Time for my annual discussion on years and resolutions.
We have all been brought with the idea that December 31 to January 1 is the change of the year. One sits at that point and looks back at what one has done and looks forward to coming year and what they would like to do (or not do) in the coming year. One may not do this formally – even if no resolutions one does this in their head.
Similarly when one's birthday comes along the passing of time is in our head – how long do I have left? What do I want to have done by next year's birthday or what do I want to stop doing.
In the same way every day is the start of a new year. Various religious and cultural groups have a different date for when the new year comes than the Christian calendar – Jewish New Year, Muslim New Year, Asian New Year… As I do every year, I offer my Jewish New Year to all of you as a start date for changes in what you want to do in life as well as in organizing. Yesterday, Tuesday September 8, started the new year for us – it is considered to be the day that Adam and Eve were made.
Use this time as a chance to start fresh for a new year without needing to wait for January 1. No resolutions – just pick one thing that you want to change – one thing – and do it. Don't drop your jacket on the end of the staircase when you come in – hang it in the closet or on its hook. Don't leave the dishes to do them all at the end of the day (and then end up saying ala Scarlett O'Hara “I'll think about doing them tomorrow). Wash your dishes after every meal you have – or if you use a dishwasher put them in after every meal.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Whatever small thing you can do to make a change – do it - TODAY! Then set another day which will be next your next “new year” and plan what you will start to do then. Little steps add up to big organization and lack of clutter. It took years or decades to get to where you are - you will not catch up in a day or a week or a month, perhaps not even in a year – but little steps add up.
Showing posts with label calendar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label calendar. Show all posts
Thursday, September 9, 2021
ANNUAL LOOK AT WHEN IS THE START OF A NEW YEAR AND MAKING RESOLUTIONS
Thursday, October 1, 2020
TODAY IS A START OF A NEW YEAR - DON'T WAIT FOR JANUARY 1
It is time for my annual mention that a new year starts every day. Everyone decides at the end of the common (Gregorian) calendar year - December 31 – to make resolutions – to lose weight, to go back to school, and for most reading this list – to get organized, get rid of the clutter in the house and clean the house.
But every day starts a new year and can be used the opening to make a resolution or attempt to make a permanent change in our lives. Over the past week it was the start of the Jewish new year. The Jewish (religious) calendar starts with a holiday called Rosh Hashanah, which in literal translation means head of the year. We eat sweet things to look forward to a sweet year to come. It is followed 10 days later (which are called the Days of Awe) by another holiday called Yom Kippur (which means Day of Atonement). It is a period in which Jewish people look back at the year which has passed and pray forgiveness for their “sins” – large and small and then fast on Yom Kippur and spend the day (in normal years) in the synagogue praying and asking forgiveness of God – having already spent the 10 days asking forgiveness of those around them for sins, slights, and related against those around them. We also ask God to write us into the Book of Life for a good year to come (and boy do we all need that right now). Understand that we are making resolutions to be better in the year to come – same as one makes resolutions to do so for December 31.
The Chinese calendar's new year is between January 21 and February 20 – like the Jewish new year the day varies over different dates in the common calendar as the number of days in these calendars is not 365 as they are lunar calendar (12 months of 28 days each) with no annual adjustment for the difference between in the number of days between the lunar and solar calendars. (We have leap months instead of leap days, an extra month added every so many years.)
Similarly the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar – in this case there is no adjustment for the difference between lunar and solar calendars so dates and holidays in the Islamic calendar as it rotates through it's 12 month cycle will annually fall at different times during the year.
Okay, I know – you did not expect a class in calendars, but my point in this is that one does not have to wait for January 1 to decide that THIS is when you are going to make a change in your life – any day of the year can be your new year to make a resolution to change something about your life and start getting rid of clutter and getting organized - and yes, even start doing better at the dreaded cleaning.
Pick something to start with – it may not be what bothers you (or your loved about you) the most, but pick something and start doing it – today. I won't say, as many do, that doing something on a regular basis makes it a habit, but instead each day deal with what you have picked to do. When you get to the point where you think you have it control – it is another day and pick something else to do.
Right now – in the middle of writing this post I have to run down to the laundry (I heard it beep) and transfer the clothing to the dryer and throw in our Covid-19 face masks to wash in a separate load. I will be right back, don't go away…. Okay, I am back.
So don't wait for January 1 – start now by doing one thing new or change how you do something now – today is the start of a new year (and of course you can instead start tomorrow if you need to plan – it is the start of a new year also). After all, you are probably home due to the corona virus pandemic anyway – might as well get something organized and get some rid of some unneeded stuff.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Our lives are very different than they were last year at this time. Take the gift (and yes, every day of life is a gift) of the time you have and do SOME THING with it. Work on getting organized – or ignore organizing to spend quality time with those you love.
As I posted last week, my husband has recently decided that we should take a walk at a local park. I would much rather be home getting work done, but I understand his need to go out and do something, anything. It is just the two of us (and all the others also out walking or fishing or sitting or playing) as walk – not briskly, but not just strolling around the park. Of course I have things waiting for me to do, but being with him and doing something he feels he needs to do is more important at this time. We have all been reminded of what a precious gift life is. Let us not waste our time here and do something for or with and spend time with those we love.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
KEEP ON TOP OF CHORES AND APPOINTMENTS BY SETTING UP REMINDERS
Another week, another post. This is actually good for me. With the exception of, I think, two times since I have started this blog several years ago I have not missed posting on what is Wednesday night to me and Thursday (very) am to everyone else. (12:15 am Thursday as I start to write this, for example.)
Do you have trouble doing tasks which have to be done over and over on some sort regular basis? I did, well I still do although I am much better at it now. I use my mobile phone to help with this as I do for many other things.
At the start of the year (actually usually just as December is ending for the coming year) I will go through my Lotus Organizer and put in repeating tasks for the coming year. I have quarterly repeating tasks - such as doing payroll tax forms for clients or extra computer backups. I have monthly tasks - monthly computer backups, setting up new spreadsheets for our craft business to keep track of inventory (even though we have had no sales since December - I update the spreadsheet monthly anyway) and changing the sponges I use for cleaning. I have weekly tasks - laundry, changing towels - kitchen and bathroom, changing the bed, regular weekly data backup, and so on. I also have daily tasks - for example - check email - yes, I need a reminder for this. I do not need a reminder to wash the dishes from dinner and later at night from pre-bed snack as I do them as we finish the meal. I also have annual reminders - these I set up to repeat for 5 years (I am thinking of 10 years next time) - birthdays, anniversaries, when other tax forms are due (for clients & us), and so on.
I also will add various events as I find out about them. I know that our reenacting unit meets monthly on the a certain day of the month - I set up the meetings on my calendar (both in the Organizer and my mobile phone which keeps a separate calendar as it does not sync - the Organizer is synced with my old Palm Centro which I carry around the house as a PDA). When the events schedule is set up for the year I add those to both calendars also. My embroidery chapter has a “fiscal” year - the meeting year runs from September of one year through June of the next year and as soon as I know the meeting dates - again a specific day repeating each month - they are added to both calendars. I add appointments I make as I go along. I add trips we make reservations for to the calendar - I start the year with the one for our July 4ish trip already in the calendar as we have to book a year in advance to make sure we get the RV space we want - and we are generally not there on July 4 itself - we are not happy with the RV park and the area we visit being that busy.
What do you do to keep track of when to do things or what your plans are? When I was younger I was able to keep much of this in my head, but I no longer can. (Heck, I put down a check today and 10 minutes later could not remember where I put it down - finally remembered.) Having a reminder ring helps one stay on track. I am about to go upstairs as I am backing up my desktop computer for the month (did the quarterly back up while we had dinner) and the reminder just went off in my mobile phone to see if it if the backup is done - it was not finished when I checked half an hour ago. Be right back - feel free to talk among yourselves, get a snack, or make a bathroom run while I check........ No not done yet. I reset the reminder for another half an hour. But, the laundry will need to be shifted between washer and dryer - and another load put in the washer in 2 minutes, 24 seconds.
See how this works? Trust me if you just try to remember to do everything - it does not work. Don’t just use reminder on your mobile phone for personal stuff - use it for work also. If you work at computer at work (or home) you can put the reminders on it instead - or also. If you are low tech - and I find nothing wrong with low tech (I am the first one to scream if some company or government agency says that something has to be done by computer or with a mobile phone, not for me but for others - well sometimes for me as I prefer the privacy of not having any number of things on my cell phone for security) use a paper calender and an alarm clock to remind you - or even a timer if you have to go back to finish something. Darn laundry reminder has gone off. Be right back.......
Back again. You need to decide what you need to be reminded of. Some items all you might need to do is to put them on the date(s) or day(s) of the calendar so you will see them to do them. Others you might need to have an alarm go off to remind you to stop what you are doing and do what you are suppose to do. (My backup and laundry have sound reminders to remind me.)
Yes, sometimes life gets in the way (or you just really need as a personal matter not to do something on the day you have it scheduled) and things do not get done. I admit to not changing the bedding yesterday as I normally do on a Tuesday (gasps are heard “she did not do something on her schedule after she said to schedule things so you remember them). My elderly mom had a problem that started extremely early on Tuesday morning. Monday night to us and we had to run to help her just as we had changed and gotten into bed - at 4 am. By the time we were back home - and then only were able to do so by the grace my sister meeting us at the hospital with her husband so we could leave (and they had slept as normal people do from earlier in the evening). I had sent my husband out to the car for him to sleep but that had not worked. It was 10 am by the time we finally were able to go to bed. Husband, exhausted, fell asleep. I could not, while waiting to hear from my sister what the findings were about mom. After text messages and telephone calls I was finally able to fall asleep - for about an hour. When we got up for the day it was late in the day even for us and I just had no energy to deal with the bed and said to myself the very unladylike “F it”. (Mom was given a prescription to try for the problem and is staying with my sister at least through the holidays, which for us will run through next week and we will figure out what to do to keep her safe and well - she is 90.)
THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK -
1 - Use your technology to keep you on schedule or a paper schedule and clock if you prefer to use same.
2 - Realize that things occur which will throw you off schedule - it is called life and one never knows what will happen. Just get back on schedule as soon as you can. (And schedules are not written in stone - if you never get to do something, such as write your blog post on Tuesdays, you can move it to another day - Wednesday, for example the day you actually post it.)
3 - I wish you a good holiday with those you love.
Do you have trouble doing tasks which have to be done over and over on some sort regular basis? I did, well I still do although I am much better at it now. I use my mobile phone to help with this as I do for many other things.
At the start of the year (actually usually just as December is ending for the coming year) I will go through my Lotus Organizer and put in repeating tasks for the coming year. I have quarterly repeating tasks - such as doing payroll tax forms for clients or extra computer backups. I have monthly tasks - monthly computer backups, setting up new spreadsheets for our craft business to keep track of inventory (even though we have had no sales since December - I update the spreadsheet monthly anyway) and changing the sponges I use for cleaning. I have weekly tasks - laundry, changing towels - kitchen and bathroom, changing the bed, regular weekly data backup, and so on. I also have daily tasks - for example - check email - yes, I need a reminder for this. I do not need a reminder to wash the dishes from dinner and later at night from pre-bed snack as I do them as we finish the meal. I also have annual reminders - these I set up to repeat for 5 years (I am thinking of 10 years next time) - birthdays, anniversaries, when other tax forms are due (for clients & us), and so on.
I also will add various events as I find out about them. I know that our reenacting unit meets monthly on the a certain day of the month - I set up the meetings on my calendar (both in the Organizer and my mobile phone which keeps a separate calendar as it does not sync - the Organizer is synced with my old Palm Centro which I carry around the house as a PDA). When the events schedule is set up for the year I add those to both calendars also. My embroidery chapter has a “fiscal” year - the meeting year runs from September of one year through June of the next year and as soon as I know the meeting dates - again a specific day repeating each month - they are added to both calendars. I add appointments I make as I go along. I add trips we make reservations for to the calendar - I start the year with the one for our July 4ish trip already in the calendar as we have to book a year in advance to make sure we get the RV space we want - and we are generally not there on July 4 itself - we are not happy with the RV park and the area we visit being that busy.
What do you do to keep track of when to do things or what your plans are? When I was younger I was able to keep much of this in my head, but I no longer can. (Heck, I put down a check today and 10 minutes later could not remember where I put it down - finally remembered.) Having a reminder ring helps one stay on track. I am about to go upstairs as I am backing up my desktop computer for the month (did the quarterly back up while we had dinner) and the reminder just went off in my mobile phone to see if it if the backup is done - it was not finished when I checked half an hour ago. Be right back - feel free to talk among yourselves, get a snack, or make a bathroom run while I check........ No not done yet. I reset the reminder for another half an hour. But, the laundry will need to be shifted between washer and dryer - and another load put in the washer in 2 minutes, 24 seconds.
See how this works? Trust me if you just try to remember to do everything - it does not work. Don’t just use reminder on your mobile phone for personal stuff - use it for work also. If you work at computer at work (or home) you can put the reminders on it instead - or also. If you are low tech - and I find nothing wrong with low tech (I am the first one to scream if some company or government agency says that something has to be done by computer or with a mobile phone, not for me but for others - well sometimes for me as I prefer the privacy of not having any number of things on my cell phone for security) use a paper calender and an alarm clock to remind you - or even a timer if you have to go back to finish something. Darn laundry reminder has gone off. Be right back.......
Back again. You need to decide what you need to be reminded of. Some items all you might need to do is to put them on the date(s) or day(s) of the calendar so you will see them to do them. Others you might need to have an alarm go off to remind you to stop what you are doing and do what you are suppose to do. (My backup and laundry have sound reminders to remind me.)
Yes, sometimes life gets in the way (or you just really need as a personal matter not to do something on the day you have it scheduled) and things do not get done. I admit to not changing the bedding yesterday as I normally do on a Tuesday (gasps are heard “she did not do something on her schedule after she said to schedule things so you remember them). My elderly mom had a problem that started extremely early on Tuesday morning. Monday night to us and we had to run to help her just as we had changed and gotten into bed - at 4 am. By the time we were back home - and then only were able to do so by the grace my sister meeting us at the hospital with her husband so we could leave (and they had slept as normal people do from earlier in the evening). I had sent my husband out to the car for him to sleep but that had not worked. It was 10 am by the time we finally were able to go to bed. Husband, exhausted, fell asleep. I could not, while waiting to hear from my sister what the findings were about mom. After text messages and telephone calls I was finally able to fall asleep - for about an hour. When we got up for the day it was late in the day even for us and I just had no energy to deal with the bed and said to myself the very unladylike “F it”. (Mom was given a prescription to try for the problem and is staying with my sister at least through the holidays, which for us will run through next week and we will figure out what to do to keep her safe and well - she is 90.)
THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK -
1 - Use your technology to keep you on schedule or a paper schedule and clock if you prefer to use same.
2 - Realize that things occur which will throw you off schedule - it is called life and one never knows what will happen. Just get back on schedule as soon as you can. (And schedules are not written in stone - if you never get to do something, such as write your blog post on Tuesdays, you can move it to another day - Wednesday, for example the day you actually post it.)
3 - I wish you a good holiday with those you love.
Thursday, March 21, 2019
USE YOUR CELL PHONE AND COMPUTER TO HELP STAY ORGANIZED
Yesterday I had an idea for this post. Between then and now I forgot. That seems to happen a lot these days. I will admit to being in my mid 60s. As a child people said that I had memory of an elephant. I still do for some things - my husband can tell you that I remember things from decades ago that he has forgotten (or remembers totally wrong), but from one minute to another I might not remember. Not sure if it is aging and an actual memory problem or lack of interest in remembering something - although I am sure that is not why I forgot what I was going to write about. So I will write about remembering things to help get organized (unless the other idea comes back to me.)
One problem in organizing and getting rid of stuff is remembering what needs to be done when. For example - one needs to do food and related shopping to keep the household going. I used to have a paper list on the fridge. If we were running low on something I would put it on the list. Husband knew if he was running low on something, he should add it to that list - and he did. Originally I went food shopping on Thursdays - why? Well, my mom did her shopping on Thursdays! We have tended to eat on weekends for most of the time we have been married. So food shopping on Thursdays actually made no sense - the food was sitting around for 3 days before we even started to use most of it.
I switched my food shopping to Mondays. In those days the weekly supermarket sales started on Sunday so by switching to Monday not only did I have fresher food (nicer looking produce) I also was more likely to find the sale items in stock. I found out the first year that we were married that I should not take husband food shopping. He was on vacation from work. (He was on a school year schedule and had several 1 week vacation plus 4 weeks in the summer.) I invited him to the supermarket with me. We left with nothing. Why? “I don’t feel like this for dinner tonight.” Me - “No we are buying this because it is on sale and we will buy extra and freeze it. We don’t have to eat it tonight.” So after doing my food shopping on Monday, I would go again on Friday if anything was needed for the weekend. My week at that time was Monday - run household errands, Tuesday through Wednesday I would work, go out to clients, etc., Friday I would do our banking, buy an extra food, run errands and enjoy lunch out - alone (cheap). My big joke - remember I work by myself - was that “the office voted to go out to lunch together on Fridays”. Saturday and Sunday was our time together. This worked very well.
Over the years other chores were added in that had to vary through the week. For about a decade we were both in two rotating art exhibitions. This involved bringing his work - cut paper, leather, turned wood - and my work - textile/multimedia dolls - to a showcase at each of the two sets of exhibitions we were in. Various libraries, local government offices, & businesses would come and select whose work they would like to have at their locations. The exhibitions were for 1 or 2 months. The artist would bring the work and set it up at the locations and then at the end of the month take the exhibitions down. Since the exhibitions had to be set up/removed during the day, I would do it for both of us. I had to juggle setting up/removing 1 to 4 exhibitions a month over a 2 county area. Not an easy thing to keep track of or to do. But - it was actually easier when I did this alone than when husband stopped working and was doing this with me. I knew the different locations and what would fit and how I had arranged the pieces in prior years. Some locations were really great and I would do a big exhibition with papers explaining the work and which pieces were which and some of the locations had room for 3 pieces. Some of the work was hung on the wall (or on standing panels) and some had to go in cases. Some had employees were who were excited and nice about what was being hung - some were annoyed that we were there. I had computer printed forms I brought with me to list to pieces on for it to be signed for. I also have a data base for each type of work in my computer so I know which pieces had been exhibited where and when. I had an appointment in my computer calendar/cell phone to remind me to call and make an appointment to bring the exhibitions in to set up and another to remind me to make an appointment to take them down at the end of the month or 2 months.)
Similarly I used to have to go to clients on a monthly or quarterly basis. I had to remember which client to go to when and what had to be done when I went there. At first I made notes about what to do at each client and put it in my, originally, paper calendar book, later in my cell phone. Of course over the years I basically knew what to do at each client by memory, but kept my notes. I am now down to one client except for annual income taxes and it is easy to remember what to do there. Also over the decades the client’s records all were put into my laptop computer to make it easier. I still have reminders of when which taxes are due for client and for our personal businesses.
Friends are amazed that I remember their birthdays and anniversaries. I would mail cards to friends children when they were young - I remember the excitement of getting something in the mail. All of this was in special calendar book that I just kept same in so it did not need to be carried to a new book every year in the old days. Now it is all in computer calendar and automatically is there every year.
I have alarms in my cell phone and computer that remind me when something needs to be done - including when to stop working at my computer in the office and go down and make dinner. (This happens 15 minutes before I need to go down so I have a chance to finish up - and back up.) Reminders for birthdays and anniversaries go off a week before each event. I also have a memo/to do/note program in my cell phone (and syncs with my computer) to keep track o f information. The first one is a shopping list - I have various stores/types of stores listed and I add in items we need to buy. Since I find that I am using much fewer coupons these days (as there are so few which match with what we need) I will put “coup” after the item if I have a coupon for it. (Coupons are in sorted holder in the car.) I have a category in this memo for Christmas - this way I will remember next Christmas if we need to replace strands of light or if we have enough card and wrapping for next year. Another category in this memo is things that we cannot find here, but can find in Pennsylvania on trips. I have one memo which holds the specifications of various things in the house that we might buy items for - such as sewing machines so I can buy bobbins for them. Another memo has which light bulbs we need for where. Yet another says how much fabric I need and which buttons I need for reenacting clothing in case we come across something interesting. You get the idea.
THOUGHT FOR THIS WEEK -
If memory or a need for reminders is part of what keeps you from getting organized - use your computer or cell phone - or even an old fashioned calendar/agenda book and a shopping list on the refrigerator - to help you keep track of everything.
Those of you who were hit by the storms across the middle of the U.S. - I hope that you are safe and warm and the results of the snow and rain disappear quickly.
One problem in organizing and getting rid of stuff is remembering what needs to be done when. For example - one needs to do food and related shopping to keep the household going. I used to have a paper list on the fridge. If we were running low on something I would put it on the list. Husband knew if he was running low on something, he should add it to that list - and he did. Originally I went food shopping on Thursdays - why? Well, my mom did her shopping on Thursdays! We have tended to eat on weekends for most of the time we have been married. So food shopping on Thursdays actually made no sense - the food was sitting around for 3 days before we even started to use most of it.
I switched my food shopping to Mondays. In those days the weekly supermarket sales started on Sunday so by switching to Monday not only did I have fresher food (nicer looking produce) I also was more likely to find the sale items in stock. I found out the first year that we were married that I should not take husband food shopping. He was on vacation from work. (He was on a school year schedule and had several 1 week vacation plus 4 weeks in the summer.) I invited him to the supermarket with me. We left with nothing. Why? “I don’t feel like this for dinner tonight.” Me - “No we are buying this because it is on sale and we will buy extra and freeze it. We don’t have to eat it tonight.” So after doing my food shopping on Monday, I would go again on Friday if anything was needed for the weekend. My week at that time was Monday - run household errands, Tuesday through Wednesday I would work, go out to clients, etc., Friday I would do our banking, buy an extra food, run errands and enjoy lunch out - alone (cheap). My big joke - remember I work by myself - was that “the office voted to go out to lunch together on Fridays”. Saturday and Sunday was our time together. This worked very well.
Over the years other chores were added in that had to vary through the week. For about a decade we were both in two rotating art exhibitions. This involved bringing his work - cut paper, leather, turned wood - and my work - textile/multimedia dolls - to a showcase at each of the two sets of exhibitions we were in. Various libraries, local government offices, & businesses would come and select whose work they would like to have at their locations. The exhibitions were for 1 or 2 months. The artist would bring the work and set it up at the locations and then at the end of the month take the exhibitions down. Since the exhibitions had to be set up/removed during the day, I would do it for both of us. I had to juggle setting up/removing 1 to 4 exhibitions a month over a 2 county area. Not an easy thing to keep track of or to do. But - it was actually easier when I did this alone than when husband stopped working and was doing this with me. I knew the different locations and what would fit and how I had arranged the pieces in prior years. Some locations were really great and I would do a big exhibition with papers explaining the work and which pieces were which and some of the locations had room for 3 pieces. Some of the work was hung on the wall (or on standing panels) and some had to go in cases. Some had employees were who were excited and nice about what was being hung - some were annoyed that we were there. I had computer printed forms I brought with me to list to pieces on for it to be signed for. I also have a data base for each type of work in my computer so I know which pieces had been exhibited where and when. I had an appointment in my computer calendar/cell phone to remind me to call and make an appointment to bring the exhibitions in to set up and another to remind me to make an appointment to take them down at the end of the month or 2 months.)
Similarly I used to have to go to clients on a monthly or quarterly basis. I had to remember which client to go to when and what had to be done when I went there. At first I made notes about what to do at each client and put it in my, originally, paper calendar book, later in my cell phone. Of course over the years I basically knew what to do at each client by memory, but kept my notes. I am now down to one client except for annual income taxes and it is easy to remember what to do there. Also over the decades the client’s records all were put into my laptop computer to make it easier. I still have reminders of when which taxes are due for client and for our personal businesses.
Friends are amazed that I remember their birthdays and anniversaries. I would mail cards to friends children when they were young - I remember the excitement of getting something in the mail. All of this was in special calendar book that I just kept same in so it did not need to be carried to a new book every year in the old days. Now it is all in computer calendar and automatically is there every year.
I have alarms in my cell phone and computer that remind me when something needs to be done - including when to stop working at my computer in the office and go down and make dinner. (This happens 15 minutes before I need to go down so I have a chance to finish up - and back up.) Reminders for birthdays and anniversaries go off a week before each event. I also have a memo/to do/note program in my cell phone (and syncs with my computer) to keep track o f information. The first one is a shopping list - I have various stores/types of stores listed and I add in items we need to buy. Since I find that I am using much fewer coupons these days (as there are so few which match with what we need) I will put “coup” after the item if I have a coupon for it. (Coupons are in sorted holder in the car.) I have a category in this memo for Christmas - this way I will remember next Christmas if we need to replace strands of light or if we have enough card and wrapping for next year. Another category in this memo is things that we cannot find here, but can find in Pennsylvania on trips. I have one memo which holds the specifications of various things in the house that we might buy items for - such as sewing machines so I can buy bobbins for them. Another memo has which light bulbs we need for where. Yet another says how much fabric I need and which buttons I need for reenacting clothing in case we come across something interesting. You get the idea.
THOUGHT FOR THIS WEEK -
If memory or a need for reminders is part of what keeps you from getting organized - use your computer or cell phone - or even an old fashioned calendar/agenda book and a shopping list on the refrigerator - to help you keep track of everything.
Those of you who were hit by the storms across the middle of the U.S. - I hope that you are safe and warm and the results of the snow and rain disappear quickly.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
DO YOU BACK UP?
You know “the curse” I have been talking about? Well it hit again. Due to all of the craziness and lack of time in general plus time lost to the craziness and need to do things over and over, I had not backed up my main computer or my work laptop (the old one, not this new one which is still being slowly fed software) for the last quarter of 2018 - which I would normally have done around January 15 - nor did I do a monthly backup for December either. So last Friday I decided to do both. I backed up one computer to the quarterly hard drive and the other to the monthly hard drive at the same time. All went well. I also backed up my calendar, client who I have a separate flash drive for, and my data to each. All went fine. Saturday we were home as there was to be rain so I backed up each of the computers etc to the opposite drive. Still all okay.
I then went to back up for the week. I have a flash drive which holds 6 weeks of data, client, ad calendar files. I update the oldest one each week. This week if the data drive went bad and both of the regular “every session alternately” backups went bad I will have data from a week ago to work with. I back up with a software program that updates the files already in the file I am updating to. It finished running while we were out having dinner on Saturday.
When we got home the backup file did not show everything as finished. There were problems with several older tax client files - this is pdf copies of the returns, info used from the clients and my work papers. When I opened those files - it was all gibberish. Husband looked at them and told me that the drive had gone bad and the files were corrupted.
I did not panic - I have backups and they must be right as the backup program had not had a problem when making them. The back up from Saturday afternoon had the same corrupted files. I should say that, luckily, I had not gotten around to do any actual work on the computer for a couple of days - checked email, updated calendar, started one letter. I tried the backup from Friday and it was fine - whew!!
Husband tried to format the bad drive and it could not be done. So he broke it with a hammer to dust and threw out the dust. (Security is important when financial records are involved.) I had a new, larger flash drive and copied the backup from the day before to that drive. Husband suggested I use all new drives and change them annually from now on. I also have an archive drive - I will soon copy my 2018 files into my archive and remove them from the data drive I use to keep it more compact. Robert suggested that I get a new archive drive also. When I update the archive drive I also make 2 DVDs of it - one goes into my regular disk box and one goes into my “grab and go” accordion folder. This holds copies of our house and car titles, stock certificates, last month’s reconciled bank statements, wedding licenses (we actually have 3 - one government, one from each of our religions), medical insurance and the like. In case of an emergency we can grab this folder and have copies of our important papers to take with us - including DVDs of the archive and of my monthly backup to take offsite.
So I planned to go on Monday to a MicroCenter - a location of the chain and buy 3 new flash drives - one each for the session backups and a larger one for the archive. However, while at Costco on Sunday, husband noticed that my laptop dropped $50 in price since we bought it, so Monday we forgot about buying the new drives and went to back to Costco as they will refund the difference with the receipt. (This is a actually a very good idea. I could have returned the laptop and bought it again to take advantage of the price drop, and they would be stuck with a used laptop, this way I keep my laptop, am happy to get the lower price, and they don’t have to deal with a used laptop - and extra credit card fees for a return and another purchase.)
So yesterday, Tuesday, we bought the new drives. I made two new regular backups yesterday of data, client, and calendar files. I still have to check the hard drive backups and make a weekly backup for last week - though at this point, I will probably not bother and just do this week’s weekly backup on Friday. I also still have to copy the archive to the new drive.
I feel as if I am not getting anything done. I generally can tell how much I have been getting done by the number of papers I have to file at the end of a week, the number of items I have to mail out, and how deep the dust is in the house (okay, there is always too much dust in the house).
I have not finished client’s tax return yet - due March 15 - and need to have it finished and go to her with it before then. I have not heard from my other clients yet - they tend to contact me in March. I am still trying to get missing papers for our personal returns - one corrected IRA 1099 has not come yet - called yesterday about it - to be sent to us. I also have not received a corrected summary statement - but that is for something later this year. I did not get a dividend 1099 either, called up and I am not sure one was sent as the first thing the computer talked about was how much our dividends were and that we don’t need a 1099, but if we want one, they can send “a replacement”. So hopefully that will come soon. I know the amounts for all of these and can do the return without them, but need the paperwork for the same thing later in the year. We have two business returns to do for ourselves. One is due March 15 also and has no income - it is inactive, but we don’t want to close it down. So yesterday, just to get something done I did the inactive company’s tax returns. Well, something is done at least.
And - husband is thinking about going to a woodworking show out of state this weekend - which means Friday as we have the annual party for our reenactment unit on Sunday so we cannot go then and we cannot get up early enough to do that on Sunday and go to the woodworking show on Saturday. We will see. This was a nice show, but the venue it was in was closed and it moved to one that is not at all convenient to deal with. (A quilt show at the same old venue moved elsewhere and was awful and is no more.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
BACK UP! No, not away from the computer. Make sure that you are doing backups of at least important data and things like your important photos. We don’t use “the cloud” for anything including backup as another name for the cloud is “someone else’s hard drive, which is more attractive to hack than yours as they will get so much more” and most of the cloud drives have been hacked. An external hard drive is fairly reasonable to get and one can back up to it on a weekly or monthly basis if they don’t need to back up as often I do. (Remember a lot of this is work stuff I am backing up.) An external drive would also let you take the drive with you in an emergency.
I then went to back up for the week. I have a flash drive which holds 6 weeks of data, client, ad calendar files. I update the oldest one each week. This week if the data drive went bad and both of the regular “every session alternately” backups went bad I will have data from a week ago to work with. I back up with a software program that updates the files already in the file I am updating to. It finished running while we were out having dinner on Saturday.
When we got home the backup file did not show everything as finished. There were problems with several older tax client files - this is pdf copies of the returns, info used from the clients and my work papers. When I opened those files - it was all gibberish. Husband looked at them and told me that the drive had gone bad and the files were corrupted.
I did not panic - I have backups and they must be right as the backup program had not had a problem when making them. The back up from Saturday afternoon had the same corrupted files. I should say that, luckily, I had not gotten around to do any actual work on the computer for a couple of days - checked email, updated calendar, started one letter. I tried the backup from Friday and it was fine - whew!!
Husband tried to format the bad drive and it could not be done. So he broke it with a hammer to dust and threw out the dust. (Security is important when financial records are involved.) I had a new, larger flash drive and copied the backup from the day before to that drive. Husband suggested I use all new drives and change them annually from now on. I also have an archive drive - I will soon copy my 2018 files into my archive and remove them from the data drive I use to keep it more compact. Robert suggested that I get a new archive drive also. When I update the archive drive I also make 2 DVDs of it - one goes into my regular disk box and one goes into my “grab and go” accordion folder. This holds copies of our house and car titles, stock certificates, last month’s reconciled bank statements, wedding licenses (we actually have 3 - one government, one from each of our religions), medical insurance and the like. In case of an emergency we can grab this folder and have copies of our important papers to take with us - including DVDs of the archive and of my monthly backup to take offsite.
So I planned to go on Monday to a MicroCenter - a location of the chain and buy 3 new flash drives - one each for the session backups and a larger one for the archive. However, while at Costco on Sunday, husband noticed that my laptop dropped $50 in price since we bought it, so Monday we forgot about buying the new drives and went to back to Costco as they will refund the difference with the receipt. (This is a actually a very good idea. I could have returned the laptop and bought it again to take advantage of the price drop, and they would be stuck with a used laptop, this way I keep my laptop, am happy to get the lower price, and they don’t have to deal with a used laptop - and extra credit card fees for a return and another purchase.)
So yesterday, Tuesday, we bought the new drives. I made two new regular backups yesterday of data, client, and calendar files. I still have to check the hard drive backups and make a weekly backup for last week - though at this point, I will probably not bother and just do this week’s weekly backup on Friday. I also still have to copy the archive to the new drive.
I feel as if I am not getting anything done. I generally can tell how much I have been getting done by the number of papers I have to file at the end of a week, the number of items I have to mail out, and how deep the dust is in the house (okay, there is always too much dust in the house).
I have not finished client’s tax return yet - due March 15 - and need to have it finished and go to her with it before then. I have not heard from my other clients yet - they tend to contact me in March. I am still trying to get missing papers for our personal returns - one corrected IRA 1099 has not come yet - called yesterday about it - to be sent to us. I also have not received a corrected summary statement - but that is for something later this year. I did not get a dividend 1099 either, called up and I am not sure one was sent as the first thing the computer talked about was how much our dividends were and that we don’t need a 1099, but if we want one, they can send “a replacement”. So hopefully that will come soon. I know the amounts for all of these and can do the return without them, but need the paperwork for the same thing later in the year. We have two business returns to do for ourselves. One is due March 15 also and has no income - it is inactive, but we don’t want to close it down. So yesterday, just to get something done I did the inactive company’s tax returns. Well, something is done at least.
And - husband is thinking about going to a woodworking show out of state this weekend - which means Friday as we have the annual party for our reenactment unit on Sunday so we cannot go then and we cannot get up early enough to do that on Sunday and go to the woodworking show on Saturday. We will see. This was a nice show, but the venue it was in was closed and it moved to one that is not at all convenient to deal with. (A quilt show at the same old venue moved elsewhere and was awful and is no more.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
BACK UP! No, not away from the computer. Make sure that you are doing backups of at least important data and things like your important photos. We don’t use “the cloud” for anything including backup as another name for the cloud is “someone else’s hard drive, which is more attractive to hack than yours as they will get so much more” and most of the cloud drives have been hacked. An external hard drive is fairly reasonable to get and one can back up to it on a weekly or monthly basis if they don’t need to back up as often I do. (Remember a lot of this is work stuff I am backing up.) An external drive would also let you take the drive with you in an emergency.
Thursday, November 1, 2018
HALLOWEEN HERE - HOLIDAYS COMING
Well it is Halloween. For the first time in many years (at least a couple of decades) we are home and not in Pennsylvania. We normally go away for my birthday as I don’t like all the Halloween stuff being associated it with it - including not being able to go out for a nice dinner other than at an Asian restaurant - and while it is everywhere, there is a lot less in the area we go to and we can walk into local restaurants and not be served by a science experiment gone wrong covered in blood - ick. Since husband’s shoulder still has not healed he could not drive anywhere near that far and he cannot ride when someone else drives, so here we are.
What surprised me the most was the total lack of trick or treaters. Even when we were home for Halloween we had no trick or treaters until the woman next door to us had her son and his family - including his young daughter - move in and then she came by for a couple of years until they moved. Then the house beyond that one had a new family move in - they had 3 children and we had the children and maybe a couple of their friends come by for maybe 3 years. The street is 4 lanes, so the family that lived across the street never came here - too dangerous to cross the street. We live on a main street with only these children on it in the past and since we did not know the families on the streets near us I figured that we did not have trick or treaters as they did not know us.
But now there is a new family in the house on either side of us and I figured that they would come by. They did not. What surprised us even more is that when we driving home from running errands and lunch - around 3:30 pm (which is when I would have been out making the rounds as a child) and later when we went out to pick up Chinese takeout for dinner - we did not see one child (or adult) in costumes walking around.
Later, after dinner, I read the regional newspaper (yes, I still read the “dead tree” newspaper) there was an article on how most of the neighborhoods no longer have trick or treaters going around. Parents and schools have apparently decided (and rightly so) for safety in today’s world to have parties at the schools or what is called “trunk and treat” at the schools or other location rather than the children going around house to house. This eliminates the danger of children out alone - and possibly in the dark - as well as what strangers might give the children. In thinking about it I realized that I had not seen any of the usual - “Bring your candy to the hospital and we will X-ray it for you.”
For those of you who might not know about trunk and treat - groups of families get together in parking lot at a school, park, or shopping center. The cars are decorated for the holiday and the trunk (or hatch) is open and the children go from car to car for their trick or treating and possibly other activities. Parents know who the other participants are and the children have fun and are safe. The first time I saw this was the Halloween 2 days after Superstorm Sandy. There were few people out and about and we had gasoline shortages and major electric outages. Sidewalks were not safe to walk on due to trees and limbs - and wires which had fallen down. I thought this a great idea for the children. I did not know at the time that it was something being done otherwise than the storm.
Have you noticed a lack of trick or treaters in your area in recent years - or is this area an anomaly?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If it is Halloween than the start of the end of the year holiday season is starting - if not already started. As we head into the end of year holiday season, think. Don’t overdo. Think “less is more”. Buy less items (oh, the retail industry will hate me) but think more about what you do buy. I tend to be very conservative in gift giving and have pushed husband in that direction.
His sister goes the opposite way and buys each of her two daughters, umm, I mean Santa brings each of her two daughters 64 gifts. Huh? Yes 64 gifts - and I don’t mean small ones. Sister in law has some idea stuck in her head that she received same each year as a child - I knew her then, she did not - and feels she must do this for her daughters. I have even seen her give duplicate gifts to them as she forgot she already bought the same or very similar gift the same year. Their grandmother (on their dad’s side) goes into debt that she cannot afford to buy them even more.
As a result the girls do not value what they have received - or even remember what they have received. The two girls are adopted from China. When the older one was younger (she is a teenager now) we bought her an Asian faced Cabbage Patch Kid. Her grandmother also did so. A couple of years later she was at our house and I was playing with my Cabbage Patch Dolls with her. (No children, so dolls and bears are my substitute - when I play with the dolls with our nieces I am the nice aunt, if I play with them alone, I am “the crazy lady”.) Niece said to me “I wish I had a doll like these.” I told her that she two of them - and she was shocked. They were “on the pile” at home and she did not remember them.
So as you start the season keep in mind that less can really be more. Stay on your budget. Buy items with meaning or is something that the person wants. Don’t go overboard because other family members do.
Watch what you spend on what I calling “buying garbage” - huh? When you buy wrapping paper and ribbon it is basically buying something that will quickly be garbage and thrown out. My rule for Christmas wrapping was $1 for 50 square feet for decades. I will now spend $1 for 40 square feet as price adjustment over time. I buy inexpensive curling ribbon and make long tendrils that I put on gifts - in expensive, one does not feel the need to “save the bows” and they don’t get crushed when traveling. I have a ribbon shredder to use on the ribbon, which makes it look even nicer. Christmas cards are the same. They are opened, maybe displayed and then thrown out. Shop wisely and one can get very nice cards inexpensively - and don’t forget the end of the season sales which seem these days to start right as the season starts. Think about this - my sister had a friend whose father owned a small chain of upscale card and gift stores. The girl’s gifts for my sister were always wrapped in Sunday color comics - never wrapping paper.
What surprised me the most was the total lack of trick or treaters. Even when we were home for Halloween we had no trick or treaters until the woman next door to us had her son and his family - including his young daughter - move in and then she came by for a couple of years until they moved. Then the house beyond that one had a new family move in - they had 3 children and we had the children and maybe a couple of their friends come by for maybe 3 years. The street is 4 lanes, so the family that lived across the street never came here - too dangerous to cross the street. We live on a main street with only these children on it in the past and since we did not know the families on the streets near us I figured that we did not have trick or treaters as they did not know us.
But now there is a new family in the house on either side of us and I figured that they would come by. They did not. What surprised us even more is that when we driving home from running errands and lunch - around 3:30 pm (which is when I would have been out making the rounds as a child) and later when we went out to pick up Chinese takeout for dinner - we did not see one child (or adult) in costumes walking around.
Later, after dinner, I read the regional newspaper (yes, I still read the “dead tree” newspaper) there was an article on how most of the neighborhoods no longer have trick or treaters going around. Parents and schools have apparently decided (and rightly so) for safety in today’s world to have parties at the schools or what is called “trunk and treat” at the schools or other location rather than the children going around house to house. This eliminates the danger of children out alone - and possibly in the dark - as well as what strangers might give the children. In thinking about it I realized that I had not seen any of the usual - “Bring your candy to the hospital and we will X-ray it for you.”
For those of you who might not know about trunk and treat - groups of families get together in parking lot at a school, park, or shopping center. The cars are decorated for the holiday and the trunk (or hatch) is open and the children go from car to car for their trick or treating and possibly other activities. Parents know who the other participants are and the children have fun and are safe. The first time I saw this was the Halloween 2 days after Superstorm Sandy. There were few people out and about and we had gasoline shortages and major electric outages. Sidewalks were not safe to walk on due to trees and limbs - and wires which had fallen down. I thought this a great idea for the children. I did not know at the time that it was something being done otherwise than the storm.
Have you noticed a lack of trick or treaters in your area in recent years - or is this area an anomaly?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If it is Halloween than the start of the end of the year holiday season is starting - if not already started. As we head into the end of year holiday season, think. Don’t overdo. Think “less is more”. Buy less items (oh, the retail industry will hate me) but think more about what you do buy. I tend to be very conservative in gift giving and have pushed husband in that direction.
His sister goes the opposite way and buys each of her two daughters, umm, I mean Santa brings each of her two daughters 64 gifts. Huh? Yes 64 gifts - and I don’t mean small ones. Sister in law has some idea stuck in her head that she received same each year as a child - I knew her then, she did not - and feels she must do this for her daughters. I have even seen her give duplicate gifts to them as she forgot she already bought the same or very similar gift the same year. Their grandmother (on their dad’s side) goes into debt that she cannot afford to buy them even more.
As a result the girls do not value what they have received - or even remember what they have received. The two girls are adopted from China. When the older one was younger (she is a teenager now) we bought her an Asian faced Cabbage Patch Kid. Her grandmother also did so. A couple of years later she was at our house and I was playing with my Cabbage Patch Dolls with her. (No children, so dolls and bears are my substitute - when I play with the dolls with our nieces I am the nice aunt, if I play with them alone, I am “the crazy lady”.) Niece said to me “I wish I had a doll like these.” I told her that she two of them - and she was shocked. They were “on the pile” at home and she did not remember them.
So as you start the season keep in mind that less can really be more. Stay on your budget. Buy items with meaning or is something that the person wants. Don’t go overboard because other family members do.
Watch what you spend on what I calling “buying garbage” - huh? When you buy wrapping paper and ribbon it is basically buying something that will quickly be garbage and thrown out. My rule for Christmas wrapping was $1 for 50 square feet for decades. I will now spend $1 for 40 square feet as price adjustment over time. I buy inexpensive curling ribbon and make long tendrils that I put on gifts - in expensive, one does not feel the need to “save the bows” and they don’t get crushed when traveling. I have a ribbon shredder to use on the ribbon, which makes it look even nicer. Christmas cards are the same. They are opened, maybe displayed and then thrown out. Shop wisely and one can get very nice cards inexpensively - and don’t forget the end of the season sales which seem these days to start right as the season starts. Think about this - my sister had a friend whose father owned a small chain of upscale card and gift stores. The girl’s gifts for my sister were always wrapped in Sunday color comics - never wrapping paper.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Happy New Year!
Huh? It’s September?
I am again reminding everyone that one does not have to wait for January 1 to start a new year, turn a new page, start organizing. Every day is the start of a new year.
When I was a child my year started in September. School started then - a new school year. The new TV shows came on for the year (later this became the start of the fall season) - a new TV year. And in either September or October, being Jewish, it was the religious new year also - the anniversary of the beginning of the world we were told.. The January 1 new year always seemed lacking in reason to me - what was starting anew - just the newly printed calendars.
It is a bit arbitrary. The new year used to start on March 25 - talk about crazy, Could you imagine March 24, 2018 being followed by March 25, 2019? This change of year changed at various dates in various places based on the religion practiced in the area starting in 1582. In the British countries, including their colonies here in America, the change to January 1 as the start of the new year was made in 1750. (And this led to all sorts of problems as there was also an adjustment to the calendar of 11 days at the time to correct errors in the prior adjustments by leap year days. If you were born on April 10, 1720 O.S. (old style), you would change your birthday to April 21, 1720 for example.)
The Lunar New Year is in February. The Muslim New Year occurs at a different time each year in the common (western) calendar although it falls on the same day of the Muslim calendar. It will vary over the entire year over time. (The common calendar is a solar calendar- it is based on the travel of the earth around the sun and how long it takes. The use of the different number of days in various months and leap year day keep the common calendar set more or less fixed against the seasons of the year. While there are a number of lunar calendars ( based on the length of the months at about 29 days in the time it takes the moon to travel around the earth), some of them will insert a leap year adjustment of some sort - in the Jewish calendar it is an extra month added a number of times over a cycle of years - the Muslim calendar does not add an extra month to adjust for the solar year and so its holidays move through the year over a period of years as there is an 11 day difference in the length of the year.)
Okay, now we are getting religion classes and history lessons. Back then people had less stuff to deal with and could keep it better organized. What is going on?
What I am saying (and I have posted similar in the past) is that the day we consider to be the golden time to start organizing (or doing something else) is a fairly arbitrary day. If today is September 5 - it will be a year until the next September 5, so it is also the start of a new year.
Make sense (I hope)?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
Since every day is the start of a new year, do not put off starting or doing something until January 1. Start NOW! Okay, maybe today is too soon, pick a day soon and start THEN! No more procrastination. No more New Year's resolutions left uncompleted. Pick one thing, just one thing and do it. Then do something else - one thing at time adds up.
Huh? It’s September?
I am again reminding everyone that one does not have to wait for January 1 to start a new year, turn a new page, start organizing. Every day is the start of a new year.
When I was a child my year started in September. School started then - a new school year. The new TV shows came on for the year (later this became the start of the fall season) - a new TV year. And in either September or October, being Jewish, it was the religious new year also - the anniversary of the beginning of the world we were told.. The January 1 new year always seemed lacking in reason to me - what was starting anew - just the newly printed calendars.
It is a bit arbitrary. The new year used to start on March 25 - talk about crazy, Could you imagine March 24, 2018 being followed by March 25, 2019? This change of year changed at various dates in various places based on the religion practiced in the area starting in 1582. In the British countries, including their colonies here in America, the change to January 1 as the start of the new year was made in 1750. (And this led to all sorts of problems as there was also an adjustment to the calendar of 11 days at the time to correct errors in the prior adjustments by leap year days. If you were born on April 10, 1720 O.S. (old style), you would change your birthday to April 21, 1720 for example.)
The Lunar New Year is in February. The Muslim New Year occurs at a different time each year in the common (western) calendar although it falls on the same day of the Muslim calendar. It will vary over the entire year over time. (The common calendar is a solar calendar- it is based on the travel of the earth around the sun and how long it takes. The use of the different number of days in various months and leap year day keep the common calendar set more or less fixed against the seasons of the year. While there are a number of lunar calendars ( based on the length of the months at about 29 days in the time it takes the moon to travel around the earth), some of them will insert a leap year adjustment of some sort - in the Jewish calendar it is an extra month added a number of times over a cycle of years - the Muslim calendar does not add an extra month to adjust for the solar year and so its holidays move through the year over a period of years as there is an 11 day difference in the length of the year.)
Okay, now we are getting religion classes and history lessons. Back then people had less stuff to deal with and could keep it better organized. What is going on?
What I am saying (and I have posted similar in the past) is that the day we consider to be the golden time to start organizing (or doing something else) is a fairly arbitrary day. If today is September 5 - it will be a year until the next September 5, so it is also the start of a new year.
Make sense (I hope)?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
Since every day is the start of a new year, do not put off starting or doing something until January 1. Start NOW! Okay, maybe today is too soon, pick a day soon and start THEN! No more procrastination. No more New Year's resolutions left uncompleted. Pick one thing, just one thing and do it. Then do something else - one thing at time adds up.
Thursday, September 14, 2017
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.
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.
Thursday, August 10, 2017
SCHOOL AND OFFICE SUPPLIES
This week back to a bit more normal organizing - instead of our weird adventures.
First of all, we bought and I have been using a new dish rack instead of using the dead dishwasher as a rack. It is actually smaller than my old rack and I have trouble fitting in the dishes and pots from dinner and must store them away before I wash the items from night snack - well, at least it makes me put everything away.
Now -school supplies. I think I have mentioned before my love of office supplies - as a child I played with my dad’s supplies in his office and I am always looking at them for ideas of what to do with them. I was also a strange child who actually loved going to school and the new supplies for the year were exciting.
You are thinking - I don’t need school supplies, so I will skip this post - don’t! You may need school supplies and not realize it. I know our purpose is to get rid of stuff - not buy stuff, but sometimes school/office supplies can help us organize.
We are in school supply season (at least in the U.S.) and the stores are all competing for business so there are very good prices on the supplies. A wonderful time to stock up on needed supplies.
Our reenacting unit had to move out of our headquarters for a good part of a year. When we move back our modern space in the back was disorganized and simple supplies lacking. When school supply season rolled around I bought a package of pens, one of pencils, a clip board that opened for storage, a large pad of lined paper (now we were set to pass around a paper each meeting for attendance, as well as additional ones for lists of who is coming to which event), scissors, tape, glue, ruler, marker pen, small box to keep it all in and a second box in another color to put sewing supplies in (they had been in a small open basket before in a file cabinet). Now we are set for whatever we need - a sign for the door saying “use the front door” or “keep this door closed” no problem, someone needs to take minutes as the secretary is not there - plenty of paper and pens, and so on.
So think about it. Do you journal your organizing efforts in a notebook? If you think you will need a notebook before next year, now is a great time to get it cheaper. If you can never find a pen or pencil - a package is cheap to buy now - put pens and/or pencils around the house where you always need them and can’t find them. Scissors also inexpensive. If you sew and fly and have a problem with pointed scissors when flying - I bought Fiskars blunt tip scissors (even have a cover for the tip) which are nice and sharp for cutting, but blunt ended to take on planes (or in my case to jury duty) - best price of the year right now on them. Folders for filing what you sort - even in colors. Pocket folders for papers you need to bring places. (I have one for my papers to take to our reenactment unit meetings and one in a different color for same for my embroidery chapter meetings.) Small plastic boxes for storage. Backpacks. Great time to stock up.
But now, remember, don’t buy more than you will need - this time will come again next year. Also it is important to set a place for the spares to be kept so that you can find them when you need them.
We had a small month calendar on our fridge for TV shows. Husband made it on the printer and sealed it in plastic sheets. He has been using it as a “white board”. It is hard to fit the info in the small squares and the ink is hard to get off of it. I saw in with the school supplies a larger wall calendar which is a white board. It said that it was magnetic - which I took to mean it would stick to the fridge. No, it meant that one could put magnets on it. Husband was intrigued by the idea and we bought one to see if we could put it on the fridge. We did so. There are 5 weeks on it - we set the first week as 8:00 pm, the next as 8:30, next 9:00, next 9:30 and the last 10 pm (rarely half hour shows at 10 or 10:30 pm). Since the shows no longer run a full season, we list what is on and we would like to see. Petty idea I know. But what could you use a large calendar which can be erased for? It is actually made to hang on a wall with included hangers so don’t think it has to go on the fridge. (We glued washers to the back and then put heavy duty magnets on same - but even then we needed to put a string around the sawteeth it was suppose to hang from and then around two magnet hooks on the fridge.)
That reminds me of another great office supply - but it probably is not on sale. We have a labeling machine. It prints small plastic labels. Labeling is good and helps one to find things easier. In our case it from Brother, but there are several companies which make them. Husband printed the times for each set of boxes small and put it on a tiny thin magnet and put it on the board to make it easier to see what time something is on. But since labeling things is a great way to keep track of what there is and which box, can, etc. is which - these labels are wonderful. They even come off of many surfaces cleanly. I label the various stick flash drives I use for data with them. I put them on DVDs/CDs to know what is on the disk. If it is a reuseable disk, when I delete it to reuse, I take the old label off. My husband (since the time of floppy disks, through zip disks to stick flash drives) does not label his. He “knows” which is which - the green one over there is “X”, the red one over there is “Y” and so on. Generally he has no idea which is which and has to sit and stick each one in his computer until he finds the one he is looking for - if he does. Boxes of craft supplies when labeled are easy to find the supply one is looking for - ribbons, buttons, pompoms? Easy to find when the box says what it is in it.
Of course, for cardboard boxes - marking pens work great for labeling also.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Supplies to make organizing easier are good to have - but don’t go crazy buying “more stuff”, buy what will be of help to YOU. Make sure you have a place to keep what you buy so that you will be able to find it as it is needed.
First of all, we bought and I have been using a new dish rack instead of using the dead dishwasher as a rack. It is actually smaller than my old rack and I have trouble fitting in the dishes and pots from dinner and must store them away before I wash the items from night snack - well, at least it makes me put everything away.
Now -school supplies. I think I have mentioned before my love of office supplies - as a child I played with my dad’s supplies in his office and I am always looking at them for ideas of what to do with them. I was also a strange child who actually loved going to school and the new supplies for the year were exciting.
You are thinking - I don’t need school supplies, so I will skip this post - don’t! You may need school supplies and not realize it. I know our purpose is to get rid of stuff - not buy stuff, but sometimes school/office supplies can help us organize.
We are in school supply season (at least in the U.S.) and the stores are all competing for business so there are very good prices on the supplies. A wonderful time to stock up on needed supplies.
Our reenacting unit had to move out of our headquarters for a good part of a year. When we move back our modern space in the back was disorganized and simple supplies lacking. When school supply season rolled around I bought a package of pens, one of pencils, a clip board that opened for storage, a large pad of lined paper (now we were set to pass around a paper each meeting for attendance, as well as additional ones for lists of who is coming to which event), scissors, tape, glue, ruler, marker pen, small box to keep it all in and a second box in another color to put sewing supplies in (they had been in a small open basket before in a file cabinet). Now we are set for whatever we need - a sign for the door saying “use the front door” or “keep this door closed” no problem, someone needs to take minutes as the secretary is not there - plenty of paper and pens, and so on.
So think about it. Do you journal your organizing efforts in a notebook? If you think you will need a notebook before next year, now is a great time to get it cheaper. If you can never find a pen or pencil - a package is cheap to buy now - put pens and/or pencils around the house where you always need them and can’t find them. Scissors also inexpensive. If you sew and fly and have a problem with pointed scissors when flying - I bought Fiskars blunt tip scissors (even have a cover for the tip) which are nice and sharp for cutting, but blunt ended to take on planes (or in my case to jury duty) - best price of the year right now on them. Folders for filing what you sort - even in colors. Pocket folders for papers you need to bring places. (I have one for my papers to take to our reenactment unit meetings and one in a different color for same for my embroidery chapter meetings.) Small plastic boxes for storage. Backpacks. Great time to stock up.
But now, remember, don’t buy more than you will need - this time will come again next year. Also it is important to set a place for the spares to be kept so that you can find them when you need them.
We had a small month calendar on our fridge for TV shows. Husband made it on the printer and sealed it in plastic sheets. He has been using it as a “white board”. It is hard to fit the info in the small squares and the ink is hard to get off of it. I saw in with the school supplies a larger wall calendar which is a white board. It said that it was magnetic - which I took to mean it would stick to the fridge. No, it meant that one could put magnets on it. Husband was intrigued by the idea and we bought one to see if we could put it on the fridge. We did so. There are 5 weeks on it - we set the first week as 8:00 pm, the next as 8:30, next 9:00, next 9:30 and the last 10 pm (rarely half hour shows at 10 or 10:30 pm). Since the shows no longer run a full season, we list what is on and we would like to see. Petty idea I know. But what could you use a large calendar which can be erased for? It is actually made to hang on a wall with included hangers so don’t think it has to go on the fridge. (We glued washers to the back and then put heavy duty magnets on same - but even then we needed to put a string around the sawteeth it was suppose to hang from and then around two magnet hooks on the fridge.)
That reminds me of another great office supply - but it probably is not on sale. We have a labeling machine. It prints small plastic labels. Labeling is good and helps one to find things easier. In our case it from Brother, but there are several companies which make them. Husband printed the times for each set of boxes small and put it on a tiny thin magnet and put it on the board to make it easier to see what time something is on. But since labeling things is a great way to keep track of what there is and which box, can, etc. is which - these labels are wonderful. They even come off of many surfaces cleanly. I label the various stick flash drives I use for data with them. I put them on DVDs/CDs to know what is on the disk. If it is a reuseable disk, when I delete it to reuse, I take the old label off. My husband (since the time of floppy disks, through zip disks to stick flash drives) does not label his. He “knows” which is which - the green one over there is “X”, the red one over there is “Y” and so on. Generally he has no idea which is which and has to sit and stick each one in his computer until he finds the one he is looking for - if he does. Boxes of craft supplies when labeled are easy to find the supply one is looking for - ribbons, buttons, pompoms? Easy to find when the box says what it is in it.
Of course, for cardboard boxes - marking pens work great for labeling also.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Supplies to make organizing easier are good to have - but don’t go crazy buying “more stuff”, buy what will be of help to YOU. Make sure you have a place to keep what you buy so that you will be able to find it as it is needed.
Thursday, May 25, 2017
ELECTRONICS GOING CRAZY
I know I complain a lot and we have a lot of odd things happen to us. This week has been a pip.
I have a traditional Blackberry phone (not Android). It is 3G. I use it for texts, telephone calls, and checking things on the Internet. Yes, it is not the newest or coolest thing, but husband was able to make it sync with my computer Organizer software so I like it and have been happy with it. Last Thursday (a week ago) I went to look up something online and got a message that it could not connect and that if this continued I should contact my service provider. Okay, I never saw this before - but, again, it is not the latest fastest thing. I was in our house and turned on the wifi in the phone and accessed the Internet that way. No problem. Must be a glitch.
This problem continued over the weekend. Now, I don’t watch movies on the phone or use large amounts of data. I mostly use it for things such as “what else was the actress in the movie we just saw in?” Or “what does “X” mean” when we see or hear something we don’t know about.
So yesterday (Tuesday) I contacted my service provider online and had an hour and a half chat with an employee. We reset things that I did not even know my phone had. We reactivated the phone. We reset the phone. No change. Finally she told me that we had to reload the “service books”. I had no idea what the heck these were, but if we needed to reload, let’s do it. She comes back. They do not have the service books for my phone. I have to contact Blackberry. She assures me that Blackberry will have the service books. I thank her for her time and help.
I then go to Blackberry’s website (or I am guessing, one of them). I find tech support. I put in the required info from my phone - it is rejected as invalid. I try again - same result. I then try entering a hex version of the number which is on the phone - same result. I find a contact form for tech support and wrote and explained the problem.
Meanwhile on Monday husband had his email program updated - he did not update it - it did it itself. He then had major problems with his email program and accessing his calendar on the Internet which was coming in through his mail program. I don’t know all the details - there was something about the program was not recognizing his correct passwords and that he could not find some of them in his records of all his passwords - as I was barely listening to him as I was playing with my phone, hoping that it would magically start working again.
He needed to get rid of the update program and go back to an older version, but he was sure he would not be able to find one. I pointed out that I had an older version on my computer and we had reinstalled it last fall when we installed a new hard drive on mine. He installed it in his computer. Now the program and computer are downloading thousands of old emails into his computer. He has trouble with settings for the accounts - I use my computer to find how my email accounts are set.
He started looking for a new calendar program. There is one commercially available (at a reasonable price) that will not only solve his problems, but claims to also work with my old Organizer - if so, I can move on to a newer cell phone (which I don’t want to do, but it would make him happy, and there is this problem with mine right now). He downloaded a trial version of the calendar program. He has been having trouble with same and is not sure it does what is needed for either of us. Their tech support has been very accommodating in helping him to try to resolve the problems.
Today I had an email from Blackberry (at least it was quick and polite). The site I contacted was not correct and I needed to telephone “this number”. I send back a thank you.
I telephone Blackberry. I get through to tech support and it wants the same number - I know it will not work, but enter it anyway. It is rejected. I get a choice to try it again or speak to someone. I pick the latter. I explain my problem and situation. She needs the same number - I give it to her - it doesn’t work. She asks for another type of number and that works. She then asks me - twice - each of the points which I told her when our conversation started. She suggests I contact - yes - my service provider. I repeat (for the 4th time) that the provider referred me to them. She goes away and comes back.
I am not entitled to support. She does not say why, although I do have the phone for a number of years and I assume it because it is off warranty for a long time. I have, therefore, three choices. First, I can pay them “35 United States dollars”. Second, I can go to “this website” (a support website). Third (ready for this), I can contact my service provider. I elect the second choice.
I also make an unrelated telephone call to the NYC Police Department for a question that has come up with a client’s business and I have to leave a voice mail.
We go out to lunch and to run errands for a couple of hours.
I start checking email and seeing if have to pay bills, etc. Ok, I was avoiding trying to fix my phone. Husband comes up and starts his computer. He asks for the website. It is a list of problems and solutions (lot of help - right). We actually find the problem listed. We just cannot really figure out how to do what it says to do. Husband is worried that if we do it wrong I will lose the telephone and text functions and the phone will no longer be able to go on the Internet using wifi. We both poke around at stuff to try to figure out what to do.
One thing that husband is concerned about is that the company whose system my phone uses (my service provider does not have a system - depending on the phone one has, one uses one or another of the major cell phone systems) has announced that they are going to discontinue 3G service and husband is concerned that they have done so here. No one seems to have heard of this. I am presuming that since the phone says “3G” it is receiving same.
Just for fun along with all of this, my eye started hurting the night before last and still hurt when I woke. We figured out it must be a sty, so I am putting hot compresses on my eye several times a day - at least that seems to be working.
Then last night when I was washing up after dinner, my attention wandered and I cut a finger on a the lid of a soup can. Not a large cut, but it would not stop bleeding for awhile as I did the dishes. (It hurts, but is fine now.)
So this has not been a productive week. Our unit did have a reenactment event last weekend, at least that went well. The weather was pleasant. We did not have huge crowds, but steady ones and people who were interested and stayed around awhile. I got a bit embroidery done and was able to talk to people (mostly women) about same. So at least we had a chance to actually relax a bit.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
No matter how upsetting things are (and I know in the greater scheme of the world these electronic problems and injuries are so minor) one has to try to go with the flow. One can only do what one can do. Magic rarely happens.
In the United States this coming Monday is Memorial Day. For those of you who are elsewhere - this is a holiday to remember those who have died in military service to our country. It started after our Civil War (1860s) as Decoration Day, when ladies would go to the graves of those who died in the War and decorate them with flowers. If you are here - I wish you a pleasant Memorial Day.
For anyone who might have had family or friends injured or worse in the incident in Manchester, UK, my greatest sympathies.
I have a traditional Blackberry phone (not Android). It is 3G. I use it for texts, telephone calls, and checking things on the Internet. Yes, it is not the newest or coolest thing, but husband was able to make it sync with my computer Organizer software so I like it and have been happy with it. Last Thursday (a week ago) I went to look up something online and got a message that it could not connect and that if this continued I should contact my service provider. Okay, I never saw this before - but, again, it is not the latest fastest thing. I was in our house and turned on the wifi in the phone and accessed the Internet that way. No problem. Must be a glitch.
This problem continued over the weekend. Now, I don’t watch movies on the phone or use large amounts of data. I mostly use it for things such as “what else was the actress in the movie we just saw in?” Or “what does “X” mean” when we see or hear something we don’t know about.
So yesterday (Tuesday) I contacted my service provider online and had an hour and a half chat with an employee. We reset things that I did not even know my phone had. We reactivated the phone. We reset the phone. No change. Finally she told me that we had to reload the “service books”. I had no idea what the heck these were, but if we needed to reload, let’s do it. She comes back. They do not have the service books for my phone. I have to contact Blackberry. She assures me that Blackberry will have the service books. I thank her for her time and help.
I then go to Blackberry’s website (or I am guessing, one of them). I find tech support. I put in the required info from my phone - it is rejected as invalid. I try again - same result. I then try entering a hex version of the number which is on the phone - same result. I find a contact form for tech support and wrote and explained the problem.
Meanwhile on Monday husband had his email program updated - he did not update it - it did it itself. He then had major problems with his email program and accessing his calendar on the Internet which was coming in through his mail program. I don’t know all the details - there was something about the program was not recognizing his correct passwords and that he could not find some of them in his records of all his passwords - as I was barely listening to him as I was playing with my phone, hoping that it would magically start working again.
He needed to get rid of the update program and go back to an older version, but he was sure he would not be able to find one. I pointed out that I had an older version on my computer and we had reinstalled it last fall when we installed a new hard drive on mine. He installed it in his computer. Now the program and computer are downloading thousands of old emails into his computer. He has trouble with settings for the accounts - I use my computer to find how my email accounts are set.
He started looking for a new calendar program. There is one commercially available (at a reasonable price) that will not only solve his problems, but claims to also work with my old Organizer - if so, I can move on to a newer cell phone (which I don’t want to do, but it would make him happy, and there is this problem with mine right now). He downloaded a trial version of the calendar program. He has been having trouble with same and is not sure it does what is needed for either of us. Their tech support has been very accommodating in helping him to try to resolve the problems.
Today I had an email from Blackberry (at least it was quick and polite). The site I contacted was not correct and I needed to telephone “this number”. I send back a thank you.
I telephone Blackberry. I get through to tech support and it wants the same number - I know it will not work, but enter it anyway. It is rejected. I get a choice to try it again or speak to someone. I pick the latter. I explain my problem and situation. She needs the same number - I give it to her - it doesn’t work. She asks for another type of number and that works. She then asks me - twice - each of the points which I told her when our conversation started. She suggests I contact - yes - my service provider. I repeat (for the 4th time) that the provider referred me to them. She goes away and comes back.
I am not entitled to support. She does not say why, although I do have the phone for a number of years and I assume it because it is off warranty for a long time. I have, therefore, three choices. First, I can pay them “35 United States dollars”. Second, I can go to “this website” (a support website). Third (ready for this), I can contact my service provider. I elect the second choice.
I also make an unrelated telephone call to the NYC Police Department for a question that has come up with a client’s business and I have to leave a voice mail.
We go out to lunch and to run errands for a couple of hours.
I start checking email and seeing if have to pay bills, etc. Ok, I was avoiding trying to fix my phone. Husband comes up and starts his computer. He asks for the website. It is a list of problems and solutions (lot of help - right). We actually find the problem listed. We just cannot really figure out how to do what it says to do. Husband is worried that if we do it wrong I will lose the telephone and text functions and the phone will no longer be able to go on the Internet using wifi. We both poke around at stuff to try to figure out what to do.
One thing that husband is concerned about is that the company whose system my phone uses (my service provider does not have a system - depending on the phone one has, one uses one or another of the major cell phone systems) has announced that they are going to discontinue 3G service and husband is concerned that they have done so here. No one seems to have heard of this. I am presuming that since the phone says “3G” it is receiving same.
Just for fun along with all of this, my eye started hurting the night before last and still hurt when I woke. We figured out it must be a sty, so I am putting hot compresses on my eye several times a day - at least that seems to be working.
Then last night when I was washing up after dinner, my attention wandered and I cut a finger on a the lid of a soup can. Not a large cut, but it would not stop bleeding for awhile as I did the dishes. (It hurts, but is fine now.)
So this has not been a productive week. Our unit did have a reenactment event last weekend, at least that went well. The weather was pleasant. We did not have huge crowds, but steady ones and people who were interested and stayed around awhile. I got a bit embroidery done and was able to talk to people (mostly women) about same. So at least we had a chance to actually relax a bit.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
No matter how upsetting things are (and I know in the greater scheme of the world these electronic problems and injuries are so minor) one has to try to go with the flow. One can only do what one can do. Magic rarely happens.
In the United States this coming Monday is Memorial Day. For those of you who are elsewhere - this is a holiday to remember those who have died in military service to our country. It started after our Civil War (1860s) as Decoration Day, when ladies would go to the graves of those who died in the War and decorate them with flowers. If you are here - I wish you a pleasant Memorial Day.
For anyone who might have had family or friends injured or worse in the incident in Manchester, UK, my greatest sympathies.
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