it would have been close to impossible.  Since mom’s basement was flooded in the Hurricane, everything down there had been tossed out - including her washer, dryer, furnace etc. (furnace was replaced, but she decided to go to a laundry for her clothes).  No more Barbies (I have one trunk of them I had brought here).  No more doll house that I got when I was 3 or 4.  No more games.  No more Bobbsey Twins, Honey Bunch, Nancy Drew, Dana Girls, etc books. 

I opened the closet door expecting a mostly empty closet - OH BOY.  I started taking stuff out.  I found a red looseleaf book that I had copied folk songs into while in high school - took as I hoped to find it.  I found love letters from husband - definite take.  I found 2 art projects from college - painting - took (I am not a good artist and it actually came out good), cut out initials - toss.  I had expected/hoped to find my dad’s army shirt - he had given it to me back in the late 1960s when “hippies” wore same - it had reproduced and I took both of them.  While I know that the rank and badges on them are not right, I figure one of the military museums might like and his name would go down in posterity (and my nephew had previously said the did not want same) so they were a definite take.  Some “awards” drawn by a friend who was editor in chief of our college yearbook (before I was) had been taped on the inside of the door - took the one I found - hope to find at least one more.

For a closet it was lacking in clothes.  As mentioned, my dad’s army shirts were in there.  There was a pink gown.  I took it out.  We looked at it and then at each other.  I was maid of honor at sister # 2's wedding  - I wore brown (the others wore orange - fat girls don’t wear orange).  I was not in my other sister’s wedding party - and did not buy a gown for same.  I had not worn a gown to the afternoon wedding of the sister of my old high school boyfriend.  What the heck was it for? It looked to be in good condition - I hung it over the top of the bedroom door and went on.  I found a sweater I bought in Mexico  - tossed it.  If husband was not there I would have put it in a donate bag - but he insisted it was not wearable.  I found a “genuine” 1960's/early 1970's peasant blouse - hung it over the bedroom door.  (Sister #2 has come across so much clothing from that period in the house that she plans to contact theatrical costume houses to see if they want them - she can add the blouse and gown.) My college house plan (similar to a sorority) windbreaker - took that.   I also hung a green jacket over the door - I have no idea whose it is, but it would not have fit me at 12 years old, let alone when I was grown. 

I found an assortment of papers I had written (brought them home to shred as my personal info on them).  I found needlework  - kits and almost finished.  Husband had me leave the 2 latch hook rugs - hooking finished, rug edges not finished there.  (If we go back and they are still there I will take them home - I decided I really want them.)  Two embroidery kits - not finished, I took.   One unstarted latch hook kit - left for donation or sale.

I also found a complete, unopened set of “spurtles”.  These were cooking utensils that a TV chef named Graham Kerr used.  We had apparently bought 2 sets - either to give the second set as gift or for when the others broke - they are still in great condition.  We opened the box and took the spurtles out and tossed the box. 

Then I hit the problem.  Apparently when we lived in our apartment we used this closet for storage of - yes - empty boxes.  Cabbage Patch Dolls, fancy teddy bears, etc - empty boxes - you know, because they will be worth a fortune one day.  I did not take the boxes - but since I had not thought that there would be this much stuff - I did not have enough garbage bags so the boxes had to stay for next time. 

I filled 3 large bags of garbage.  I could not put it out as there would be no pickup until the following Monday and the house is near an animal preserve and the animals come and go through the bags.  I left them in the living room - sisters would be there on the weekend to put it out.

There was a section of stuff still on the top shelf that was not boxes - but neither of us could reach them safely and husband was soaked through his shirt and we needed to leave.

Problem - I had not figured out how to pack the stuff we were taking in plastic bags and seal them without them coming into the house (that bed bug fear).  So I carried the stuff I was taking down to the front door and husband held a bag outside and little by little I filled 2 bags of stuff to take.  They are now in our garage - I will take it out a bit at time and heat it in our Packtite bedbug heater - just in case. 

I am missing an item I would like to have.  I embroidered a tablecloth while in high school.  When I got married I went looking for it - I could not find it.  I have looked a couple of times since.  I told both my sisters about it and asked that if they find it they save it for me.

As we were driving home husband commented on the lack of air conditioning in the house.  He had seen the one in the office (bedroom next to mine - remember?) but could not get to it as that room is completely filled.  I then remembered - there was one in my bedroom!  He insisted that there was none - unless it was removed and the wall fixed it should be there - not sure it works, but we will look next time we are there.

Sister #2 insists that we are almost done - I am not sure how - there is soooooo much there of mom’s..
                   
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

One can go home again - but mostly to clear out home.  Why not post about your experience in something like this?

REPLACE THE REFRIGERATOR?

Well the ants were resolve as of last week.  I have been very careful - I wash the dishes, etc immediately after we eat, then dry them and put them away, then dry the drying rack, dishpan and sink.  So far, so good.  (Fingers crossed.)

The refrigerator is a different story.  I have spent weeks now watching the thermometer in it - it is a remote read so I don’t have to open the door.  I understand that there is some play in the temperature of the fridge and I sort of know how it works.  For food purposes it has to be kept at 40F or less and for insulin related reasons it has to be kept at 36 F or higher.  It can go as high as 46F, but since the food has a lower top limit, I basically have to keep the fridge (house or RV) between 36 and 40 F.  I try to keep both at 38F and between 37 and 39F to allow some play or in case the thermometer is off. 

I know how to adjust the temperature - turn the knob colder if the temperature is too high until the compressor just clicks on, it if too low then turn the knob just warmer so the compressor clicks off.  I am at good at this.  In the RV I have been known to jump to the back when we stop for gas to make a quick adjustment. 

Recently our house refrigerator has been acting wrong.  I look at the thermometer and it is 37F.  I leave it.  I look again maybe 10-15 minutes later and it is 40F.  It should not jump that much that fast or without seemingly hitting any temperatures between.  It is then hard to get the temperature back down to where it belongs.  I am not adding large amounts of food at all, let alone food that is not already cold.  I thought I was just missing the adjustments and started setting the timer in my mobile phone to go off every 15 or 20 minutes to remind me to check the timer.  Still missed the jumps.  Husband and I have been discussing what to do.  For what a repair would cost, it would not pay. 

So we have been looking refrigerators online and in stores.  Since we have a small house, we have a small kitchen and a relatively small fridge.  When we moved into this house 30 years ago we owned a refrigerator that we had used in our apartment and brought that with us.  Sending the one that came with the house (from the prior owners) to the garage (which did not have electricity) where its main use was to have our, then, Christmas tree stored on top of it.  One July 4th week we were away and came home and found that while we had been away the fridge had died.  As we threw out most of what was in the fridge, we thought to and tried to plug in the fridge in the garage - it no longer worked.  So we bought a new fridge. 

For our apartment we had bought a 15 cu ft refrigerator.  Due to confusion the company that we bought it from took about a week to deliver it to us - and they delivered an 18 cu ft one - with an ice maker and told us to keep both when I called that they were wrong.  (Apparently they kept mixing us up with another customer which led to them claiming that originally they tried to deliver and I was not home - I was home and on the phone, by coincidence, at that time.  We bought the fridge in 1982 for the apartment.  I know this as I was working on a piece of embroidery at the time, worked on it all work while stuck in our apartment waiting, and it is, yes, dated 1982.  I am not sure of when we bought the first one for this house or its size.

When we had our house treated for the bed bugs in 2009 we found afterwards that the refrigerator which we had replaced that one with was no longer working.  Since we found several individual bottles of water in the fridge and its freezer which were not ours, so apparently the bed bug crew had stashed their water bottles in our fridge (it was a major heat treatment) and had been opening the doors all day - so our fridge died. 

At that time we bought the fridge that is currently in our house.  It is 20.9 cu ft.  Like all of our other ones it is white and a top freezer.  I did not particularly like a number of things about it, but we were in a rush and bought it - it has served us well.

Monday night we decided that we had to replace it.  We both looked online and found that there seemed to be 3 possible replacements of about the same size.  Tuesday we went to a major house/hardware chain to look at what they had. None of the 3 excited me.  They had oddly arranged shelves (all were actually from different companies - not just the same company with different nameplates) and such.  Husband had heard about fridges which allow one to set an actual temperature and the fridge will keep that temperature - not the usual turn the dial a little this way or that and stick a thermometer in the fridge to check the temperature.  I found one that was “only” $300 more than what we were looking at - or to look at the extra price another way - it added the equivalent of 50% more of the price to the price.  This was something he REALLY wanted.  He had given me measurements at home before we went out and this one did not seem that much larger in size and we left it in consideration.

We then went to the other major house/hardware chain to see what they had.  Basically the same, but the model that we had seen and husband was interested in, was slightly different - or at least it’s number was. 

We have bought large appliances from both in the past and based on same decided that we wanted to buy from the first company, but decided to go a different store in the chain which was larger and “maybe” would have something different.

They did not.  So I made the decision.  As much as I would hate the fancier fridge - it was side by side and I was not even sure a turkey would fit on the tiny shelves and we had to take it in stainless as white add another 50% to the price, it made sense for the problem we have with keeping the temperature in such a small range.  We bought it.  To be delivered and set up on Friday.

We then went home and measured the front door - it was about an inch too small, but we figured that they could take the fridge doors off as there was a measurement without same and it would fit. 

One thing husband had read about is that the freezer in this type of fridge has a small “door” to the main compartment which opens and closes to take cold air into the freezer and it makes the main fridge section warmer.  We have a small freezer in the basement - from when we used to grow vegetables and I would actually shop at sales to buy food and would store the extra in this freezer.  Now it is mostly empty  - when I went to see what was in it - everything had a date to use by in 2016.  I tossed them out.  I then took all of the items in our fridge’s freezer downstairs to the freezer. Only things I left in the upstairs freezer are some of those liquid filled plastic things that one freezes and puts with food or meds to keep them cold in transit.  I then turned the fridge’s freezer temperature almost all the way to the warmest temperature.  (We would need to move the frozen food to same anyway as it takes a day for the new fridge/freezer to reach temperature.

Overnight the same thought came to each of us - the fridge also had to pass through 2 doorways in the house - and they were narrower.  Then husband went downstairs and laid out the measurements of the fridge we ordered - it was huge!  It would not only block part of the entry into the kitchen from the dining room, it would also block access the (only) light switches in the kitchen.  I measured the old fridge and came in about 3-4 inches smaller front to back then he had measured.  We went back to the store and canceled the order. 

Now what to do?  Well, the fridge had been working okay since yesterday (Tuesday).  Maybe it would keep working - at least until we return from a trip next week.  The sale on the various refrigerators continues to July 10, so we could still get the price when we came back.  We looked at the 3 fridges in the right size and decided which one we would get - but we figured we would buy it after we returned from our trip.

Husband decided he wanted a chicken pie we had in the freezer.  I went down and took it out.  Temperature in the fridge was 37F - great!  I put the pie in to cook and was playing games on my cell phone.  I wanted a glass of soda - in taking out the bottle that was there, I notice we would need more and added a bottle - a room temperature bottle - to the fridge.  When I looked up again the temperature was 45F??!!!  By now we have several thermometers sitting in the fridge - the one we normally use seems to always be the odd one out.  In this case the others all showed the temperature to be 40F - could it be a thermometer problem?  We have spare of the remote read and I set that up and took the first one out - same problem.  Even with the temperature set to the coldest setting  - it was not getting colder, the compressor did not seem to be on.  We unplugged the fridge and then plugged it in again (it seemed to help twice before since the weekend).  No effect. 

Extremely s l o w l y the temperature dropped.  After dinner, we went out and ordered the fridge that we had decided to order next week. I don’t love it - but hopefully it will work and it is better than the huge side by side husband wanted - and it should fit through all the doors it needs to.  It is suppose to be here Friday. 

Now for logistics -

We have an automatic ice maker to old fridge - as we had one before, we had bought it again.  We are not getting one for our new fridge - we rarely use ice and end up tossing out the shrunken cubes that are in the freezer.  We can do it “the old fashioned way” and have frozen trays of ice in the freezer.  But we have to shut off the water to the fridge and get rid of the water in the line.  Husband found it and turned it closed as far it as it went.  I threw out the shrunken, dried cubes in the ice bucket and turned the ice maker on to use the rest of the water in the line up.  We either have much more water in the line than we thought, the ice maker uses much less water than we figure - or the water is not actually off and has a leak in the tap as we keep getting more ice cubes - right now they are just shells of ice, but they keep coming.  Just heard more drop.  We bought a “cap” for the end of the water line - just in case the water is not and cannot be shut off completely. 

Freezer, as mentioned, is basically empty.

That leaves our fridge section.  There is an open package of American cheese slices, an open package of cream cheese, 2 hot dogs, and 6 eggs in it. I have 2 of husband’s insulin pens in it.  If we cannot keep them below 46F, I am not going to worry about it as they will need to be used within 42 days - and they are 20 days worth, plus husband is in the middle of pen - so they should be used up long before the 42 days.  The rest of what is in there does not really need to be in a fridge “to keep” - soda, sealed bottles of ice tea, condiments (no mayo), and similar.  Our RV is currently plugged in to charge the batteries (done twice a month, just happened to be doing it now) and we will turn on the fridge in the RV tomorrow and put the food from the fridge in it until we can move it to the new fridge.  (Hot dogs could just be frozen and put in the basement freezer.)

I soooooo hope that this is the last of the stupidity that has been going on.  (Well, I do have to make a 3rd call to an insurance for our reenacting unit - so, still repeating chores over and over.)  I really cannot take any more!


THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When one thinks that everything is resolved - something isn’t and will need to be dealt with and redone.

Oh, and things always break at the wrong time.

Oh, and when all these things are going on and one goes down to do laundry and pours water out of the dehumidifier all over the basement - the laundry can wait!

 

GOODBYE 2009

In between trying to get rid of ants in the kitchen and the refrigerator needing monitoring to stay in the small temperature range we need to get it to stay in, I had some time in our office to catchup on paperwork a bit - still 2 piles, but the “to do” one is getting shorter.

One job I have not have had a chance to do is store files from 2018 that I need/want to keep.  Before doing this I have to clear out the oldest box saved files - in this case it was 2009 that had to be dealt with.  2009 was an unusual year for us - it was the year that we had bedbugs.

I climbed up and took stuff off the front of the shelf in the office closet - 3 boxes of  computer disks stored up there (installed hardware, to set up the computers, old software that might needed, past years tax software). At the end of 2018 I stored the paid bills in an old manila envelope box (the one the envelopes came in) that I keep for this - that box had to come down also, as were 2 boxes of small manila envelopes.  (Did you know that 6"x 9" or less sized envelopes go at the same US Postage rate as regular #10 envelopes and can hold more in the same 1/4" thickness allowed for same than the #10's?)  Some empty, flattened boxes that I kept was the last of what was blocking access to the 3 boxes of old financial records on the middle of the top shelf of the closet.  There are additional boxes of same (9 in total) on the top of the closet, but the latest and oldest are the two I try to keep in the center stack - as the other stacks require moving the center stack to take out the boxes.  First, I took out the 2017 box and added some papers I had found during the past year from same (I have folder “old years files to add to box” that it has been in. ).  I then took out the 2009 box.

Going through the old box  is a trip down memory lane.  I start taking out papers.  There are bank statements, paid bills, old insurance policies, etc. in the box for us and for our businesses.  I have my paper shredder ready and also have spare garbage bags. 

I take the first item out - what is it?  In this case a stack of telephone bills.  Nothing needed from same.  I go pull the first 4 off the top - checking that nothing else is mixed in - and into the shredder they go.  Little by little more goes into the shredder.  Items such as the phone bills and cable bills which don’t need to be checked if anything should be kept just get fed in and shredded. 

In 2009 we got rid of my 1996 car and bought a new one.  (Which we hated and got rid of 2 years later.)  I pulled out the book (remember when the dealer handed out books with photos and info about the car that you were looking out) and the rest of the papers from the original 1996 purchase of the car that I pulled from the car’s file at the end of 2009 when I pulled files to keep from the year.)  I stuck all of them in the book to go through and added same to my “to do” pile.  I will keep the car registrations as I keep them forever.  (We once received notice that we had not paid 3 parking tickets on one of our cars.  We had never received any tickets nor was it in an area we have been to.  I requested copies of the tickets and it was a different car and a different license plate.  Some of the letters and numbers matched and some did not - but looked the same.  I had to prove what the license plate on the car was  - at the time the ticket was issued - having a different plate on the car when I was fighting this did not count.  I did not keep the registrations - in this area this is a small square of heavy paper that is changed every 2 years when it is renewed.  Each was tossed out after the new one was put in the car or our wallets.  It was a big problem to resolve, so I now keep the car registrations - forever.  I will go through the purchase papers when I get a chance. 

I then looked up in my Quickbooks what income taxes we paid during the year (including final estimate and final payment for 2008 and estimate for 2009.)  I saw that we had only made one payment in April.  I made a note.  I then checked what we had paid for our real estate taxes and made a note of them.  I then opened our corporation in same and checked what and when we had paid for corporation taxes and sales taxes that we had collected and paid.  I also checked for a certain payment we have to pay to the state corporation dept every other year with who is who in our corporation. 

I then started with the corporation bank statements.  I pulled out the statements that should have the checks issued above and pulled those checks out, paper clipped them together and safely set them aside.  I will scan front and back of these checks in my computer - again due to something that has happened in the past with clients - and my dad’s business.  I then started shredding the corporation bank statements, looking as I did for an unusually large amounts on them.  If I had seen any I would checked what it was for.

Next I went through the corporation’s charge card statement.  Again I looked for anything that is a large amount and feed the statements into the shredder.
                       
By now I have had to change the bag in the shredder once.

I now am at our personal bank statements, again I will check for any large amounts.  A lot more of these than for the corporation as we have accounts at multiple banks and each have IRA accounts. Our main checking account has a lot of checks, as well as deposit slips, so I remove the staple(s) holding them to the statement so I can feed them into the shredder in batch sizes that will not jam the shredder and also send the statement through.  As I go through I make sure to pull the checks for our income tax and the four for our real estate taxes.  When I come to July I find the check that paid for the bed bug treatment - gee, it was $2000 more than I thought I was! 

When the bank statements are finished I go through the several credit cards statements.  (All of which were paid in full every month, as is all.)  Again, I have to separate the slips from the statements as there are too many to go through the shredder all at once. 

Suddenly I realize that I am coming to the end of what is in the box.  I have pulled some papers and set them aside to check through - maybe scan into the computer, as I will do with the tax payment checks and receipts for our real estate taxes.  Last thing was I took the “2009" removable label from the box.

2009 is done and gone.  I have done it in 3 sessions of shredding - too much shredded at once and the shredder will overheat and I will have to wait for it to cool off.  I filled 4 kitchen sized bags of shreds.  (I put them in out by putting 2 bags each into a larger black bag and setting those two large black bags out.  The light colored kitchen bags can sort of be seen through and I did not want anyone noticing that the bags had shredded papers in them and it looks more like regular trash than same.)

On to storing 2018.  In my file drawer the files that should be gone through have red edged labels (those that are permanent and should stay are blue edged).  In our corporation’s file drawer the annual files are yellow edged labels and permanent are green edged labels.  I have a folder in our file drawer that holds items I found or received during the year that belongs in the prior year.  So I take anything in it - for 2017 and add it to the 2017 box.

 I pull the first annual folder - bank statements from our main bank - I take out 2018 statements and put into the box.  I do the same with the rest of the bank statements from 2018.  I then come to statements from our medical insurance - all of the 2018 statements are pulled out.  I switched medical insurance companies in 2018.  I go through the blue edged folder for same and pull the papers to keep - I shred the others.  2 empty folders (the annual and the permanent for that insurance company) to be recycled next time I need a folder - put in a sorter on top of the folder holder stack on the side of my desk with other folders waiting a new use.  I do this with all of the annual folders in our file drawer. 

I then do the same with the corporation file drawer.  Paid bills for the corporation are in folders in the file drawer and are pulled out also and fit into the box. 

I then go back and pull the box of paid bills which I mentioned I had put the 2018 bills in.  I then add the paid bills. 

When I am pretty sure that just about everything is in the box I take out my “this year folder”.  I use this folder to throw things in that I don’t know what to do with or do not go with anything and need to be held for short term.  I go through it and shred whatever is no longer needed.  I put in the box anything I want to keep from last year.  One example of what is in this folder - we get a large postcard (sometimes two during the same year) on when and where we are to vote - including our Congressional district, State Senate district, State Assembly district, and County legislator district on it, as well as our “voting district” infos.  I keep the card until we receive the next year’s card.  Since we have the 2019 card, I shredded the 2018 card as it is no longer needed.  (I keep it until the new one comes as 3 years ago we did not get the new card.  While the card is not needed to vote, it helps when the idiots, ummm, the people working at the polls cannot figure out that we belong at the table that we say we belong at.  (No, really, one year the woman at the table we were to vote at told us we were at the wrong polling place as our address was “not on her list”.  We had to show her the card with the info we were to vote there and she had to go and check with one.  Not sure if that is better or worse than the year we went to the primary vote and the man and woman at the table for our location and our party were not able to figure out anything to do and the fellow from the other party came and took care of getting us signed in and gave us our ballots.  If one did not have to be there at 6 am we would go down and work the polls because they need us - and one does get paid.)

When I was pretty sure all of what had to be kept from 2018 was in the box - I put the lid on and climbed up and put it away.  I then put back all the stuff that goes in front of the boxes that I had taken out.  Anything I find now that belongs in the box, I will put in that prior year’s folder for next year.

Something I just noticed in writing this piece - I never made a new label “2018" and stuck it on the box.  I will have to do so or be terribly confused in the future.

I also have a file drawer both for the files I keep for our reenacting unit and for same for my embroidery chapter.  (I am treasurer of both and need to keep files).  I have a metal file drawer divider so the embroidery files are in front of same and the reenacting ones are behind. 

I have not had a chance to go through these files in awhile and move out old years.  I started with our reenacting unit.  I pulled old paid bills from the paid bills folder, ditto the bank statements and insurance policies.  We have some copies of invoices that I sent to organizations that we did events for and they are pulled also if they are 2017 or before.  I then sorted what I had pulled out into stacks by year and put the stacks in folders.  The unit has several filing cabinets and a drawer in one of them holds the old records - more than 3 years ago - and I move the files there - by year - so I don’t have to take up room in our house for older files.  As I pull the older bills I check to make sure that there are not any that I might needs - items we don’t often need to reorder, but if we do, it is helpful to have the last one, so that we know what we ordered last time and from whom.  (This past Monday night these files were taken to our reenactment unit’s meeting and put in the file cabinets.) 

I did not get to the embroidery chapter’s files yet - those I keep 3 years in the drawer (plus the current year) plus another 7 years in box (another of those manila envelope boxes) in the closet - well labeled.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Sometimes just short periods of time are best for getting work done.  I could have put all this off, but had a bit of time here and there to shred the papers.  I pulled most of the papers to go in the box for 2018 while the computer was backing up for the day. 

Getting rid of ants and getting the fridge to stay in temperature range - much harder.

BACK TO HOUSEWORK - PREPARE FOR POSSIBLE TRIP

After 2 weeks husband has decided that the tail end of cold is too much to deal with and I am back to cooking and cleaning on my own as of yesterday.  So tonight I am catching up on 3 weeks of laundry backed up.  I washed the clothing, he put in the dryer and then in the laundry basket.  He then pulled out his clothing and put it away and left mine for me.

 I think the final blow was yesterday was “change the bed linens day”.  Last week we only changed the pillow cases.  Last night I figured I would change the sheets, I would change my pillow cases, he would change his, and I would change the sheets and remake the bed - other than him dealing with his pillowcases.  So yesterday morning, I pulled off my pillowcases, folded the blanket and pulled the top sheet off the bed.  I would normally have pulled off his bottom pillowcase in the morning. I pull the top pillowcase and the bottom sheet off when we are going to bed at night and remake the bed then.  (I used to pull everything off in the morning, but a couple of times he was dizzy and ill during the day and I had to quickly put his side of the bed back, so this is our compromise - he can lie down as the bottom sheet and his top pillowcase are there and then pull the top sheet - lying on the bed - on top of him if he does not feel well. ) So last night I put the last (of 3) set of clean sheets on the bed and put the blanket on.  I went to pull 2 pillowcases for my pillow and he would do his pillowcases afterwards .... but there were only 2 clean pillowcases!  We each took one. 

I went down tonight to start the first load of laundry and did so.  I was also going to run our “Packtite”, a device intended to heat suitcases and their contents when one returns home from a trip so that if one has picked up bed bugs they will be killed by the heat.  We set it up with a laundry basket with holes in it and I heat anything coming into the house we are concerned about.  Normally I run it when it when I do the laundry as it is near the washer and dryer in the basement and the timing for a load of laundry to wash or dry and to check the temperature on the thermometer in the Packtite is about the same. There is a small number of things to heat.  I noticed that the thermometer reading for the Packtite was the same as last time I used it .  (We have an indoor/outdoor reading thermometer and the dohickey for the outside is in the Packtite so I can see the temperature and make sure it is high enough, long enough, but does not go to high.)  No new reading - or a blank reading - for the dohickey means that it needs new batteries.   I walked up 2 flights of stairs to the office to get new batteries and then back down the same 2 flights.  It still did not work.  I texted husband to help me.  (Yes, we are lazy enough to text each other in the house - much better than running up and down the stairs to tell each other something, especially in summer when doors are closed to keep air conditioning in the room and the ac units are running and making noise.)  We spent over half an hour playing with it, but the dohickey still does not work.  My solution?  We have the same setup on a thermometer in the kitchen to read the temperature in the refrigerator, I brought that set up downstairs and took the working main thermometer from the basement and stuck it in the refrigerator and read it by opening the door.  Tomorrow I will switch the setups back - and we will look for a new thermometer for the basement.  (I pause here to run down and switch laundry loads.)

Okay, I am back.  Over last weekend I reset the number of days for my Quickbooks to remind me of memorized transactions (mostly bills to pay, some direct deposits to come in) to cover everything through the end of the month (normally it is set for one week).  I wrote checks for all the bills and calculated how much we needed to transfer from savings (which is a holding account for money for bills) to pay all the bills to the end of the month.  I transferred the money yesterday and today mailed out the bill payments. Well, everything but the cable/Internet bill which will not come until the last minute at the end of the month - and the money for it plus a bit more is now is now in the checking account.  Why did I pay it all at once?  Husband REALLY wants to go on a trip of more than a day or two.  He keeps checking the upcoming weather in the several places we might go and it continues to follow the pattern of a day with no rain - maybe two days if lucky -and then two or three days of pouring rain and thunderstorms.  (Although the weather is not as bad as it is in some parts of the country - I hope none of you are in the areas of the wildfires or the flooding.) When we prepare for a trip we pay any bills that need to be paid while we will be away and need to transfer money for same and then mail the payments.  This way we do not even have to think of the bills until the cable bill at the end of the month.  We can leave with a just a quick stop at the bank for cash for the trip.  One less thing that has to be dealt with.  Actually the only other problem is the newspaper - if we go at the last minute there will be a paper sitting in the delivery tube while we are away - I guess one paper will look like that day’s paper so it is not bad.  Most of our mail goes to our box at the Post Office and we put in a large locking mailbox at the house so that we do not have to stop the mail that does still come to the house.  Clothing can be washed and dried and then packed the night before and just tossed on the RV bed when we go.  Food, etc can be stuck under the RV bed in a holder that is there.  It can all be unpacked when we get where we are going.  So if he finds a place to go we can leave the next day.

He has had another project he has been working on and frustrated with, which affects me.  He has been trying to convince me to stop using this laptop and buy a new one.  I have some problems checking posts on some websites - the laptop runs Windows XP.  We have been looking and have found some laptops at the price we can pay - actually more than we can pay, but we can stretch the amount another $100 or so t buy.  I am still resistant as there are only one or two websites which are affected and I have software I like which may or may not work with Windows 10 and at least one I know will not work with same.  Yes, it can take up to 20 minutes for the laptop to boot and takes awhile for programs to open, but I am used to.  The alternative he comes up with is installing Linux on this computer to use when online.  He has found and set up about 5 versions of same on USB stick drives and DVDs in the past week or so.  The latest version on DVD actually works - but one of the sites I have a problem with only partially opens.  I have not have my laptop at least part of each night as a result as he loads the new try.  (Notice I made sure to write and post on time this week since I was late last week, but some friends on an embroidery site and some friends on a comics site will not hear from me - and I normally am on the comics site on Monday nights.)  I am guessing that I will be giving in and getting the new laptop - but not until after the cutoff for the credit card bill this month, so we won’t have to pay for it until October - the house insurance is in September, plus any travel bills if we go away.

Oh - I did finally vacuum up all the shreds of paper from my big shredding of 2008 last week.
                               
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

One may fall behind due to illness or other reasons.  Don’t panic.  One can always catch up. 

HELPING MY HUSBAND ORGANIZE

Last Thursday I went to my client and of course everything went wrong - including my laptop dying and I did not have the cord with me.  The drive home took 2 hours, but at least my car did not stall.  I got home late and had to finish up from work around making dinner, etc. that evening. A rather anxiety causing day.

Husband is a big James Bond fan and he has a collection - of just about anything James Bond.  Last year we managed to clear some book shelf space in our bedroom to move his books into there from our office as we needed the shelf space for other books.  (We have LOTS of books of a variety of types, mostly informational, as opposed to fiction such as the Bond books.)  I figured out I could store the stuff that had been on the shelves in the bedroom (moved there for safety when the house was treated for bedbugs) which was other assorted Bond items - magazine articles and such in plastic boxes on one side of the floor in the spare bedroom closets (a suitcase and a wheeled backpack take up the rest of the floor space - each filled with some other similar pieces we wanted to keep when we cleared out our luggage a few years ago).  There are also 4 “tubes” with posters of varying subjects - including, of course, James Bond, that are stored standing on the floor.

Husband also has a shortage of space in his dresser for his clothes. One drawer was filled with additional James Bond stuff.  So I had an idea.  We bought 2 more plastic boxes (making 4 all together) and I fit the stuff in the drawer, the rest of what did not fit in the first 2 boxes, and some Bond items in an office closet into these 2 boxes. 

I then went back to the bedroom and started going through husband’s sock and underwear drawer.  He has more socks than he needs, but has trouble finding socks, so will not get rid of any.  I moved the socks that he rarely (meaning never) wears to the bottom drawer that had the Bond stuff in it.  I moved his junk jewelry to the bottom drawer - never used.  I moved his new shoelaces “collection” to the bottom drawer (and will add the ones in my drawer when I guess a chance).  I moved his warm weather socks to the bottom drawer - you know, the very heavy ones that one only wears if the temperature is really low and one’s feet might freeze.  I separated the items in the bottom drawer into shoe boxes (and a space between them) to organize them for him.  I then went back to his top drawer and sorted the socks so each style of socks was separate - with a space for the ones in the laundry.  I had a shoe box on one side of the drawer for eyeglasses, cases for same, and pocket knives.  I found a “space pen” that we had not been able to find and had replaced.  Not bad for maybe 45 minutes work at most.

I was so glad that now his drawers would be neat - after all I had previously organized his sweatshirts, tee shirts and pjs right?  I showed him what I did (understand he knew I was going to do this in advance) and he was happy (not egacstatic - who would be, but “great, that is wonderful” happy)..  I had not been able to find some socks I knew he had for sleeping and asked him about them.  He found them on top of his dresser and I stored them in the drawer.  Finally, done! 

Ha, ha.  He showed me the tee shirts stacked on his dresser top.  I thought that they were in use  - no, he had no place for them.  I started pulling open the middle drawers as everything used to fit.  One drawer was partially filled with clothing and partially filled with electronics - mostly old electronics and some space around it all. 

So, when I get another 45 minutes or so, this drawer will gone through to see what is in there and what can be done with it.  I had found plastic photo slide cases (for one to set their own slide film into slides) in his top drawer - do you all remember slides?  I then put them in with other photo stuff elsewhere.  

I have been working on the notes for the talk I am going to give next week (hopefully it will not snow and result in a canceled meeting) at my embroidery chapter.  I have also been noting photos I want to print to show the members.  I was bound and determined not to rush and do this at the last minute (even this is later than I planed to do it) and I am sticking with that.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

Sometime someone in your household needs help with their organizing.  Help them - but offer first, don’t just “touch their stuff” without permission.  If you know what you will do explain it to them first.  Don’t throw out anything (unless it really, really is garbage) without permission.  I know that every scrap of paper was something he wanted.  The one or two tiny scraps I was unsure of I asked about and was told what they were and that they needed to be kept. We all have stuff that makes no sense to others for us to keep, but we really feel those items are special. 

WHY DO ALL THE APPOINTMENTS COME AT THE SAME TIME?

Well, it has been another one of those weeks.  Most of our weeks are fairly devoid of appointments.  Not this week - or next week.  Plus of course the normal things to be done in a week.

This story starts back in June - yes, June.  My husband does not like to know when he is going to the doctor and as a result I make the appointments and then tell him at the last minute.  When he worked outside the house I would contact his secretary and make sure the appointment times were clear and she would make sure he did not have anything to do on those days.  Now it is all up to me.  Back in June I had to make appointments for us to go for bloodwork and then, around a week later, for the doctor.  June was a busy month - as was July, but I found two dates a week apart in July and called the doctor’s office.  I was told that the doctor retired.  Now, the doctor was a man in at least his 80s so it makes sense, but I would think that some sort of notice would be sent to his patients so I was surprised.  His son has been in practice with him and we have seen his son a couple times when our doctor was not available and husband’s mom used him as a doctor, so I did the natural thing - I made appointments for us with the son.  This was the simple part.

While husband is now on Medicare and can see any doctor, I am still on our old ACA medical insurance plan and have a doctor who is in charge of my care and referrals who was our doctor.  So I went online to my medical insurance company to change my doctor from him to his son.  Only apparently the insurance company had been told that he had retired and instead of doing the logical thing of assigning me to the other doctor in his practice - his son - they assigned me to a strange doctor we had never heard of.  I picked his son as my doctor and the insurance company’s software showed that I had done so.  I kept checking for him to show as my doctor - but he did not.  When it was a week before the bloodwork appointment and he still did not show - I called the doctor’s office and canceled the appointments - apologizing like crazy and explaining the problem.  Since husband is always around it is hard to make calls and not have him hear me or ask who I am calling - this had been the easy part.  I now had to call the insurance company and fix the problem - which could result in sitting on hold for who knows how long - not something that can be done while hiding in the bathroom and pretending that I am there for other reasons.  I finally managed to get husband set up with a scarf to weave so that he would not come up to the office (my other choice would be to call sitting in the car in the commercial garage when I went to a client) and called the insurance company and a very nice young lady changed him to my doctor as of May (I presume that is when he retired and the other change made.) I now could call and make new appointments.

But we were going to go away on a trip in August - sometime in August, for some length of time, to somewhere - how the heck can one make an appointment under these circumstances.  I kept hoping the trip would be planned and I would be able to make the appointments, but they were not.  Finally I went to refill a prescription of his and was told - not without an appointment.  I found two days, a week apart in September to make the appointments and figured I had enough of his pills to last through the bloodwork appointment.

Then we found out that our dentist is also retiring and I have been having weekly visits to him since August to get a new upper partial made and fitted - and I am not done and then I plan to have him add to my old one for a spare.

Throw in I have to go to two clients this month - one to pick up information for his tax return (on extension) and the other for the regular monthly visit - including the work I did not do when I did not go in August (an annual thing to skip August as she is away in July and there is not much to do in August as a result). 

We are also involved in our county fair , which serves as same for three counties.  We started about 30 years ago entering items in the crafts, needlework and baking categories, then started demonstrating leatherwork and needlework, and finally we started judging the junior crafts and needlework categories.  So the fair takes up parts of at least 4 days each year - dropping off entries, judging, demonstrating, and then picking up the entries.  In the past we would demonstrate every day of the fair so it took even more time, but now I go on one day with other members of my embroidery chapter and husband either joins us or finds something else to do at the fair. 

There is a quilt show in Pennsylvania this coming weekend.  We would like to go there for a few days - a day at the quilt show and the rest at our normal things there, but we are driving down for the quilt show and then home. 

Our reenactment unit had an event last weekend and a meeting next week.

And there are the 2 major Jewish holidays this month - one is an evening and 2 days and the other is an evening and the following day. 

Somehow everything has managed to fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle and then - my dentist called and said that the mockup for fit was not in for last Friday and could I come on Tuesday?  I could not as we were going for bloodwork at the same time as I would be going to him - but remember, husband does not know this and does not want to know this.  I told them no and we would go with the Friday appointment I had for this week, even though that would push everything back a week.  Husband heard part of the call and wanted to know what happened - I lied and told him that they wanted us to come Monday - when we were doing the judging. 

Then, the dentist’s office called and actually suggested Monday - and they were open late, so we went to the judging, had lunch and then went to the dentist.  After calling the lab they wanted us to come next Tuesday - I told her we couldn’t and it was all being pushed back another week - husband asked me why not in the dentist’s office and I told him I would explain later - he did not ask again.  By the time we got home I figured out that if we could go to the dentist in the morning, we could make it to the doctor in the afternoon - so another trip to the bathroom phone booth and that was done.

Now, I am sure I have mentioned that we live on a later schedule than normal people.  Due to all this craziness we had to get up three days in a row EARLY, well for us.  We had a reenactment on Sunday, the judging on Monday, and the doctor on Tuesday.  (So husband now knows that we have an appointment next week and that our doctor is retired and I got his prescription renewed.) So nice to get to sleep to our normal time today. 

Tomorrow I am going to the tax client to get his information.  We meet at the library near him and due to my crazy bed bug fear, when I go back to the car I change my clothes (I wear a top with straps under my shirt and shorts under my skirt and replace the clothes over them) - but I think it is suppose to rain.

We will go to the quilt show either on Friday or Saturday or there is slight chance we will to the quilt show Friday and stay overnight.  I have paid all the bills due this week and transferred money for next week’s bills so that same is done with, even though Friday is our normal banking day.

Monday night is the meeting of our reenactment unit - I will prepare my report to be made either Sunday or Monday.  Today while I actually had a bit of free time and was photocopying magazine articles to keep the info and get rid of the magazine, I went through some old records of the unit’s and shredded those past 10 years and boxed the rest to take to the meeting and put in the file there.  Also dumped some magazines that started to the unit some years ago in case anyone wanted them - too late now. 

Oh, and when I planned to be writing this earlier in the evening, husband needed me as he found out that online sales sites has mostly incorrect shipping costs listed and he needed my help to fix them.  So instead of starting this post on Wednesday night just after 11:30 pm, I did not start until 1 am on Thursday. 

Tuesday we have the dentist and the doctor.  Wednesday night starts the holidays.  Next Saturday I/we will be demonstrating at the fair.  The day after, Sunday, is pickup day at the fair. 

I then have 4 days the last week of the month that are open - but there will be more trips to the dentist to fit in.  My mom tonight told me that she needs to go to the doctor and plans to go this month (I told her not next week - the last week of the month is okay and I am not sure they will have an appointment this quickly) so the last week will be as busy - and husband plans to try to, yes go to Pennsylvania for a few days. And that Friday evening and Saturday are the other holiday.

And of course - there is the regular housework and such to be done.  Oh and we do have to go to the eye doctor next month...

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

There are times when there is lots of nothing to do.  Then there are times when what needs to be done if overwhelming.  All we can do is what we can and not get sick over what we cannot.