Well we now both have working computers - yay!
The fridge seems to be working - bigger yay! Husband found out that the drawers at the bottom of fridge keep a more even temperature than the rest of the fridge. After testing the temperature in same, we decided that the best place for his insulin in one of the drawers as the temperature in same seems to always be 36F or higher so that problem is resolved too.
Missed working with my sisters and their husbands at mom’s house again last weekend. We had terribly hot weather here and I was “under” it. My sister told me that they have gone through all but 3 rooms and 6 closets - not sure if that includes the room I have to go through as I left a lot of “stuff” in my old room. I found out that the other day that “we” will having a tag sale. Hmmm, I guess if I found stuff to donate it might be worth leaving it for the tag sale and maybe I will add some of the stuff we need to get rid of in our house and the money from same when (if?) it sells can go towards mom’s living expenses while not costing us anything that we don’t have to give her.
I has been HOT here - over 100F one day and almost the same the day before. Monday night there were major rain storms around the area - over several states. Husband was again demonstrating to me how wonderful having Roku is and that we can see every episode of “Midsummer Murders” from the start (we- mostly I - have only seen about 3 seasons as that is when I found the show) and we don’t have to watch it 3-5 am when it is on PBS we can see it any time. Last week when he ran the second episode (had run the first one previously) it kept going out of sync and needing to be restarted. Monday the hottest of the days and at night was the huge thunderstorm. We were watching episode 3 when it froze. He kept trying to get it going. Then something dawned on me - I turned on my cell phone and turned on the house wifi - nothing. I switched the TV to the cable - nothing. We had lost our Internet service - no cable, no computer Internet. (We still have copper wire telephone service from old telephone company so same still worked.) Husband was having a fit over no TV and no Internet. I knew that at least we had electricity. The TV came back gradually over several hours. At first the broadcast channels were back. Then the non-premium channels. The cable company’s local news channel was not there - but husband found it on their local weather channel - how the heck can one channel from their studio work and not the other? And shouldn’t their news channel at some point have mentioned - hey, we are on this other channel do an outage of our service - sorry - here is what is going on and which problems are where? They did not even do so after the service was restored. When the first channels were back, I went on my cell phone to see what had happened - just lots of people complaining that they had called to report the outage and find out what they could and got the message I did - “We are experiencing a large call volume. Please contact us through our website.” No website working of course!!
Today we went on a little trip. (Oh, no, another of her nightmare trips.) Our RV has two batteries (the type that are used in golf carts) which charge from the RV being driven, running the RV generator and/or plugging in the RV to electricity at home or at campground. As I am pretty sure I mentioned our two had reached beyond the end of their lives. We found a company in New Jersey that could order the batteries that husband had been told were the best to get for our RV and could install them. We ordered the batteries last week - paying for the batteries themselves at that time by charge card over the phone. They came in and we made an appointment to go to have them put in - for this past Monday - the day of the storm. On last Friday husband looked at the weather and saw the huge storms expected and told me to call and change the appointment to today (Wednesday). Blew out my week - I had planned to go to my client this week either Tuesday or Thursday and could not wake up that early two days in a row. I did so. Good thing we did. The area where the company is located was hit hard by the storm. Parts of the area were still out today and the company was running on two generators.
We (I) cleared out stuff where they might need to work - both halves of the bed were stacked on the base for husband’s side of the bed on each other. (His side is longer than my side and they might have needed to access the cabinet under my bed.) We figured out what we needed to bring. Not having been to this place before and having looked at online maps and there was no place for lunch near by, we bought sliced deli turkey and made sandwiches last night and bagged them in a cold bag made for lunch with two cans of diet soda and plastic ice. I emptied out my travel backpack. (I use it when we go somewhere where we will not have easy access back to the RV or car if we use same instead during the day. I put in what we might need based on where we go and what we do.) I put the cold bag with our lunch in it. I also added a package of saltine crackers as they work well for husband if he has a blood sugar low. In our other cold bag I put some bottles of a sugar drink he uses if his blood sugar goes too low and I put that bag in the RV fridge - which we did not put on. We had no idea if there was a place for us to wait while the work was done inside the building or if we would be sitting outside (in lesser, but still heat) on a curb waiting for it. We were also not sure how long it would take for the work to be done as we knew that there was no way we would be there by 8:30 am as we just cannot get up early enough to get ready and drive at least 2 hours and be there by then.
We got out this morning just ahead of our planned leaving time (okay - it was the same 8:30 am that it had been suggested we be there) and when husband went to back the RV out into the busy main street we live on it was actually empty on our side of the street long enough to pull out without waiting. (I stand in the street with a walkie talkie and tell him when he can pull out - he pulls up next to the curb and I jump in and we go.) As mentioned in past posts, what used to be a 45 minute drive to the bridge off the huge island we live on, can take 2 hours now. We have found that leaving the house at 8:30 am seems to be the best time for us to leave - we are driving at the rear end of rush hour and by the time we reach the construction areas - they are just short of starting work.
Drive was going pretty well and then the news announced that there had been a car fire on the bridge we had to take off the Island and traffic was bad. OH (expletive deleted)!! We figured we were in a mess for sure. Husband asked me about alternatives. I started thinking. We are on the south end of the Island and therefore also the south end of Manhattan Island. To get to “the main land” - mostly New Jersey we can take a bridge to Staten Island and then another bridge from there to New Jersey. We can drive through one of several bridges or two tunnels into Manhattan and then go across same and go out through one of two tunnels to New Jersey - this would involve driving the large van that is our RV in crowded Manhattan streets and we cannot take a tunnel due to having propane in a tank in the RV. So, we could get into Manhattan from where we were, but we would have to drive most of the length (south to north) of it to get to the George Washington Bridge. We could go north on our Island on one road that we can go on (we are too tall for many limited access roads here) just at the start of the next (Queens) county/NYC line drive north to the Bronx - over a bridge - and then across the Bronx on a road that I have never seen or heard of not being stopped by traffic - and then into Manhattan (on a bridge) and then over the same George Washington Bridge to New Jersey. An additional problem was the road we needed to use in New Jersey was only open to vehicles like ours for part of the way - no problem if we go by State Island, but if we go by the George Washington Bridge we have to figure an alternate way to drive south until we are near where we would get on the road if we went through Staten Island. We decided to keep on the way we normally go as it was so much simpler and it would probably take more time to go north and then come back south again than deal with the delay. The car that had been on fire was in the opposite direction from the one we were going. And the GPS traffic was not showing any drastic problems.
We figured that we would monitor the reports on the radio news channel we listen to as we went along and that, along with the traffic we hit would make our decision. But - today was the day that Robert Mueller was testifying at Congress and the radio station decided to run same instead of news and weather. The road was not as bad as usual. The bridge barely had a slow down. At 9:30 am I called the company and told them that we were on way and would be there in about an hour.
When we got there we were very pleasantly surprised. The building was large. The employees very friendly and nice. Robert had some info that the guys putting in the batteries needed to know and he gave it to the nice woman who wrote up the work order. I took my back pack - with lunch and some paperwork (about the ordering of the batteries) I had in case we needed it out of the RV. She wrote up the work order and then showed us what she called their “living room”. There were sofas, a huge TV showing - of course - Robert Mueller testifying. There was a man already there waiting for them to work on his car. I sat down - backpack on an end table - and husband walked around their small shop area of stuff for RV s. The man was very nice and we talked thorough out the time we were waiting. (Found out that there was a TV remote and he had chosen the show - fine with us.) I played solitaire on my cell phone. I had also brought my old Palm Centro as it had different games I like to play in case I got bored with the solitaire I play. The poor fellow was going to be there most of the day and have a huge bill when he was done. (Not that our bill between the parts paid for and the work to be done was small.) At one point the employee came out and asked him if he wanted to see local food place menus to order lunch as he would be there so long. (Very nice of her to think of this.) He offered it to us also, but I pointed at the backpack and we explained that we had brought lunch when we saw there was nothing near by. Of course I needed a trip to the ladies room. Very nice compared to most and especially to what I thought it might be based on other RV places.
Our work was done by 1:30 pm and we paid for it and were off - with our lunch still uneaten. We found out that the place still had not had their electricity restored and were running on 2 generators. We had not even noticed a problem with same. We were glad that they had been able to do the work under these conditions.
We have been in the general area before and had planned to hang around, have dinner in the area and then drive home - both because there is a chain buffet restaurant husband likes near there and to avoid being stuck in rush hour - which we would hit by the time we got back to Long Island. We decided to go to a shopping mall and walk around - and we figured to eat lunch in their food court area. As we were driving there we noticed soooo many stores that were dark and no cars in their parking lots as well as utility crews working. I suggested to husband that since we would pass it, we should check that the buffet was open after the storm instead of spending time and then finding ourselves with a dinner problem. Few cars outside it, but the lights were on and we saw people at tables.
Went to the mall and had lunch and walked around for over an hour. Then we went to Barnes and Nobles and walked around. Then we drove to a Walmart we knew about - closer to the restaurant then the other two - and went there for a while. Then dinner and home. Coming home the upper level of the bridge was closed - we presume based on what we saw that they were still clearing the bridge from the accident or making repairs due to same. It was the most traffic we had the entire trip.
Although much of the day was wasted time as we did not want to come home and got stuck in traffic (and he REALLY likes that buffet) I don’t feel like we had a wasted day. We had a lot of down time and actually I feel as if I had a chance for an enforced rest period today. (He, on the other hand, was in a constant state of concern.) Now that the batteries are replaced and new - he is worrying that the alternator is going bad or the “separator” is going bad. (The same alternator charges both the car battery under the hood that most if not all cars have and the RV batteries. The separator - surprise - keeps the RV and car batteries separated when same is going on - one is charged than when it is finished, the other is.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes things work out better than one thinks they will - but always make sure to plan for the problems that may arise. Sometimes a chore that wastes a lot of time can bring some needed rest to you.
Showing posts with label deli. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deli. Show all posts
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Thursday, December 20, 2018
CHRISTMAS ALREADY?
As I write this post it is just less than a week to Christmas. This has been a mixed up year and I am soooo behind. I am hoping that we will have the big tree in the living room for our presents. Okay, I know we will have the tree as in between writing this post I am bringing up the pieces of the tree from the basement and putting them in place - but will it be decorated and how much will it be decorated? I have already put down the stand, added the pole and the tree top to it. I am now going to put in the first of the wedge shaped sections.
Why I am so late this year? Well, as mentioned last week, lately I seem to need to do almost everything twice. In addition to what I mentioned last week - on Thursday a gift we had ordered for husband’s niece - a Barbie doll that is a mermaid and lights up in the bathtub as Walmart, our go to source for purchasing just about anything, does not carry it in store stock, so we had to order it for her. The doll shown on Walmart’s site was the traditional Caucasian, blonde, blue eyed Barbie. Unlike other Barbie dolls on the page there was no choice of “color’. When the doll arrived it was African-American in features - not the doll we had ordered. The doll had taken 2 weeks to come - and even if we could reorder her, we had no way of knowing if we would receive the Barbie pictured on the page on the website. Niece actually asked for this doll and her mom had not tried to buy it for her as we were doing so. No one wants to disappoint a 9 year old. (Okay, even though according to her mom she asked for this, I know fully well that there is a good chance when she gets this doll, it will be glanced at and tossed over her shoulder lost in the excessive gifts from her mom and (dad’s mom) grandmother. So we both went online and I managed to find out that Target claimed to have the doll in stock at several local stores. I printed out the information from the two stores we were most likely to get to. We paid $13 from Walmart - the doll was listed as available by order, pick up at the store or buy at the store for $15, so not much more. We went to one of the Targets. To my surprise we did not have to find an employee and plead that the doll which we expected not to be on the floor - or it would be same as the one received if it was on the floor - is suppose to be in the store and please, please find us one - the doll was out on display in abundance. We selected one. We then looked at the shelf and the price was $21 - not only more than the price online for Target, but also $1 over the list price from Mattel. Husband started to panic. I took the doll and my printout and went to the service desk. I explained - employee told me that just because the price was shown on the website (even if it said buy in store) does not mean that the store price is the same as the online price - and even different stores will have different prices for the same item (please remember that when you shop at Target in the future, as well as the shelf price was over the list price), but she would match it (so I didn’t bother to point out to her that their shelf price was more than list.) Almost finished - we then had to go stand in line at Walmart and return the doll received from them. Another day gone. (Putting in the second section of the tree. - right back.)
We have not driven our RV since August as we have not been able to go on a trip. It was having trouble starting when we did maintenance things to it (such as running the generator every month) and husband has been pushing for trip so we were going to drive to Lancaster, PA for a farmer’s market, some other shopping, and dinner for the day on Tuesday. Then we were just too exhausted. So we drove it just to drive it (we could wake up much later and not need to pack any “going out of state stuff”). We drove it for about an hour headed east on the Island we live on. We then drove it around out there (it is the both the fancy tourist end of the Island, as well as the agricultural end of same) for a while. We finally ended up at larger Walmart out there - both so husband could look for some things he has not been able to find and to make a rest stop. (We had lunch at the start of the trip.) We then drove home. It was the start of rush hour - which mostly is in the opposite direction as we are going, but there are a lot of people who commute in the opposite direction - and an accident on the main highway we were on. We are limited in the highways which we can on which we can drive the RV as it is over height for many of them. Husband was thinking of getting off the highway where we were and we knew the roads. I quickly calculated and decided that the back up was after where we would get off - by one exit. I was right. We stopped and refilled the gas tank in the RV and now it can rest for awhile. Another day gone.
I have to go to a client for the month - I was hoping to have gone today, but she had a doctor’s appointment, so it will be tomorrow - the expected busiest traffic day of the season, of course. Either day - it is another day gone. (Just put in the 3rd section of the tree.)
In addition to all of this and my exam (which I finished with a grade of 85 last night, thank goodness), we will be short of time from now to Christmas as our reenactment unit will be doing the candlelight event at the local restoration village. It sounds like a short time - event starts at 5 pm and ends at 9:30. But we have to start dressing before 3 pm to leave at 3:30 to get there by 4 pm (and driving with rush hour traffic on Friday, the first day of the event) to start setting up. Then after the event ends we will need to close up, so we will not be out until 10 pm, drive home by 10:30, start dinner going and change to modern clothes and start eating dinner by 11 pm. We have done this event for at least a decade now and we know how to plan ahead. Today we mailed out payment on all bills due before December 27 - no need to go to the post office or bank (we took extra cash and transferred money to cover bills today). In buying food for Christmas Eve dinner today, I did forget to buy for dinner the 3 nights of the event - hot dogs for him and chicken patties for me - come home, put up canned soup and dinner, change clothes and start eating by 11:30 pm. Husband said he would go tomorrow while I was at work to buy same - and some deli turkey breast for Friday night. We treated ourselves to dinner out tonight as we normally would go out on the weekend for dinner and will pick up takeout tomorrow night.
In and between all of this I have put up the decorations in the dining room and most of them in the living (I have not have the energy to move furniture to put up a double length swag of artificial roping across the back living room windows with an embroidery piece of mine in a hoop in the center of the swag (where it goes back up to the top of the window). So everything on the table below it is in disarray.
Our Christmas tree and lights, skirt, and some of the ornaments are stored in the box that the tree came in - under the staircase in the basement. Two of our other trees, Christmas decorative figures and some other related items are stored on top of the box. Of course to get to the box everything in front of it has to be moved. After we came home from dinner I began sorting this all out. I moved what is kept in front of the box and the items stored on top of it. I then pulled out the stand and the pole - need them first of course - and a junk bath size towel (you know - the ones that are not good enough to use, but too good to toss, and great for things like soaking water from a small flood or such). I put the towel down on the wooden floor first - it keeps the floor from getting scratched if we need to move the tree from where it starts as well as making it easier to do so by dragging the towel, while holding the tree upright. Oh - it is not this easy - I spent part of last night moving husband’s table that he uses for various weaving related purposes into the studio (what should have been our family room) and wedging it (it is a gate-leg, so it folds down narrow) between my studio worktable and chair. I then carried in 7 boxes of yarns and finished woven pieces. (And arranged them in the right order for access to what husband might need while it is all shoved back there.) I put the top of the tree in place. The instructions said to do this last and we did so for years (closer to decades). We are both short and doing so involves reaching across the spread of the bottom tree sections - not something either of us can do without a ladder, which is a rather shaky way to do so. 2 years ago it occurred to me to try putting the top in place and seeing if I could still put the bottom pieces (8 wedge shaped pieces) in place - I could and I now I assemble the tree this way. I am now in the midst (between lines/ sections of this post) of bringing up a section of the tree and a zip bag or two with a strand of lights in each. I discovered that the way to deal with the down and up the stairs for each section is to stretch it out a bit as the sections are heavy and the stairs long. (Going down for another section right now - my fourth of the eight.) Back again. We found that we have to put the sections on so that two which sit opposite each other go on one after another - then the 2 that form the two cross pieces to same, then fill in opposite ones in the holes in between them. If the sections next to each other are put on together - the tree gets too heavy and starts to fall over (yes, we found out the hard way - been there, done that) so the spacing of putting them in is important. I should have the entire tree up before we go to bed. Not sure if I will get the lights on tonight - or tomorrow night. Spacing where it is located seems good. It is a small area, but I can walk around the tree, except for the side facing the window and will deal with that from the sides. We originally would set up the tree in the back, right corner of the room, but the front center works better - and only one piece of furniture needs to moved (and this crazy year past, it was never put back).
A few years ago I came up with an idea for turning on and off the tree. We have several electric cords which allow something to be plugged in at one end (which is also what plugs into the electricity) and at the other end there is an on-off switch. I use this and run the cord up through the tree and it just sticks on the side of the tree that is not as easily seen (away from the room entrance and near a wall) and we just stick our hands into the tree there and turn the lights on or off. This year I put a 3 outlet plug into the cord before the tree and we can also plug in our light up bear (he wears our Santa hat) so both will go on at the same time - we always forget to light him. (Off for section 5 - it will face the window behind the tree.)
I have four large plastic boxes with ornaments in the basement also - behind the 2 empty decoration boxes and the 2 full Teddy bear village Christmas village. They will come up when I am ready to use them. The ornament boxes are labeled one to four. The ornaments in box 1 are basically the ones I want to put on the tree first and the ones in box 4 basically the ones I want to put on last. There are also other ornaments which are kept in the tree box and some in other places. Some of the ornaments will end up on the studio tree - it is decorated with only ornaments we have made - although there are plenty of those also on the main tree. There will also be a tree in the dining room. It gets the ornaments we receive as donors to Colonial Williamsburg - but some duplicate ones will go on the main tree also. There is also a small beaded tree which I made - it is stored decorated, but some always fall off in transit and need to be replaced.
I had cleared out the dining room of extraneous stuff before decorating it. Unfortunately RV stuff that ends up in the dining room in RV use season which I took out and left in the RV for the winter, had to be brought back in when we went on the trip - good thing. The back of the RV (remember this is a Chevy van conversion not a huge RV) has two seating benches opposite each other on the sides and they convert to the bed by filling in the area between the seats with wooden boards and sliding the seat cushions and seat backs into the space. It is set up as the 2 seats for the off season with the bedding in knotted closed huge plastic bags on one of the seats and the seat backs on the other seat. We have driven before with them like this with no problem. During the trip we heard NOISES from the back, Normally we hear noises from the back and we just figured it was because things that are normally packed full when we travel so that items don’t shift around were much emptier. When we stopped at the Walmart out there - everything was lying in the area between the benches - luckily nothing broken - don’t know why. If I had not taken the items back into the house as I did - they would have been broken. So again, I have to repeat doing something and I have to take the items back from the dining room - again - and store them in the (stationary now for some time to come) RV.
At some point - even if it is on or after Christmas - I will set up the other 2 trees down here that have to be decorated. I will, hopefully finish the living room (or just put out my embroidery place and forget about the roping for this year). I will also change the teddy village from fall to winter - this is something that I normally do on Christmas Eve or afternoon or after same.
Do I over decorate? Yes. But we don’t really buy each other gifts (or otherwise get them) and Christmas day dinner with his sister and her family is not fun. Mass, the focus of the holiday is an hour. So other than participating with our reenacting unit in doing 6 nights (3 this week and 3 next week) of interpreting a 1740 house at the event mentioned, decorating is just about all of our holiday. Oh, and of course there are some Chanukah decorations mixed in for me. (Going down for piece number 6, right back.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Take time to enjoy the holidays. We often spend so much time decorating, shopping, cooking (maybe some cleaning if people are coming), etc. While I , obviously, go overboard in decorating, I also understand that time to enjoy ourselves and rest is also needed. I push to get it all done, but if it is not, I am not going to be upset with myself. The first year that we were married we did not have a tree for a variety of reasons (none financial). I decided that husband needed something. I bought 2 large sheets of brown oak tag and some paints. I painted a fireplace opening and fire on one and painted the mortar of bricks (see I bought brown oaktag so I would not have to paint bricks - just the mortar between them) for the sides and chimney area of a fireplace. I then tied them to the back of one of his mom’s old kitchen chairs (we had a few of them to use as we had not bought kitchen set yet - table was a bridge table borrowed from my mom) so it would stand. We set it up for years until it fell apart some time after we moved into this house. It was simple, but served its purpose. (Going down for tree December 20, 2018 piece number 7.)
I hope that all of you have a good holiday season - I hate to say Happy or Merry as I know that many people do not. Try to remember what is important and know that the rest will work itself it out. If not everything you plan gets done - it is not a failure, it is just how it is. Something will always go wrong - last year I misplaced a gift card purchased for husband’s niece (same one we got the Barbie mermaid for) and it did not turn up until I started changing the teddy Christmas village into the summer village (for the first time - as in the past the village has only been done for Christmas/Winter). So now we have a gift card to use at a store we don’t shop at. But we gave her cash last year and we are sure that some day we will find a use for the card - maybe a DVD before they stop carrying them? But after going crazy looking for the card last year (and positive I threw it out somehow), I put it aside and went on with the holiday. (I will go down for the last piece and close up downstairs after I post this - see it wasn’t so bad.)
Why I am so late this year? Well, as mentioned last week, lately I seem to need to do almost everything twice. In addition to what I mentioned last week - on Thursday a gift we had ordered for husband’s niece - a Barbie doll that is a mermaid and lights up in the bathtub as Walmart, our go to source for purchasing just about anything, does not carry it in store stock, so we had to order it for her. The doll shown on Walmart’s site was the traditional Caucasian, blonde, blue eyed Barbie. Unlike other Barbie dolls on the page there was no choice of “color’. When the doll arrived it was African-American in features - not the doll we had ordered. The doll had taken 2 weeks to come - and even if we could reorder her, we had no way of knowing if we would receive the Barbie pictured on the page on the website. Niece actually asked for this doll and her mom had not tried to buy it for her as we were doing so. No one wants to disappoint a 9 year old. (Okay, even though according to her mom she asked for this, I know fully well that there is a good chance when she gets this doll, it will be glanced at and tossed over her shoulder lost in the excessive gifts from her mom and (dad’s mom) grandmother. So we both went online and I managed to find out that Target claimed to have the doll in stock at several local stores. I printed out the information from the two stores we were most likely to get to. We paid $13 from Walmart - the doll was listed as available by order, pick up at the store or buy at the store for $15, so not much more. We went to one of the Targets. To my surprise we did not have to find an employee and plead that the doll which we expected not to be on the floor - or it would be same as the one received if it was on the floor - is suppose to be in the store and please, please find us one - the doll was out on display in abundance. We selected one. We then looked at the shelf and the price was $21 - not only more than the price online for Target, but also $1 over the list price from Mattel. Husband started to panic. I took the doll and my printout and went to the service desk. I explained - employee told me that just because the price was shown on the website (even if it said buy in store) does not mean that the store price is the same as the online price - and even different stores will have different prices for the same item (please remember that when you shop at Target in the future, as well as the shelf price was over the list price), but she would match it (so I didn’t bother to point out to her that their shelf price was more than list.) Almost finished - we then had to go stand in line at Walmart and return the doll received from them. Another day gone. (Putting in the second section of the tree. - right back.)
We have not driven our RV since August as we have not been able to go on a trip. It was having trouble starting when we did maintenance things to it (such as running the generator every month) and husband has been pushing for trip so we were going to drive to Lancaster, PA for a farmer’s market, some other shopping, and dinner for the day on Tuesday. Then we were just too exhausted. So we drove it just to drive it (we could wake up much later and not need to pack any “going out of state stuff”). We drove it for about an hour headed east on the Island we live on. We then drove it around out there (it is the both the fancy tourist end of the Island, as well as the agricultural end of same) for a while. We finally ended up at larger Walmart out there - both so husband could look for some things he has not been able to find and to make a rest stop. (We had lunch at the start of the trip.) We then drove home. It was the start of rush hour - which mostly is in the opposite direction as we are going, but there are a lot of people who commute in the opposite direction - and an accident on the main highway we were on. We are limited in the highways which we can on which we can drive the RV as it is over height for many of them. Husband was thinking of getting off the highway where we were and we knew the roads. I quickly calculated and decided that the back up was after where we would get off - by one exit. I was right. We stopped and refilled the gas tank in the RV and now it can rest for awhile. Another day gone.
I have to go to a client for the month - I was hoping to have gone today, but she had a doctor’s appointment, so it will be tomorrow - the expected busiest traffic day of the season, of course. Either day - it is another day gone. (Just put in the 3rd section of the tree.)
In addition to all of this and my exam (which I finished with a grade of 85 last night, thank goodness), we will be short of time from now to Christmas as our reenactment unit will be doing the candlelight event at the local restoration village. It sounds like a short time - event starts at 5 pm and ends at 9:30. But we have to start dressing before 3 pm to leave at 3:30 to get there by 4 pm (and driving with rush hour traffic on Friday, the first day of the event) to start setting up. Then after the event ends we will need to close up, so we will not be out until 10 pm, drive home by 10:30, start dinner going and change to modern clothes and start eating dinner by 11 pm. We have done this event for at least a decade now and we know how to plan ahead. Today we mailed out payment on all bills due before December 27 - no need to go to the post office or bank (we took extra cash and transferred money to cover bills today). In buying food for Christmas Eve dinner today, I did forget to buy for dinner the 3 nights of the event - hot dogs for him and chicken patties for me - come home, put up canned soup and dinner, change clothes and start eating by 11:30 pm. Husband said he would go tomorrow while I was at work to buy same - and some deli turkey breast for Friday night. We treated ourselves to dinner out tonight as we normally would go out on the weekend for dinner and will pick up takeout tomorrow night.
In and between all of this I have put up the decorations in the dining room and most of them in the living (I have not have the energy to move furniture to put up a double length swag of artificial roping across the back living room windows with an embroidery piece of mine in a hoop in the center of the swag (where it goes back up to the top of the window). So everything on the table below it is in disarray.
Our Christmas tree and lights, skirt, and some of the ornaments are stored in the box that the tree came in - under the staircase in the basement. Two of our other trees, Christmas decorative figures and some other related items are stored on top of the box. Of course to get to the box everything in front of it has to be moved. After we came home from dinner I began sorting this all out. I moved what is kept in front of the box and the items stored on top of it. I then pulled out the stand and the pole - need them first of course - and a junk bath size towel (you know - the ones that are not good enough to use, but too good to toss, and great for things like soaking water from a small flood or such). I put the towel down on the wooden floor first - it keeps the floor from getting scratched if we need to move the tree from where it starts as well as making it easier to do so by dragging the towel, while holding the tree upright. Oh - it is not this easy - I spent part of last night moving husband’s table that he uses for various weaving related purposes into the studio (what should have been our family room) and wedging it (it is a gate-leg, so it folds down narrow) between my studio worktable and chair. I then carried in 7 boxes of yarns and finished woven pieces. (And arranged them in the right order for access to what husband might need while it is all shoved back there.) I put the top of the tree in place. The instructions said to do this last and we did so for years (closer to decades). We are both short and doing so involves reaching across the spread of the bottom tree sections - not something either of us can do without a ladder, which is a rather shaky way to do so. 2 years ago it occurred to me to try putting the top in place and seeing if I could still put the bottom pieces (8 wedge shaped pieces) in place - I could and I now I assemble the tree this way. I am now in the midst (between lines/ sections of this post) of bringing up a section of the tree and a zip bag or two with a strand of lights in each. I discovered that the way to deal with the down and up the stairs for each section is to stretch it out a bit as the sections are heavy and the stairs long. (Going down for another section right now - my fourth of the eight.) Back again. We found that we have to put the sections on so that two which sit opposite each other go on one after another - then the 2 that form the two cross pieces to same, then fill in opposite ones in the holes in between them. If the sections next to each other are put on together - the tree gets too heavy and starts to fall over (yes, we found out the hard way - been there, done that) so the spacing of putting them in is important. I should have the entire tree up before we go to bed. Not sure if I will get the lights on tonight - or tomorrow night. Spacing where it is located seems good. It is a small area, but I can walk around the tree, except for the side facing the window and will deal with that from the sides. We originally would set up the tree in the back, right corner of the room, but the front center works better - and only one piece of furniture needs to moved (and this crazy year past, it was never put back).
A few years ago I came up with an idea for turning on and off the tree. We have several electric cords which allow something to be plugged in at one end (which is also what plugs into the electricity) and at the other end there is an on-off switch. I use this and run the cord up through the tree and it just sticks on the side of the tree that is not as easily seen (away from the room entrance and near a wall) and we just stick our hands into the tree there and turn the lights on or off. This year I put a 3 outlet plug into the cord before the tree and we can also plug in our light up bear (he wears our Santa hat) so both will go on at the same time - we always forget to light him. (Off for section 5 - it will face the window behind the tree.)
I have four large plastic boxes with ornaments in the basement also - behind the 2 empty decoration boxes and the 2 full Teddy bear village Christmas village. They will come up when I am ready to use them. The ornament boxes are labeled one to four. The ornaments in box 1 are basically the ones I want to put on the tree first and the ones in box 4 basically the ones I want to put on last. There are also other ornaments which are kept in the tree box and some in other places. Some of the ornaments will end up on the studio tree - it is decorated with only ornaments we have made - although there are plenty of those also on the main tree. There will also be a tree in the dining room. It gets the ornaments we receive as donors to Colonial Williamsburg - but some duplicate ones will go on the main tree also. There is also a small beaded tree which I made - it is stored decorated, but some always fall off in transit and need to be replaced.
I had cleared out the dining room of extraneous stuff before decorating it. Unfortunately RV stuff that ends up in the dining room in RV use season which I took out and left in the RV for the winter, had to be brought back in when we went on the trip - good thing. The back of the RV (remember this is a Chevy van conversion not a huge RV) has two seating benches opposite each other on the sides and they convert to the bed by filling in the area between the seats with wooden boards and sliding the seat cushions and seat backs into the space. It is set up as the 2 seats for the off season with the bedding in knotted closed huge plastic bags on one of the seats and the seat backs on the other seat. We have driven before with them like this with no problem. During the trip we heard NOISES from the back, Normally we hear noises from the back and we just figured it was because things that are normally packed full when we travel so that items don’t shift around were much emptier. When we stopped at the Walmart out there - everything was lying in the area between the benches - luckily nothing broken - don’t know why. If I had not taken the items back into the house as I did - they would have been broken. So again, I have to repeat doing something and I have to take the items back from the dining room - again - and store them in the (stationary now for some time to come) RV.
At some point - even if it is on or after Christmas - I will set up the other 2 trees down here that have to be decorated. I will, hopefully finish the living room (or just put out my embroidery place and forget about the roping for this year). I will also change the teddy village from fall to winter - this is something that I normally do on Christmas Eve or afternoon or after same.
Do I over decorate? Yes. But we don’t really buy each other gifts (or otherwise get them) and Christmas day dinner with his sister and her family is not fun. Mass, the focus of the holiday is an hour. So other than participating with our reenacting unit in doing 6 nights (3 this week and 3 next week) of interpreting a 1740 house at the event mentioned, decorating is just about all of our holiday. Oh, and of course there are some Chanukah decorations mixed in for me. (Going down for piece number 6, right back.)
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Take time to enjoy the holidays. We often spend so much time decorating, shopping, cooking (maybe some cleaning if people are coming), etc. While I , obviously, go overboard in decorating, I also understand that time to enjoy ourselves and rest is also needed. I push to get it all done, but if it is not, I am not going to be upset with myself. The first year that we were married we did not have a tree for a variety of reasons (none financial). I decided that husband needed something. I bought 2 large sheets of brown oak tag and some paints. I painted a fireplace opening and fire on one and painted the mortar of bricks (see I bought brown oaktag so I would not have to paint bricks - just the mortar between them) for the sides and chimney area of a fireplace. I then tied them to the back of one of his mom’s old kitchen chairs (we had a few of them to use as we had not bought kitchen set yet - table was a bridge table borrowed from my mom) so it would stand. We set it up for years until it fell apart some time after we moved into this house. It was simple, but served its purpose. (Going down for tree December 20, 2018 piece number 7.)
I hope that all of you have a good holiday season - I hate to say Happy or Merry as I know that many people do not. Try to remember what is important and know that the rest will work itself it out. If not everything you plan gets done - it is not a failure, it is just how it is. Something will always go wrong - last year I misplaced a gift card purchased for husband’s niece (same one we got the Barbie mermaid for) and it did not turn up until I started changing the teddy Christmas village into the summer village (for the first time - as in the past the village has only been done for Christmas/Winter). So now we have a gift card to use at a store we don’t shop at. But we gave her cash last year and we are sure that some day we will find a use for the card - maybe a DVD before they stop carrying them? But after going crazy looking for the card last year (and positive I threw it out somehow), I put it aside and went on with the holiday. (I will go down for the last piece and close up downstairs after I post this - see it wasn’t so bad.)
Thursday, September 27, 2018
GLAD THIS MONTH IS OVER
This month has a been a bit too much. I will be glad when it is behind me. Just this week, to give you an idea.
I did get my mom to the doctor yesterday for her checkup yesterday after needing to change the appointment a few times. I told her to make sure to blame me to the doctor and his staff so they would not be upset with her. She has a pacemaker and was past due to have it checked, as well as having her blood, etc. checked. Mom is 89. She still lives alone in our family house and still drives. She hates to ask for help; I keep telling her to call me when she needs to go somewhere she doesn’t want to drive to, but until now she has refused to call me. In this case she had a problem due to construction near the doctor’s office when she went there earlier in the month as she cannot walk distances and would have had to park too far away. Hence why she called for a ride, I could drop her off if there was still a problem, park and come back, etc. All was good, although blood work will, of course, take a day or two. We had lunch together afterwards for about 3 or 4 hours. We had been headed for a kosher deli - I had to park 4 stores away from it - mom was impressed with my parallel parking, something I just take for granted. But as we inched along, we (she) stopped at a pizza place and while stopped looked in and thought how nice it was - should we go there instead? I was not looking forward to a overfilled, overpriced (especially since I knew she would insist on paying) turkey sandwich (least fatty of the meats there). So I jumped at the change - less for her to walk, lighter meal, and much less expensive. We each had a cheese slice and diet soda and sat and talked and talked. (I write like I talk and she talks more and longer than I do.) It was between meal times and the place was empty or I would have not have stayed, taking up the table as long as we did.
We did go to the Long Island Fair last Sunday to do an embroidery demonstration - and to visit friends we only see at the Fair. One woman used to be the Supervisor of the Juvenile section for decades and had to give it up due to eye trouble, was not at the Fair last year at all. (She continued to volunteer after she gave up the Supervisor position.) I was so glad that she had her son drop her off for a visit. She was sitting in the Juvenile section and as soon as volunteers heard she was there, we all stopped by to see her. She is 90. I was so glad to hear that she was basically well - she had vision problems, which is now mostly blindness and now has hearing problems, but she is the same always in all other regards. After the day, which was the last day of the Fair, was pick up of entries - my three dimensional butterfly embroidery shocked me and won second prize. I had seen the lovely and involved pieces that it was competing with when I dropped it off and figured that I would get an honorable mention due to the technique. That is one project that sat for decades finished. Now to pick another one to finsih. While at the Fair I was also able to check in with someone who is a mutual friend of a friend who moved to South Carolina and find out the couple in SC survived Florence with no problems.
I was suppose to go to a client this week. I called her yesterday (while mom was seeing the doctor) to go there Thursday. The client said it was a problem and could I come on Friday. (Glad she did not say today as we were suppose to have horrible rain - yes, there was rain, but not as bad as they said.) I called her today to say that I could come on Friday, but she didn’t really want me there then, either (even though she had suggested it). Apparently they are filming a movie at her location and her cousin who keeps her company is ill - besides, she tells me, she has had no business all month, so there is little for me to do. So, I will be going there in 2 weeks and do the September and October work at the same time.
In my mind this was great. I get another day to catch up on stuff - the bathrooms REALLY need cleaning. But no, when husband hears that I am not going to the client on Friday, he suggests that since he wants to go to Pennsylvania on Saturday for a wool show, we could go down on Friday for the day and stay overnight. So, the bathrooms will wait a little longer.
Today was the day I write the newsletter for my embroidery chapter and send it out by email. I managed to get that done after dinner - normally done in the afternoon, but there was other “fires” to put out then. I send out 3 versions of the newsletter - the basic newsletter is the same, the email with it changes - one to our members, one to prospective members and one to the other newsletter editors in our region and our region director.
This coming Sunday we were suppose to go to a reenactment event with our unit, but the unit is backing out of it as too few members can go and the place is changing what it said about our setup.
Now in addition to writing to all of you, I am doing our laundry. Will go and change loads between writing this and sending it out. Dinner dishes were done before the newsletter. Kitchen sink area is setup with dish towels over the dish rack, the front of the sink, the windowsill behind the sink, and the pots drying on a towel next to the other side of the sink - so husband can come and wash his hair in the sink. The dishpan I use in the sink is out on a counter with items waiting for washing before we go to bed. ( I made instant diet pudding for snack - the items needed for such are most of what is waiting to be washed.) But no - I still have not thrown out the bad eggs.
And next week I am suppose to teach new stitches (my choice) at the embroidery meeting!
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes it seems that what must be done in terms of larger projects and appointments is coming too often, too much and too fast. Take it one project at a time, that is all one can do. Things will get done.
I did get my mom to the doctor yesterday for her checkup yesterday after needing to change the appointment a few times. I told her to make sure to blame me to the doctor and his staff so they would not be upset with her. She has a pacemaker and was past due to have it checked, as well as having her blood, etc. checked. Mom is 89. She still lives alone in our family house and still drives. She hates to ask for help; I keep telling her to call me when she needs to go somewhere she doesn’t want to drive to, but until now she has refused to call me. In this case she had a problem due to construction near the doctor’s office when she went there earlier in the month as she cannot walk distances and would have had to park too far away. Hence why she called for a ride, I could drop her off if there was still a problem, park and come back, etc. All was good, although blood work will, of course, take a day or two. We had lunch together afterwards for about 3 or 4 hours. We had been headed for a kosher deli - I had to park 4 stores away from it - mom was impressed with my parallel parking, something I just take for granted. But as we inched along, we (she) stopped at a pizza place and while stopped looked in and thought how nice it was - should we go there instead? I was not looking forward to a overfilled, overpriced (especially since I knew she would insist on paying) turkey sandwich (least fatty of the meats there). So I jumped at the change - less for her to walk, lighter meal, and much less expensive. We each had a cheese slice and diet soda and sat and talked and talked. (I write like I talk and she talks more and longer than I do.) It was between meal times and the place was empty or I would have not have stayed, taking up the table as long as we did.
We did go to the Long Island Fair last Sunday to do an embroidery demonstration - and to visit friends we only see at the Fair. One woman used to be the Supervisor of the Juvenile section for decades and had to give it up due to eye trouble, was not at the Fair last year at all. (She continued to volunteer after she gave up the Supervisor position.) I was so glad that she had her son drop her off for a visit. She was sitting in the Juvenile section and as soon as volunteers heard she was there, we all stopped by to see her. She is 90. I was so glad to hear that she was basically well - she had vision problems, which is now mostly blindness and now has hearing problems, but she is the same always in all other regards. After the day, which was the last day of the Fair, was pick up of entries - my three dimensional butterfly embroidery shocked me and won second prize. I had seen the lovely and involved pieces that it was competing with when I dropped it off and figured that I would get an honorable mention due to the technique. That is one project that sat for decades finished. Now to pick another one to finsih. While at the Fair I was also able to check in with someone who is a mutual friend of a friend who moved to South Carolina and find out the couple in SC survived Florence with no problems.
I was suppose to go to a client this week. I called her yesterday (while mom was seeing the doctor) to go there Thursday. The client said it was a problem and could I come on Friday. (Glad she did not say today as we were suppose to have horrible rain - yes, there was rain, but not as bad as they said.) I called her today to say that I could come on Friday, but she didn’t really want me there then, either (even though she had suggested it). Apparently they are filming a movie at her location and her cousin who keeps her company is ill - besides, she tells me, she has had no business all month, so there is little for me to do. So, I will be going there in 2 weeks and do the September and October work at the same time.
In my mind this was great. I get another day to catch up on stuff - the bathrooms REALLY need cleaning. But no, when husband hears that I am not going to the client on Friday, he suggests that since he wants to go to Pennsylvania on Saturday for a wool show, we could go down on Friday for the day and stay overnight. So, the bathrooms will wait a little longer.
Today was the day I write the newsletter for my embroidery chapter and send it out by email. I managed to get that done after dinner - normally done in the afternoon, but there was other “fires” to put out then. I send out 3 versions of the newsletter - the basic newsletter is the same, the email with it changes - one to our members, one to prospective members and one to the other newsletter editors in our region and our region director.
This coming Sunday we were suppose to go to a reenactment event with our unit, but the unit is backing out of it as too few members can go and the place is changing what it said about our setup.
Now in addition to writing to all of you, I am doing our laundry. Will go and change loads between writing this and sending it out. Dinner dishes were done before the newsletter. Kitchen sink area is setup with dish towels over the dish rack, the front of the sink, the windowsill behind the sink, and the pots drying on a towel next to the other side of the sink - so husband can come and wash his hair in the sink. The dishpan I use in the sink is out on a counter with items waiting for washing before we go to bed. ( I made instant diet pudding for snack - the items needed for such are most of what is waiting to be washed.) But no - I still have not thrown out the bad eggs.
And next week I am suppose to teach new stitches (my choice) at the embroidery meeting!
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes it seems that what must be done in terms of larger projects and appointments is coming too often, too much and too fast. Take it one project at a time, that is all one can do. Things will get done.
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