ONE NEEDS TO HAVE PLANS WHEN ONE IS STUCK HOME DUE TO AN INJURY OR ILLNESS

 My foot is much healed  - though not completely yet – since last week.  

It has been hard staying off my foot as much as possible.  This means, of course, sitting in one place or another and greatly limiting switching to other places – though we did have to go out for a bit of food shopping.  Staying off my foot seems to be working as it seems be about half better already.  

Husband has been trying to help as much as possible – he even washed the dishes for a couple of days.  He has always been upset that I did not replace our dishwasher when it died – as much as he did not want me having to wash the dishes by hand, he did not want to have to do so himself when I could not.  Even long before Covid I would put on a mask (he has them for his woodworking) or tying a towel around my face and putting on disposable plastic gloves when ill so he would not have to do the dishes.    He also cooked – but he has always been the cook of the two of us.   

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

One needs to be prepared for when cannot do the normal housework – or other jobs which one normally does.  What sort of plans do YOU have for when you cannot deal with house, cooking, or work for a period of time.  

Do you have someone else to take over or help you – spouse, child, parent, housemate or really good friend?  Do you have disposable goods – paper plates, cups, napkins to use when you cannot deal with washing up after meals?  The telephone number of a place which delivers for an affordable price?

Whether an injury or an illness which keeps one home one needs to be prepared to be able to eat and deal with one's house should something happen.

REARRANGING THINGS FOR BETTER USAGE OF SPACE AND BETTER ACCESS TO THINGS

 My apologies for my absence. I thought I missed a week – but I have never missed 2 weeks before. - EVEN WORSE - I NEVER FINISHED POSTING THIS ON MAY 6.

I have been doing some rearranging in our kitchen. As I have mentioned before about the organizing rule of “putting like with like” leaves open the question of what are like items. For example in the field of clothing is it all socks together and all underwear together? My husband pointed out to me about a couple of decades ago that this did not make sense. If I wear some types of underwear daily and some types of socks daily - I am opening two drawers every day. If instead of socks together and underwear together (which I had done since I was in my early teens) which meant I had to open 2 drawers every day. If, on the other hand, I consider types of items I wear just about daily- whether socks or underwear in the same drawer - and put the same of these items which I wear once in a long while in the other drawer I only have to open one drawer almost all of the days. Hmmm, I had never thought of like with like as wear daily together and wear rarely together elsewhere. It does work well.

In the kitchen I had changed several years ago from all of a type of items being together to putting what I use daily or almost so together and rarer used items together. Our everyday dishes – a set for 8 – was on two shelves in one of our 4 kitchen upper cabinets on the bottom and middle shelves (of 3 shelves). But there are only two of us. Every time I needed to use something from the middle shelf I had to get a step to reach the item. I now keep 3 dinner plates, our 2 lunch plates, some unrelated dinner plates that I use when cooking, 4 of our soup bowls (as sometimes they are also used for small serving bowls) and 4 of our small plates (for dessert, side plates, etc), as well as two of the same type of the unrelated plates smaller for use as utility plates plus since I have wire shelf to split this shelf in two I also have 2 small serving bowls. On the bottom shelf of the matching cabinet on the other end of the kitchen I have two each of the glasses we use (I like tall thin ones, he likes short wide ones), 2 mugs for hot beverages, some small glasses used for utility, measuring cups (wet and dry), two ice cream cups and some other similar items. I now can reach what I need to set the table for us without having to climb on a step.

But what about our other two upper cabinets? Well one of them is located over our stove – so very rarely used items are in it as I have to climb, not on my step, but on a chair to reach anything. So the good china and rarely used serving pieces/baking dishes are in it.

The fourth cabinet is next to eh 3^rd, but hanging at the same height as the first two – meaning I can reach the bottom shelf. This is the one in which I recently did some rearranging. On the bottom shelf I have some platters, 2 hot plates to put hot dishes or pots on at the table, and 3 serving bowls of the same size and shape with different designs – about minimum in size of the bowls we own. On the shelf above are other items used fairly regularly – the difference being that I can reach and take out the gravy server with the small pitcher kept in it (pitcher intended as for milk or cream when serving coffee, tea, etc, but more often used by me as an alternative gravy server which is why they are stacked together) and more bowls. In this case from my large bowls used for mixing and cooking, a wooden bowl bought to use for reenacting but replaced by a better one for same, and a medium sized serving bowl.

This setup worked well for us in the past as we did a minimum of cooking for the two of us as we ate dinner out 3 nights a week and lunch out daily. But since the pandemic life and cooking has changed.

Last week I thought to myself that I use that medium bowl on the second shelf of the cabinet at least once a week now – and each time I use it I have to climb on the step to get it down and then do the same to put it away. But it is rare that I use even 2 of the 3 serving bowls on the bottom shelf (they are bigger than my small and medium bowls but smaller than my large bowls. Mostly when I use one of them for the two of us I have made biscuits or rolls and need something to put them on table. Hmmm.

So I took one of the three bowls on the bottom shelf and climbed up and took the medium bowl from the second shelf out and rearranged the bowls on the second shelf to include the one from the bottom shelf and put the medium one on the bottom shelf – no more climbing to get it down.

In addition I have been using some pots which are kept in the lower cabinet, under where the bowls are stored, that I do not normally use with any frequency. It has been hard getting the wok in and out as it is in the back left side of the cabinet. In the front right side of the cabinet I have a 8 quart pot (just went and checked as I did not know how large it is) which normally sits unused in the cabinet except for cooking soup from scratch for holidays but I have also been using to make ravioli for dinner every couple of weeks during the pandemic. Behind it sits several items – some for baking, some for cooking – including a large round flat griddle with slightly raised sizes. These pots have sat in this cabinet for decades with no problems. But for some reason now that I am using the 8 qt pot it does not go back into the cabinet easily as the griddle is suddenly in its way.

I had taken the griddle out during the week – since it is rarely used I was going to move it to the basement storage closet (well, technically area where the gas meter is located in the finished part of the basement with walls and door to hide it). But then I started thinking again. I took it and put it in the back under where the wok goes and moves some smaller items where the wok goes to the other side where the griddle had been. It worked. The 8qt pot fits back into place in the front right of the cabinet (with smaller pots stored in it as before) and has no problem coming out and going back in. The left side of the cabinet has the wok in the back on the griddle and since it raised up slightly off the floor of the cabinet and some items which were there have been moved to the rear right, it can be more easily taken out and put back. I did have move one large pot lid to the small half shelf at the back of the cabinet over all of this – but it all works so much better now.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

What area of your home just does not work even thought it meets the “like with like” rule? What other way can the items be sorted to still be “like with like” just using a different standard of “like”? How or when or how often things are used is just as valid of making them “like” items as the items actually being the same kind of item.

MY HUSBAND SAID IT WILL ONLY TAKE AN HOUR - PART 2

Back this week to the lack of organization in winterizing our RV.  The start of this story was two weeks ago - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2018/11/my-husband-said-it-will-only-take-hour.html

We are able to skip part of the process which involves emptying out the hot water tank as we don’t use it and keep it off line.  Good thing as this involves opening the tank from the outside with a huge wrench and he has trouble doing so - often it takes both of us - so I never would be able to do it alone and he could not do it with his shoulder and arm as it is.

The rest of the process involves letting water out of the hot and cold taps in the sink, shower, outside shower and the toilet bowl.   Due to not wanting to put water we don’t have to into the outgoing water tanks since they could not be drained, we used a box that we have which fits the sink to let the water out of the pipes -  we use it for outgoing water if we travel after we winterized for the year and therefore could not use running water.  We open all the taps one at time and let the water out.  We did have to let the water in the toilet go down the tank.  (Toilet looks similar to home toilets, but when flushed a trap door opens into the tank.)  Then I have to use a wrench to open a cap on the pipe which comes from the water pump - under the bed in a cabinet - which means that I have to take the table top off the top of the cabinet and then the protective foam under it out - we shove them between the front seats, where the pillows, blankets, and mattress covers were moved when I unmade the bed. 

There is a water pump in this area which normally would pump water from the clean water tanks to be used in any of the taps mentioned or the toilet.  The first year we had the RV we had the dealer do the winterizing and show us how to do it.  We also had it install a two way switch over for the pump to either draw water from the clean tanks or we could hook a hose to the other side of the switch over and have it draw the antifreeze from through the hose from the a bottle of antifreeze.  I had to use an adjustable wrench to open the cap on the switch over.  Husband handed me a 7 inch long wrench.  The space in the cabinet seems to be between 7 and 7 and half inches tall - I could not get the wrench on, adjust it to size, and turn it to take off the cap.  After much yelling between us - “I know how to use a wrench!” - we switched places and he took the cap off.  I then attached the hose to the switch over and shoved the other end into the first bottle of anti-freeze. 

Husband went around and opened each of the taps and ran the tap until it ran pink, the color of the anti-freeze. He did this with each tap in each of the 3 pairs of taps.  I had to switch the bottle of anti-freeze twice while we were doing this.  He then poured a bottle of the anti-freeze into the toilet bowl and let it into the tank under it - remember, he already put one bottle - a gallon - before.  Normally we don’t put this much in the toilet tank, but we were worried about the water already in it freezing.  He then stepped on the flush pedal and ran more of the antifreeze through the water pump until the water coming out of the pipe into the toilet bowl was also running pink.
We then disconnected the hose we were using and I put the cap back on the two way switch and switched it back to draw water from the clean water tanks.

Lastly we had to pour antifreeze down the sink drain and the shower drain in the floor.  I poured out 2 separate cups of antifreeze first and poured the rest of a new bottle of anti-freeze partially in the floor shower drain and most of it down the sink drain (the two drains go to the same grey water tank).  I then had to S L O W L Y pour one of the cups we set aside down the toilet drain and then the other down the sink drain.  These are poured slowly so that it will stay in the traps (you know, the bend in the pipe that you see under the sink).  Last thing I did was put pieces of pipe foam - you know - the tubes of plastic foam that is slit up one side and one puts on pipes in their house to keep the pipes and valves from freezing - over the valves related to the hot water tank.  This tank and its pipes are just above the (uninsulated) floor and the valves in the pipes have frozen in the past until we started pieces these pieces of foam over them for the winter.

I then had to pack up everything we had used and put the bed  - with the table top under it - back to where it belongs.  Husband went into the house as he did not feel well - both because his shoulder and arm were hurting and he had bent down and was dizzy and nauseous as gets from same.  I had to unplug the RV from where we plugged into our house electricity in our porch so that we could run the water pump without using up the battery’s charge.  I put everything back in place inside the RV and then put stuff back in the porch that is kept there and put the wrench back in the garage workshop.  I then took a last walk around the RV to make sure everything was put away - good thing - the driver’s side window looked funny - it was still open!  I closed and walked around again. 

We will have to call the RV dealer over the winter and make an appointment for next spring to have them take apart and find out what is wrong with the macerator and/or its pump.  Hopefully we put enough anti-freeze in enough places to keep the rest of the system from freezing - and costing us even more money. 

I will admit that after deducting the time we spent trying to get the water out of the black and grey tanks - trying to get the macerator and its pump to work, the rest of the process really did only take a little more than an hour.

After my complaints about using a wrench which was too long for the space - which apparently we don’t have one the correct length as previously he had not been able to find a short adjustable wrench which opened large enough - he is buying me a rather expensive (for us) 6 inch wrench as a Christmas gift.  I guess this may be one year that I cannot say that I did not want anything and did not get a gift.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Procrastination can lead to panic.  Try to get things done when they should be done. 

It does turn out that we were lucky not to have gone on a trip after our last one.  As it is we have two tanks that need to be empty with a bit of water and a much larger bit of anti-freeze.  If we had gone on a trip after our last trip, when we went to dump the tanks at the end of the trip we would not have been able to do so.  When we took the RV to the dealer we would have had to have them empty the tanks to work - and that would cost even more.