NEW YEAR AHEAD OF US - A FRESH START

 Well, here it is – another new year. A clean year ahead of us – a fresh start.

Let's put behind us what we have done wrong in the past and start the new year fresh.

I have posted in the past that a new year actually starts every day – so if you missed January 1, pick another day, it starts a new year also – Lunar (Asian) New Year starts on January 22 this year, you can use it as a second chance for a new year's start. I don't make resolutions as they are never kept. I do try (yet another time) to do everything I do a bit better – less putting off of things, less “a lick and a promise”, less “I'll do next it next week”. As I said “I try” it generally does not work, but I do try.

Right now our bedroom is a mess. We did several days of a reenactment event over 2 weeks and clothes and accessories tended to be dropped each night when we got home all over our bedroom. I collected the clothes which need to be washed. As usual on Wednesday nights while I am posting I am also doing our laundry for the week. First load – regular clothes - is in the washer as I write. I will fitting in one or two loads of reenacting clothes depending on how many white items and how many color items there are. If I can fit all in one load – fine with me. If not I will do one load of white items and one of color items. I will also do a load of towels for the week. I know I will not finish tonight and will be continuing tomorrow night. When I go to bed tonight I will bring up the dried load of clothing and fold it while husband gets ready for bed (he takes longer than I do). I will put away the “goes in drawers” part of it away afterward and the hang up items will be put away tomorrow, when I will also fold the towels from a later load at night, as well as any other laundered items which need to be folded or hung and put away.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

As we go into the new year try to use same as a chance for fresh start catching up and keeping up with what needs to be done. If not remember – tomorrow is always a new, fresh day ready for one to make a start for the future. After all, I did not finish putting out Christmas decorations inside the house this year until January 2!

ANNUAL LOOK AT WHEN IS THE START OF A NEW YEAR AND MAKING RESOLUTIONS

 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.

NEW YEAR TO COME AND ADDEDUM TO LAST WEEK'S POST

 Before this weeks' post a followup –

I finally found the rest of the Christmas ornament hooks I wrote about last week (about 5 times more hooks than we used on the tree).  I always store things logically – problem is the logic is often forgotten.  I have two open plastic boxes under part of my teddy bear village which I keep various small items which are used at different times during the year – such as little park benches, chairs, tables…  I had been turning the idea of what would I consider a logical place to put the tree hooks under the circumstances of last year.  The idea entered my head that I have a bear in an airplane attached to the tree in the village (so he doesn't fall off and it looks like he is flying around the tree) with Christmas tree hooks and I did that since last year.  Yep, the hooks were in one of the brown baskets.  So the teddy bear village Christmas tree is decorated, but, sitting here the night before New Year's Eve, the rest of the village is only partly set up for the “Winter Festival” - okay it is called that instead of the “Christmas Festival” so it can be left up after Christmas.  Things keep happening.  


Now this week's post -

Of course a New Year's post is needed at this time.  I don't believe in making resolutions – they tend to be too big and grand and one does not carry through one feels like a failure.  Those of you who read my blog on an ongoing basis know that I believe that each day is a start of a new year.  

I like to work with the idea of trying to do something better, not making resolutions.  Pick something – relatively small and think how can you do better at dealing with it.  It may be organizing related or family relationship related, or work related or just something that you do or don't do which drives you crazy.  Decide that you will try to do better – and see what you can do about it.  Small steps – not big jumps.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

May the year to come be better for all of us.  

Please keep separate with your immediate family and wear your masks and gloves for awhile longer so you and I and most of us will be here a year from now and will be looking at back at 2020 at the end of 2021 thinking “Thank goodness Covid 19 ended this past year and we can all be together safely.”

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.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR - I STILL DO NOT MAKE RESOLUTIONS

Well, another year gone by – they really do seem to go by faster and faster. 

As those of you who have been reading my posts for over a year (and I thank you for doing so) I don't believe in making resolutions.  I never kept them and felt guilty for not doing so.  Instead I just decide that what is past is past and the future is a clean slate.

We still are running behind on getting things in life done. 

The Saturday before Christmas I realized that there was no way that our extensive (okay, overly and ridiculously extensive) inside Christmas decorations would be put up before or during Christmas.  We were doing three nights with our reenactment unit at an 18th century house in a local restoration village.  The event is annual, with the days for it changing every year.  It is a candlelight night event – each house is lit as it would have been in the period it is displayed and the Christmas decorations also match the period.  The other houses in the village are set in the 1800s; the one we interpret is set in the late 1700s – we say to the guests coming in that it is 1775, the year that our unit generally “is in”.  While it is an evening event husband and I have to start dressing by 3 pm to drive there and have the set up on time and by the time we shut the house down (a lot of candles to blow out and we have to make sure that no one in our unit left anything behind) , lock it up, drive home and change back to modern clothing it is around 11 pm and we are making dinner and sitting down to eat it.  So basically the days we do this event – we do almost nothing else.  So I would not getting to work on decorating the house on Saturday or Sunday night.   I had to take 2 more (online) exams for my professional education to work next year and I would have left – Monday before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, Thursday after Christmas, and Monday before New Year's Eve to take the classes.  Not being completely crazy I knew that I had to take them Sunday after the event and Monday nights, so that on the extremely, extremely rare chance I did not pass both exams and had to take one (or the other) class again, I had a chance to do so.  Hence, there would no time to put up the decorations, especially since our living room was not cleared up from husband's weaving due to a recent sales event we went to, the dining room still had stuff for the RV in it (I tried to take same out the week before – but it was COLD and husband did not want me to open the RV door as it would make it cold inside(?).)  Plus reenacting stuff that stores in the box/benches that we bring to event and they are kept along the dining room walls – and they needed “straightening up”.  So as all this hit while at the reenactment event, I fought back a couple of tears and decided that even if 80 or 90% of our Christmas is the decorations, it just would not be this year.  Since we were married the only year we have not decorated for Christmas in the house was the year we had the bed bugs – oh, well, 2 years of 40 is not a bed record. 

I thought about what to do as an alternative.  I was concerned about telling husband about the no decorations – he looks forward to them.  I came up with I would set up the small tree that we normally set up in our studio covered with ornaments we have made, in the living room on a table and put a limited number of favored ornaments on it.  I approached husband about this and said to him “We are not going to have decorations this year.” His reaction was that he had already realized this and had been afraid to say anything to me about it as he did not want me to take it as a challenge. I told him of my plan about the small tree and he thought it a great idea. 

I set the tree up on Christmas Eve afternoon.  I also wrapped the gifts for his nieces and for him that afternoon.   We have most of the decorations in 6 large plastic boxes.  I store the boxes in a corner of our basement.  To make life easy when I put the house decorations on top of the pile, so I just took those boxes off the stack and put them aside (on matching boxes that hold the bear village Christmas stuff in a separate pile as the stack would be too tall otherwise for the room).  I store the ornaments in 4 boxes which are numbered so the nicest ones are in box 1 to be featured and get prime choice of locations, down to box 4 which has the fill in at the end decorations.  So I opened box 1 on the top of the pile and looked in – I made the angel we use on the tree and she has two friends that husband I also stitched – they came out.  Then I was looking at what else was there and convenient.  I took out more ornaments that we have made and went upstairs to set up the tree. 

I had planned to put the tree on an outdoor type of table with slats that husband uses for setting up his loom – but the feet of the stand did not match the slat positions.  I stood and tried to think where I could I find something to put on the tabletop – thought of a small table that we take to reenactment events and  the top of it was in the dining room.  It fit the table perfectly and even though there is hardware under it to attach the legs, it did not rock.  I was concerned the three might scratch it and that might upset husband so I went looking for something fabric to put on it.  I found two old, worn hand towels in green.  I covered the table, set up the tree, and then folded the towels over the stand to make a tree skirt – perfect.   

I put the ornaments I had brought upstairs on the tree.  Much too bare.  Back to box 1 in the basement.  Hmmm, ornaments dated with the year we got married – good, ornaments of Geo Washington and Thomas Jefferson and their houses, good.  What else?  Luckily I label the small (old gift) boxes that hold the ornaments as several are packed in each one and the only way to get them back in the boxes is to know what goes in each, so I was able to scan the outside of the boxes and find some ornaments from a Folk craft festival we have gone to since we started dating.  I left it at that – with actual blank space on the tree.  As I went through wrapping the gifts and such I found a new ornament we bought (crafts store going out of business $1 teddy bear ornament for 50c – had to buy same) and the membership one we received from Colonial Williamsburg for 2019 – both of them were added.  I did not have the on/off switched extension cord,which is stored with the large tree, so found a regular one and we plug and unplug the tree by hand. Oh, and there was a large light up teddy bear on the box stack, so I brought him upstairs and sat him on the bench husband uses when weaving.  Finished, such as it was to be.

We went out for Christmas Eve dinner to the Asian buffet we go to a weekend night.  When there we discussed the decorations.  Husband said to me “How hard would be it to get out the Christmas stockings also?” So they went out also when we got home.

As the week went alone we decided that we missed the Christmas and Chanukah teddy bears (and some stuffed friends of theirs.  New Year's Eve I managed to pull most if not all of them from their storage box and put them out.  I also decorated the tree in the Teddy Village the same night.  Right now it is New Year's Day night – I had planned to finish setting up the village with the bears “that come to the parade” today or tonight, but husband had plans to go out for dinner (Wendys) and then a movie so I did not have a chance – just got home from the movies and I am writing to all of you (will get them) out tomorrow.

So, we did what we felt was the minimum decorating  for the holidays that we felt comfortable with.  The walls of Jericho did not shake and fall.  Most people might even think it plenty of decorating.  I plan next year to make sure it all goes up on time.  Today when we shut off the RV from charging its batteries (plugged it in yesterday) I finally moved the rest of the stuff for it back into the RV for the winter and got my spare pair of warm socks out of it to wash and use during the winter.

Normally on Wednesdays I start laundry for the week - not this week, as we went to the movies.  The laundry will get done tomorrow and Friday, maybe even Saturday.  I write and send out the newsletter for my embroidery chapter the last Wednesday of the month as we meet the first Wednesday – since this month we are meeting the second Wednesday (a meeting on New Year's Day would not work), I started it before we went out for dinner – it will be a day late – hey, sometimes that happens, it will still be in plenty of time before the meeting. 

There is only so much time that I have use and I have to deal with that idea.  What can be done is done, what cannot, has to ignored and/ore delayed.  I hope over the next year in general to be better caught up on everything which has been slipping our fingers this past year plus and get life back to a normal level of unfinished things. 

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

You can only do what you can do with the time you have – try to let the small things go.  If you did make resolutions last year and did not keep them, see what is important and try to do better at one or two of them and don't make a long list of resolutions as then you will not keep any of them.  Just try to deal with one or two problem and see where you go from there.

A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

1775 CHRISTMAS FOLLOWED BY 2019 NEW YEAR'S

Last week I was talking about getting the Christmas decorations finished, our holiday celebrations, and going “back” to 1775 for a candlelight Christmas event at a restoration village.  When we went back this past Thursday we found out that there were 1500 people through the village last Saturday night and 2200 people last Sunday night - and Sunday night they turned people away for lack of parking.  Makes one feel popular - even if the people are coming for the overall event - not us specifically.  As a result for the second weekend they made arrangements for off site parking and school buses to go back and forth.

Thursday and Saturday this week there were so many people waiting to come into the restoration that they let them come in early - event is suppose to start at 5 pm and they have an opening parade at 5:15, so we don’t get many people before then.  Both nights people were coming in at 4:30 pm (and they can not just wander in, they have to be let in).  Unfortunately since no one had informed us of this -or even the possibility of this - we were not ready for the public yet when they started to walk in.  Talk about looking disorganized!  We made our apologies and asked people to come back later. I ended up starting to give the tour at the door as people wandered in as the fellows normally there were not in place yet, and when they were ready, I followed the crowd in to where I needed to be. On Saturday night I needed a last minute trip to what was called in 1775 “the necessary”, even though I had stopped in the ladies room in the visitor’s center before we walked out to the house.  I went to the one out in the restoration and noticed other buildings having the same problem - one small house was letting people in, other larger ones (take longer to get setup for the evening) had a person out on the porch - door to the building closed - talking to the people who were waiting.  I made note of same and told husband about it in case we have the same problem in the future.  We had a huge crowd already in our house and I again had to follow the crowd into the kitchen - while removing my modern winter jacket and trying to scrunch it down small enough that it would not be noticed..  Husband had asked our unit commander to man (“woman”?) the kitchen until I was there and he was doing a good job when I arrived - but was glad to go back to music and singing and talking about “guy” things.  We don’t have counts yet for those nights, but I am guessing they were crowded than the week before.  They, again, canceled the event for Friday night as, again, there was a huge rain storm.

With the event behind us we realized that we had no plans for New Year’s.  Husband decided that we (I) would attempt to make chicken pie from partial things - premade pie shells, chicken purchased cooked and cut in small piece, canned cream of chicken soup for the sauce for New Year’s Eve dinner.  Worked relatively well and did not get either of us sick.     

New Year’s Day I finally had a chance to work on setting up my teddy village for winter.  It is mostly done at this point - I need to fix some mini-Christmas lights whose strand is out and I need to get some button batteries for some of the lights in the village.  We went out in the evening for dinner at the Asian buffet we go to on weekends. 

Not a big exciting holiday, but as I have posted many times - every day is the start of a new year.

Today was my embroidery chapter meeting.  Last night husband - whose arm and shoulder were finally doing well - fell coming down the stairs to wash his hair in the kitchen sink.  (Due to a bad cold he did not want to take a shower as the house is drafty.)  He scrapped some skin off one leg - a problem as he is Diabetic and also he cannot use normal band aid type bandages on his legs - but I bandaged it up for him.  His knee and arm hurts and he keeps worrying that he broke something - they look okay to me - not bruised, not swollen, no bone looks or feels out of place.)  So after the meeting I came home and did not have a day out alone - in exchange, as he asked me to do this - he had to join me in my normal errands for this day each month as I don’t want to let the empty soda bottles pile up.
           
While I was waiting for him to get ready to go out I made some phone calls - I had a  bill from medical lab as they must not have had my new medical insurance - I called and the hold wait ran too long.  I filled in the info on the form and will mail it to them tomorrow.  I then called the company from who I had ordered new checks for our reenactment unit - they spelled the name of the organization wrong and they will send out us new checks - glad I ordered them long before we need the new checks.  (Once again, I had to do something twice - what is going on with everyone right now?)  I also called our heating oil company.  This company gets odder and odder.  Last year or the year before our company joined another company and the other company is in charge (I may have mentioned chasing them down to try to get them to do the pre-season cleaning of the furnace, which they did not do last year either - and they cannot come until the end of February when the season is well along and heading for the end in a month or so.)  Our original company would leave a receipt when they delivered oil and then send us an invoice.  This second company would leave an invoice for us to pay as the receipt.  Well, just before Christmas a large oil company in this area delivered oil to us - not either of the ones that we have dealt with.  They left an “invoice” that did not say how much we owed them and said that a final invoice would be coming.  So I called them today to find out when the invoice would be here.  Total confusion - “Didn’t they leave an invoice?”  I explained and pointed out that I don’t know who the company who delivered is (I was talking to the second company that we have had).  “Well, I guess than they should have mailed an invoice to you.”  I held my tongue and did not get sarcastic and reply “You think so?”  They are sending me an invoice.  If I had any question about changing companies next year - this resolved it.

Hopefully we will have a couple of quiet days to catch up.  Husband is again thinking of a trip on Friday to Lancaster, PA - but I know how well his plans for same in the recent past have worked out (not at all).  Though if we go with the RV he can buy some food items not available here and maybe he will enjoy dinner a bit more than he does.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

The start of a new year is good time to take stock of where one is and what one wants to do.  I make no resolutions as they are never kept (except my last one to never make a resolution again).  If you want to change things think about what you want to change and how to do so.  It is better to think in this manner, I find, than to make grand resolutions and then find that they cannot or are not kept one feels bad.  If it was just one or two specific things - one might actually get them done and if not, it is just a hope to get something done and one does not feel as much as a failure than not keeping a “resolution”.  Resolutions are large things - work on small things and the large things will fall into place on their own.

2018 Christmas mixed with 1775 Christmas

I hope those how celebrate Christmas had a good holiday.  I hate to use the Merry or Happy as there are many for whom that won’t happen, but good holiday has a larger definition and is more inclusive.  (By the way - Queen Victoria was the one who changed the expression from Merry to Happy in Britain.  Why?  Well what we think of as the meaning of Merry is not what it then meant.  To wish someone a Merry Christmas then, was to wish them a drunken Christmas.)

Did you get all of your holiday preparations done on time?  I didn’t.  Between time lost back in October and November to my husband’s injured shoulder/arm, doing an assortment of tasks twice to get them done finally and correctly, work, and my general laziness, compounded by the fact that I lost 2 evenings (which should have been 3 - but more on that later) to the Candlelight Nights reenactment event we do with our reenactment unit just before Christmas, I fell behind - even for me. 

Normally I would have everything I wanted to do finished, except my (infamous) Teddy Christmas Village setup.  Over the years it has become normal for me to be setting it up on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day night, or even just after same.  Dinner for Christmas Eve would be planned in advance,gifts wrapped, all the other trees and decorations up and in place.  Not this year. 

As I wrote last week, I had set up the living room and dining room and front hall decorations - mostly - in advance.  I put artificial roping over the windows in the living and dining room and did so this year in the dining room.  The living room involves moving a coffee table from in front of the windows to hang the roping there - and an embroidered hoop piece that I put in the center of the roping.  (The coffee table is there and not in front of the sofa since it became husband’s weaving room and while not heavy is shoved between 2 chairs and therefore hard to move.)  At Christmas Eve the roping was still waiting.  I put it back the box and sat the embroidered piece on a chair (which will not be sat in anyway).  While doing this annoys me - the lack of the roping does not change the holiday in any way. 

Last week, you may remember, I assembled the tree while writing my post to you.  On Thursday night I brought up the two boxes of decorations that go on it first (the nicer ones), put “Lion in Winter” in the DVD player (a tradition with husband and me) and started on decorating the tree.  It took a few hours but the decorations went on the tree.  I put them on the tree in sections as there are so many that it makes it easier to see them.  I put angels on the top section of the tree all around  - or at least on the 3 sides one can actually see.  On the front of the tree I put the ornaments we have bought on vacation - and about vacation - I remember as I start to leave a vertical space for key chain we bought at one of the Smithsonian Air and Space museums of a red fabric piece which says “remove before flight” as used on planes.  An ornament does not have to be an actual ornament is something we figured out a number of years ago.  (We were someplace and they had the same piece as a key ring -not this one - and as an ornament.  Key ring was $3, ornament was $15 - we bought the key ring.)  In addition to key rings, we have bought the pins that people put on their hats to show that they have been someplace and a variety of other small items.  On the side of the tree facing the front hall and to the left of the vacation ornaments are the Santa ornaments - there I have to leave a space long enough for Santa hanging from a parachute until I come to it. To the left of the them are the teddy bear ornaments - and above them the ones dated with our anniversary - towards the back of the tree - paper houses are hanging.  On the other side of the tree - facing the side of the room, but visible are sections with stars, characters (Snoopy, Alice in Wonderland...), (fake) candy, vehicles and so on.  Then other ornaments are mixed in around the tree in all of these - handmade ornaments (some embroidered of course), and so on. 

Friday night we were suppose to be at the Candlelight event, but there was a huge rain storm coming in and the restoration canceled the night on Thursday as it would be too dangerous for people to be out in the storm and they figured few people would come.  So I was able to work on the other two boxes of ornaments (while watching the second version of “Lion in Winter” that we have.  These boxes have larger ornaments - balls and such - so there are less of them.  I put the more “important” of them on the tree - and stopped.  The back of the tree - the side facing the window and not seen in the room (or outside as the drapes are closed) is naked this year - for the first time ever.  I cleared up the room and stored the boxes downstairs.  As I took a box down I brought a large Santa or elf figure upstairs.  This also allowed us to food shop Friday afternoon.  While I had already bought stuff earlier in the week to make a Brunswick stew for Christmas Eve dinner, we also need food items that don’t have to be cooked or cook quickly to eat for dinner when we come home at around 10:30/11 pm after the events. 

Saturday night (well, actually afternoon) we ate a bigger lunch than normal at Wendys as we were eating earlier and would eat dinner much later than normal.  We then went home to dress in our period style clothing.  I had previously laid out my clothing - in reverse order of how they worn so the first piece to be put on is at the top of the pile and the last (my apron) is at the bottom of the pile.  I put on my “stockings” and shoes (I can’t reach the shoes after I put on my stays) and then my “shift” (a white more or less A-line dress that serves as underwear in period).  Over this I wear “stays” - not a corset and not worn tightly tied as Scarlet O’Hara wore her corset.  The stays have lacing up the back and front and I only open the front lacing to put them on and off.  I had them on and laced up the front. I then pulled the lacing to tighten them (only to the feel of “a gentle hug” and then to tie them - suddenly I was holding a piece of the lacing in my hand and the rest had mostly unlaced itself.  The lacing had torn apart!  I do not have a spare lace as it came with (on) the stays. Husband suggested that I get some fabric seam tape from our studio.  I ran down glad of a solution.  Uh, Oh!  I had stored his weaving stuff - yarns, finished pieces, table on my side of the studio.  I had taken out what I thought we might need to access - safety pins, thread spools and such, but we never need seam tape - so I could not get any.  On my way back upstairs the thought hit me, I could pull the seam tape in the waistband of my other petticoat (skirt) out and use it - no problem unless I decide to wear my other petticoat the next night - then an even better idea hit - I have a spare apron and have it used it while cooking at events so it is stained and I would not be wearing it during this event.  I pulled it out.  I started trying to lace the stays with it - end was stiff and it was wider than the lacing - I grabbed a pen and used to point to push the lacing into each hole - and it worked great (no one sees it as it under the rest of my clothing.)  We then rushed - afraid to be late to get there as husband is in charge and the first night we have to make sure the building is set up right and that we have candles, etc. We got there half an hour early to be there an hour before the event started!  We sat in the car until we saw some employees of the restoration go into the building. 

Everything we needed was there and we rearranged things from how they had been left for us to how we needed them.  As unit members came in each started setting up what they normally work with.  We made sure to put the keys to the building in the spot where they are suppose to be kept (don’t want to miss them when we go to lock up later).  As 4pm approached we lit the candles inside the house and on the steps outside.  Three of the rooms are behind clear half height gates, the others are walk through.  I put on my cap and offered the mirror in one of the gated off rooms to other women in our unit before I slide that gate into place, the last of the gates to be put in place.  One of the fellows had the fire going in the kitchen and the musician was ready.  We had a very successful and fun - both for the crowds and us  - evening.  Members each do whatever they feel they would like to do at the event - sing, greet people at the door and tell them about the building, be a person of the past (as husband and I do) and talk about the house and “our” time as someone who knows nothing of the future, just up to the matching day in 1775.  We are on the village for some of our fellows to fire their muskets 3 times during the night in front of the building.  When we went back on Sunday night we found out that 1500 people had come through the village the night before!  And Sunday night seemed to have almost as many people.

Saturday night after we came home, changed our clothes and had dinner I brought up the rest of my Santas and elves and set all of them up in the living room at the entrance to the room.  (Most of them were Christmas gifts from someone husband worked with, two I made, one we bought, and one is husband’s since he was a boy.    At this point the excess packing was stored away and the room almost finished - for this year at least.

Sunday was a repeat of Saturday - eat lunch early and more than usual, change clothes, drive to restoration village - not as early this time as we knew that everything was ready for us.  The event was basically a repeat of the night before (and really every night we do this), while always being different based on who comes through the building and their interests as life in 1775 had about as many facets as life does today and one or the other of us (or several of us) will be able to talk on the different facets. 

After we, again, came home, changed our clothes and had dinner, I went back to Christmas decorating.  I brought up our Christmas stockings - one pair red and white fur with names for use in the years that there is something for them, one pair decorated with “Santa Claus, the movie” and one pair I embroidered for us.  There are is also a line of small stockings with the names of our Cabbage Patch kids on them (yes, we are that silly).  I also boiled the chicken I needed for the Brunswick stew for Christmas Eve dinner.

Christmas Eve day we went out for lunch and some short errands as places closed early.  While I cooked our dinner and set the table in the dining room - I had to, again, take the stuff we had brought back into the house from the RV to the RV.  Since the stew cooks a long time and has to be watched, I brought up and assembled the dining room tree and decorated it with brass ornaments we have received as members of Colonial Williamsburg.  I have, somehow, duplicates of two them and the two duplicates I put on the main tree in the living room.  I then took the handmade ornaments I had set aside as I did the main tree (the handmade ornaments are split between the two trees) and set up the tree in the studio for them and put them on the tree - the woven wheat snowflake I use for star on top (made by husband) needed a bit of reinforcing glue on one point and I fixed it. 

Ah, all that will/can be done was done at this point.  I turned on the living room and studio tree lights and finished cooking dinner.  We had dinner, I did the dishes.  I put the few (3) gifts we had bought ourselves in recycled Christmas gift bags.  Husband wrapped his 2 nieces’ Christmas gifts in Christmas paper and their birthday gifts in different in different paper and we put them in bags for Christmas Day.  We then went to Midnight Mass. 

Husband later went up to bed before me and I put our gifts under the tree - next to the empty fancy gift boxes there for “show”.

Christmas Day was spent at his sister’s house and the less said about it, the better.  Today was the 26th.  I paid all the bills due until after New Year’s Day, we mailed them, we went to the bank and transferred money to cover them and then came home for a quiet evening to rest up.  Tomorrow night we go back to the Candlelight Nights through Saturday night.  Ah, being in 1775 for 3 more nights - something we love.  Then the teddy village will be changed from fall to Winter/Christmas.
                       
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

None of us can do everything.  I could be upset and kicking myself for not getting all of the decorating done, but I did the best I could.  Husband points out that there is nothing missing when one looks at it all.  Another year, more will be done. 

Relax - you can only do the best you can - in decorating and organizing.  New Year’s Day will be here before I talk with you again - remember think of what you might want to change or improve and decide to try.  Don’t make resolutions - just pick something and think about what you can do.  And don’t forget - every day is the start of a new year.

I wish a happy, and healthy new year to all of you.

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.

18 CENTURY, SNOW STORM AND NEW YEAR

Sorry to be late again.  I am still running terribly behind where I should be due to the holidays, I guess.

The reenactment event we did last week is usually a nice simple, although time consuming, event to do.  It has been one of my favorites every year.  It was an unusually cold week for around here.  Normally the weather should be above freezing here in December, one night last week was 9 degrees Fahrenheit and on the final day of the event it snowed.  While it is an 18th century house it does have a furnace in the basement and we also make a fire in the kitchen fireplace. This kitchen is unusual for the period as it is in the house - at least as it is set up to be interpreted by the restoration.  Normally we are comfortable in the house, but this year it was cold in the house - so cold that husband (with his cold) actually asked to switch rooms with me during the last 2 nights as the room he was in was too cold for him.  So he got to talk about our musicians/singers, the odd cabinet bed in the room, the kitchen, and Sinter Klaus (there is a display table related) while I got to talk about the owner’s office and the 2 bed chambers - he likes doing the back rooms as he can talk more about anything he wants to than in the kitchen where there are things to be covered in talking. We even brought plain knit gloves the last two nights to keep our hands warm in the house.  Our unit is lucky - we are in the first house in the village so we have the shortest walk from the visitors’ center in the cold.  One thing which surprised me was how many people came out in the terrible cold - and many brought very small children and babies. 

So after “spending” 5 days in the 18th century, I was behind on everything.  I have since read 9 newspapers, caught up on a week’s worth of email and mail, caught up on my online groups - one of which moved to a new setup and I had to join and setup my account all over again, plus doing all of same that has come in since. 

We had been told that we were to have snow from early this morning (Thursday) through the day.  Where we are was suppose to get about 4 inches.  Husband now panics over bad weather.  I had my embroidery chapter meeting yesterday so on Tuesday I told him that we should buy whatever he wants or feels we need to have for a snow day.  We bought stuff.  I told him that I would go to the meeting (which is actually in extended walking distance from our house) and would not stay for the class on stitches after the meeting part.  I did make one stop after - I exchanged USB stick drives in our bank vault - I use same for offsite data storage, which is changed once a month. (When he went to work, I would send the drive to work with him and he would bring the old one home with him for reuse.)  I then came home.  We ended up going to Walmart, the adjacent supermarket and the Walmart supermarket here.  (Our regular Walmarts have small food departments, but not the supermarket areas that they do in other places  - the Walmart supermarket is smaller than the sections elsewhere and is only a supermarket and pharmacy.)  When we came home we went into “horrible weather mode”.  All of laptops and cell phones were plugged into charge (and have stayed same since) and he had bought two devices to recharge cell phones, so those were plugged in also so they would be fully charged.  Normally I would move anything in the middle of the traffic patterns in rooms out of same - but the living room and dining room where this is mostly done were still neat from the holidays. This way if we did lose electricity it is easier to walk around in dim light and not walk into anything.  (For us, we are still in the holidays.)    
                                       
When we went to bed last night, the snow had gone up a bit in how much we would get, as it had shifted further west.  (Those of you in the South or the Northeast part of the U.S. who were hit by this storm, you have my sympathy.)  The weather reporters has also started talking about blizzard and nor’easter (think hurricane with snow in cold weather).  But, he had not panicked and I was glad of that. When I went to sleep around 4:30 am, there were still no school closings showing up on the local news.           

Well, it ended up that this area had over 10 inches of snow - in bitter cold weather.  It finally stopped snowing around 4pm and based on the suggestion from the weather reporters, as well as husband’s need to do so, we went out to clear our driveway.  Our neighbors on either side were also doing so (they are young with young children - we are old with no children).  And shortly after the neighbor’s son from two doors over (in his 20s) came out with some friends to dig out their cars.  Our driveway is semi circular.  It goes from one edge of our property to the other so just figuring out where to put snow is hard.  Husband used the lightweight snow blower we bought last year.  I used a shovel and a brush - the latter to clear off our car.  We were out there about 2 hours doing this.  Husband had trouble with one of the cuts to the street (4 lane road so we get 2 driving lanes plus a parking lane’s worth of snow plowed over on same) and had me cutting it down with the shovel (breaking the snow loose so it would spread over more area and easier for him to throw) while he worked on the other cut.  The neighbor on that side who has a larger snow blower, came and cleared it for us.  (Thank you again Sal!!!).  I cleared half the stair case to our front door so the mailman could get to the box (I have no idea if we got mail today - I was not going to look - we did get a newspaper, but I forgot to take it in and was not going back out for it) and also cleared the snow all the way across the top step so that the door would open in an emergency. 

Finally exhausted we came back into the house.  I could not feel my toes.  Husband looked as if he would pass out.  We lost a small piece off the snow blower - a knob - which we have lost before, found it, but are still missing the nut to it and hope to find it tomorrow when it is light out.  (By 4 pm when we started it was dark out - and our garage light is on a motion detector, so when it went out one of us had to run to where it would go back on.)  When he was coming to the end of the snow clearing he heard a noise in the blower which upset him - we later found out, he ran over the Christmas lights on one of the low bushes - good thing I told him to shut off the electricity to the lights last night.  Schools are already closed for tomorrow.  The weather is suppose to remain 15 degrees F or less until at least Monday, so there will be a lot of ice on the driveway.

I had told him to do a bit of the snow clearing, then in the house and rest a bit.  But, being a man, it all had to be done at once, of course.

After dinner I went upstairs and did the paperwork I planned to do today and never got to.  Moving some money around to pay bills, paying the bills, and a birthday card for my brother in law and one for the daughter of the neighbor who helped us out.  Both birthdays are Monday and one bill is due out by then - not sure if we will get to the post office (and bank) in time for them to go out before Monday, but if they can, we are ready. 

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

We had a quiet New Year’s Eve. 

The way I look at it, every day is the start of a New Year.  I don’t make resolutions - the last one I made I have kept ever since, it was not to make any more resolutions.  I look for what I can do (or not do) and then do my best to follow up.  Resolutions are usually to broad to be followed and then one feels bad for not doing so. 

And if you make resolutions and don’t keep them - remember every day is the start of a new year and one can start fresh.

Happy New Year.






Well, storms do not always do what they are predicted to do, and we got 10 inches!  We had spent

       

LOST A CHRISTMAS GIFT

I finished decorating our main Christmas tree and our studio tree on Christmas Eve Day.  I went to wrap the gifts - such as they are.  I pulled out the shopping bag that I had stored them in from the back of the dining room table.  I brought down the Christmas/Chanukah wrapping holder.  (This is a hanging item which holds the wrapping paper, decorative bags, tissue paper, etc. as well as an envelope with printed labels which we use instead of buying gift tags - they are done in a Christmas font and have the name of the person who is getting the gift and our names.  Right now we are only using the ones with his nieces’ names on them.

I wrapped the two gifts for one of his nieces and put on tags - I put them in a smaller shopping bag to give to her.  I then went to wrap the gift card we had bought for her sister.  I could not find it.  I looked in the shopping bag of gifts.  I looked everywhere in the house - including every pocket of every jacket in the closet.  Even though there was a big rainstorm I went out and checked both our car and our van. Husband looked everywhere.  For some reason he did not give me the “you have to be more careful with things like this” lecture.  (I think he finally is understanding that my sudden disorganization with things like this is the fault of not having a chance to put things where they belong due to excessive running of errands.)  Husband said that we would give his niece cash and when we find the card - which we assume we will some day - we will find some use for it.  (This being rather limited as we don’t really shop at the store in question.)  I found a small gift box and husband made a cute note on the computer as to what the money was for and I wrapped it. 

Now, this is basically the wrapping that needed to be done - but husband had bought some items for himself so I stuck what I could in recycled decorative holiday bags and wrapped the two items which would not fit into same.  I stuck a small book I had bought and a stuffed teddy bear I had bought into additional recycled gift bags and stuck it all under the tree.  I try not to waste wrapping paper on our stuff as we each buy our own “gifts” if we happen upon something.

Husband started feeling a cold coming in and the weather was to become bad during the evening, so we went to 4 pm mass instead of waiting for midnight mass.  We came home and I cooked Christmas Eve dinner - and of course we ate it - with lots of leftovers.

What I had not had a chance to do was put up my teddy bear village.  I started it on Christmas Day  - but everything was going wrong with the tree for the village - I am guessing it has reached the end of its life and I will need a new one next year - the branches keep sagging and the lights seem to all be turning white from their various colors.  We left for Christmas Day dinner and I have not gotten back to work on the village since.  I am changing the name of it to “Teddy Bear Winter Festival Village” so that it can stay up longer.

Starting the day after Christmas we have been doing a Candlelight Nights Event at the local restoration village with our reenactment unit - we are in the only house which is set up as a 1700s house.  It is a favorite event. The weather has taken a turn for COLD and about to get COLDER with possible snow or freezing rain either or both of the last two days (Friday and Saturday) of the event.  We had 1100 people come through the village the night after Christmas - the “warmest” night of the week and tonight there were 700 - not bad based on how cold it was. 

Unfortunately doing this evening event actually takes up almost all of our time as husband is in charge of it for our unit.  Remember we don’t get up early - to be polite.  So we wake, have lunch run an errand - maybe - come home and dress in period clothes, drive to the “village”, set up the house, do the event, close down the house, drive home, change clothes back, cook dinner (at 11 pm) eat, try to get some chores done and maybe check some email, have snack and go to bed to start over.  The event runs 5 pm to 9:30 but involves us starting to get ready at 3 pm and by the time we are changed back to modern clothes it is 11 pm.  We have 3 more nights - unless the weather is too bad on Friday and/or Saturday and the “village” closes.   The unit takes over the house as if there is an 18th century holiday party in the house and we and the public coming through are the guests.  A few members play period music - especially Christmas, others sing, some of us do first person interpretation - we are someone from the period and know nothing past the same date in 1775, and others talk about the house as modern people.  The public seems to enjoy it - some people tell my husband that they come to the village for the event every year just to see our unit, and we have had current descendants of the family who lived in the house visit and say how wonderful it is.  It is exhausting, but fun.

I have not entered the chores, repeating appointments, etc for next year into either my cell phone or the setup I have on the computer - I did not even have a chance to make up a list.  The newspapers piling up are approaching a week’s worth unread.  I have mail stacking up on my desk, and the teddy village awaits yet.  This is about the worst December for getting things done in some time.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

If you lose something, after searching “everywhere” for it and not finding it - give up and find an alternative. 

I hope all have a wonderful New Year - as I have mentioned before I do not make any resolutions as they are, well, never kept and one feels guilty about it.  I do reflect on the year past and try to do better in the year to come.

MAJOR OOPS - MANAGED TO STAY ON SCHEDULE - AND A TIME TO CONTEMPLATE

I wrote this post for last week on Tuesday night and set it up to post itself on Wednesday night when I would normally post it, as Wednesday night was a major Jewish holiday - as you will see in the post itself.  Sorry.  It is now a week later and I am about to write this week's post a night late.  My apologies.

I was going to call this post “Treading Water” but in light of the continuation of hurricanes I decided that was in bad taste.  I cannot believe that there is another hurricane, Maria, hitting in the Caribbean again.  I hope that anyone you might know there is safe and well and stays so.  I feel so bad for those in that area. 

My thoughts and prayers also go to those in Mexico who have been hit by the earthquake.  Back in 1973 I was in Mexico with a college friend.  We had spent a few days in Mexico City and then took a 2 day tour bus ride down to Acapulco, with a stop in Taxco for the night.  We had two nights in Acapulco (one day).  The first morning there we woke to the telephone ringing.  My friend’s mom was calling from home - “Are you both okay?  Is there a lot of damage there?”  Apparently there had been an earthquake then also in Mexico City - and we did not know about it.  Others on our tour who flew down to Acapulco instead of the taking the bus arrived with stories of the outside wall of the hotel they were in (and we had been in) splitting between the beds in the room they were in!  It was terrifying to have been that close to an earthquake and I feel terribly for those who are there.
                               
I have to say - not as a joke, but a statement of fact - we think we have terrible organizing, decluttering and cleaning to do - but those who are losing their “stuff”, including their homes, possibly their jobs, and worst of all family, friends or even pets, have it much worse.  When my mom’s house was hit by Hurricane Sandy, her basement filled 4 feet with sea water and all in her basement had to be tossed out.  A crew came in and did it for her - it included her washer and dryer and furnace and water heater - in addition to my dad’s tools and our toys and a lot of books that were down there.  Instant forced getting rid of stuff.  5 years later I will still be somewhere at a flea market or such and see something and remember that I had it and it is gone.  Perhaps this can be a incentive to go through what you have and get rid of what is unneeded and less precious to you, so that you have room to safely store that which is precious to you.

The hurricane that was headed here, Jose, is no longer a hurricane and is still south of us, but is to pass to the east of where we live and has been affecting here all day today.  We had rain today on and off - much heavier to the east of us as they are closer to Jose, but not terrible.  Wind has not been bad.  But there is still tonight and Jose is suppose to circle around a bit out in the ocean - which apparently is good as it will keep Maria from hitting us.

We did get to the quilt show last Saturday - barely as we were not sure about the, yes, the weather.  He really is weather phobic.  While it is a quilt show there are many different fiber/textile vendors mixed in as there are no other similar sales venues.  The first booth in the show is a woman with a farm who sells wool yarns, fiber, etc.  We spent some time there on entering as husband does do weaving.  Her wool is lovely, but beyond our budget.  We were at the show for about 4 and a half hours.  I had a small tote bag with me as husband had brought a fabric tool he bought a few years ago which had broken and the vendor is usually at this show and he hoped they could tell him how to fix it.  (“That’s the old model - if you buy a new one we will give it to you for half price.”  Same being about twice what he paid originally - he will try again to fix it himself.)  So it was not obvious that we had bought - nothing as what we bought might have been in the tote bag.  The first vendor stopped us and asked what we had bought - she was shocked to hear “nothing”.  We saw many lovely things.  The shop my husband bought his loom from (we first saw them at this show a few years ago) was there - interesting add ons for his loom.  I got an idea for a Christmas ornament to make and sell - the thread at one booth caught my eye to make it - but they did not have the variegated color as it appeared on their sample and I was not going to spend $10 to get both colors separately.  Lovely quilts were entered in their competition and also were displayed in various exhibitions of quilts.  We had a wonderful day, bought nothing as we have so much of similar stuff at home that cries out to be used, and had a chance to see wonderful quilts (oh, and in one exhibition - clothing, accessories and house items - all handmade by people who had entered them into a competition).  Dinner in the Lancaster are and home. 

Despite the impending possible hurricane, we went this morning to the dentist.  I have new (and more) teeth.  Despite having worn an upper partial for decades, this one is much larger as it replaces more teeth which have “left me”.  I am having trouble adjusting - I keep needing to swallow to avoid gagging.  Oddly I am biting the inside of my mouth with one of my real teeth which is in the same place it has always been.  On the other side of my mouth I have two teeth hitting - but, again, the problem seems to be one of my teeth not the plate.  Next Monday we will start on making a spare - using part of my old one.  He wanted me to have my old one just in case.  I know I will adjust - when I got my first one it took a week before I could talk or eat.  Of course between an upper partial and a repair for him and ditto for me, the budget will not adjust for some time.

We came home and then went to the doctor.  All was well.  He is as nice as his dad was - husband gets upset easily and now feels much better about going to this doctor.  And we had a great health report for all of our various “conditions”.  (And all covered by our medical insurance - his and mine.) 

I am writing this a day early as tomorrow night - Wednesday - when I normally write and post is the start of one of the major Jewish holidays of the year and traditionally one does not and I choose to not do secular things - work or such on these holidays.  I set the holiday apart by watching no television other than religious services.  I pick out a book that is contemplative and read it - in the living room - in my chair - alone - with no other distractions.  Yes, I pray. 

I have our Friday afternoon banking and all the bills due this week ready to go tomorrow before the holiday starts.  I have tomorrow night’s laundry being washed and dried as I write.  So that none of these will need to be done during the holiday.

I use the time to contemplate the year that has passed, what I did that was good, what I did that was not so good and what I can do better in the year to come.
           
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

I am not looking to proselytize (Jews do not do so), but a few customs we have for our “New Year”, which is what this holiday is,  are good ideas.  As I said, this is our New Year and we take time to contemplate the year that has passed.  What have you done right?  Done wrong?  What could you do a bit better?  We take the period following this holiday (we have another one next week to end this period) to apologize to those we have injured - whether or not the person accepts our apology - it is as if they had and the weight of slights or wrongs against others are lifted from us - those who follow the religion more as it was originally will go to running water on a certain day and cast their “sins” into the water (with certain prayers).  Apologizing to others, and let negatice thoughts of the past and thoughts of slights against you go - clears one’s mind and lets one focus on what is good and what is to come instead of stewing about the past. Start a new year now cleared of the past and going forward with what you need and want to do. If now then pick any day to do this.  I have pointed out in the past that any day is actually the start of a new year.

SHREDDING AND SCANNING

I have been very busy scanning bills and shredding papers - two separate, but slightly related projects. This has taken me only about 4 days - and by days I mean 4 sessions of a few hours each.

First the scanning - Last month I decided and posted about  - 4-13-17 POST
 - deciding to scan in bills as I pay them.  Understand if I pay a charge card bill, I am only scanning in the statement, not every slip - even I am not that crazy - this is to make it easier if I need to view or need a copy of what I paid.  Per the earlier post this is the result of needing a bill from last year and not being able to find it.  I was lucky enough to have a scan of the bill and was able to use that for reference. 

So I have since been scanning each bill as I pay it. For our personal checking account I am scanning them into my data drive.  I set up a folder for the year with a subfolder for each month to make it all easier to find.  For our business checking account I am just using a folder for the year as we write very few checks.  I will go back when I have a chance shortly and scan in the bills from earlier in the year.  

Once a year I empty out the oldest storage box of records - I have 9 boxes so it is the one from 9 years before - and refill it with the previous year.  I cannot do this in earlier in the year as I want to include in the new year’s storage, the papers needed for income tax and our bank statements through the end of the prior year and I like to have the last statement we have at hand - some of our statements come in quarterly, so this can not be done before mid-April at the earliest and generally later than that.  This year since I did not put our business return on extension I was ready to do this switch over now.  I have been getting rid of 2007 records to make room for storage of 2016 records.

I was already to get rid of the 2007 records when the thought hit me - why not scan in the 2016 bills so I have them for reference before I store them away.

Second, the shredding - Before I get rid of the old records (in this case 2007) I shred them.  I shred and shred and shred.  I actually ended up with almost 39 gallons (3 kitchen bags) of shredded papers. Some papers I toss in the shredder without looking at, others I check first. 

Which ones do I check?  I look through the checking statements - personal and business - and keep any checks which paid income taxes or sales taxes (for the business).  I keep these (or a scan of them - front and back) forever.  I set them aside in my “to file” holder on my desk to file at the end of the week when I do filing.  They will go in my tax files - personal or business - depending on what they are for.  I also go quickly through our credit card statements.  I look for any large amounts (over $100) and check what they are for.  If they are for hotels, food, etc. I just skip them.  If they are for a specific thing I look at them.  This is especially true for expenditures for the house which may add to its cost (technically its “basis”) when we or our heirs one day sell the house and will lessen the profit on that sale.  Anything else large I look at and sometimes discuss with my husband if we need to keep it for any reason.  Almost always anything other than house related bills go into the shredder.  For 2007 there were few bills that I looked at and those were large food bills or hotel bills.  One bill was for a clothing item for me to wear when reenacting.  I pulled that bill and made a note of the name of the company as reenacting friends have asked where I bought it and I did not remember.  Now I have the name to give them. 

Now here is where I took a big chance on being able to do two things at once.  I had the large plastic box of 2007 records and a cardboard box (that originally held large manila envelopes) which was holding our 2016 bills.  Two tasks to do - which to do? 

Both of course. I would put a bill from 2016 in the scanner and hit the scan buttons.  I would then take a handful of papers from the 2007 box and shred them - setting aside the bank and credit card statements.  I did this for 3 days - working in checking the statements and shredding them also.  I managed to not shred any of the 2016 records and not scan any of the 2007 records. 

As of tonight I have finished shredding all of 2016 and the 3 white kitchen size bags of same have been put into a large black garbage bag - so that one cannot see what is in the bags through the white plastic - and the large black garbage bag is out at the curb for pickup tomorrow morning by the Town sanitation department (the garbagemen). 

I have also finished scanning of our personal bills from 2016.  I have maybe 30 bills for our business which I will scan tomorrow.  The box from 2007 has been refilled with bank statements from 2016 and the personal bills from same - the business bills will be added.  The information used to do our and the business’s income taxes are also in the box (but not the copies of the returns - they are in my accounting file drawer for my accounting practice - although they are also scanned into the computer as I also do with clients’s returns.

Right now my office is a mess.  I end up emptying the shredded papers into our garbage pail in the office as the shredder fills.  While I have a fairly heavy duty shredder, it can fill our 13 gallon garbage pail at least 3 times.  Pouring this into the larger pail invariably ends up with shreds of paper all over - they have a good deal of static electricity and stick to things.  I have promised husband now that I am finished I will vacuum the office tomorrow to clean it up - okay, they followed me out of the office door (it is a spare upstairs bedroom) into the hall and partially down the stairs and that will also need to be vacuumed. 

After I scan the 2016 business records into the computer I will add them to the box.  I have already gone through our personal and our business file drawers and pulled any records which are not needed at hand for last year and put them in the box.  Before putting the box back into the closet I will take a folder in our file drawer marked “last year to file” and add some papers to the 2015 box.  These are papers which for whatever reason were not stored or were not able to be stored away when I did this last year for 2015 (which replaced 2006 in a box).  I know that something will always turn up which is why I have this file.

 I also have a file called “this year”.  It is the place I throw anything I want/need to keep and don’t know where to file - it is gone through when I do this switch over and the papers will either go into the 2016 box, be tossed or in some cases left in the folder.  To give an example - we receive in the mail a card each from our election board each year with voting information for the year - where to vote, what votes there are and when they will be.  I keep this card so when we go to vote we can figure out which of the, constantly changing in location, tables is the one for us to vote at.  I keep it until the next year’s cards arrive.  Last year we did not receive the cards when they were mailed for the primary (I telephoned and was told we should have received them and confirmed where we should go to vote) and we brought the one from the year before to help us figure out where to go in the room.  (Mysteriously they did arrive, several months late, before the actual election.)  Normally when we get the new cards I shred the old ones and throw them out - but they “reside” in this folder.

In past years in going through the records to be shed from the older year, I have found interesting items such as paper items from our 25th anniversary stay at a Colonial Williamsburg restored tavern - I did not keep any longer, but it was nice to remember the stay.  (Yes, one can stay in restored houses and taverns on streets within the restoration as part of their hotels.  It is rather pricey by our standards and this was the only time we did so - and even then, we stayed there for 3 nights during a reenacting weekend and stayed at a regular - much cheaper - hotel the rest of the stay.)  This time I could tell by various papers and checks I found that this was the year husband quit his job (which is when I thought he did).   Hard to believe that 10 years has passed.

Oh - you may wonder why 9 years in boxes - why not an even 10?  Two reasons.   The boxes were sold in packages of 3 boxes.  Also I can fit 9 boxes on top of the closet in our office, but not 10.  I figure that with the current year I have 10 years of records for taxes - and with scanning - even more.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

How do your store your old records?  Presuming that you are in the U.S. you need to keep at a bare minimum 3 years of records for income taxes.  Ten are generally recommended.  IRS and states can generally audit you or say that there is an error for 3 years after you file a tax return, 7 years if after the due date if you do not file a return.  (General rule - states can always have their own laws.)

I know that in the past our state has had “amnesty” periods when one can file a tax return which one has not filed and/or pay any taxes owed and apply to have any penalties on that amount waived so that one only pays the tax and interest (and sometimes one does not even have to pay the interest).  I know that clients, as well as us, have received notices during these amnesty periods for return which were filed and paid.  When I contacted the state about it being too long after the returns were filed and paid as no notices were receive before and it was past the 3 or even the 7 years I always got the same response - “We mailed you notices and we do not know why you did not get them so the action was started within the required 3 years.” 

As a result of this I tell clients to keep all payments for taxes forever.  This is the checks which pay estimated taxes or the final payment, W2 forms with withholding.  1099 forms of any type which have taxes withheld (these are the forms you receive in January for interest, dividends, stocks etc sold, amounts you received from pensions IRAs or 401k plans etc), Forms K1 from partnerships, small business corporations or LLCs, etc.  You can scan in them into your computer to keep them or keep them as paper copies or both.  I keep copies of same of ours.

A NEW YEAR

Another week already?  Seems hard to believe.  We had a quiet New Year’s Eve at home and then went out to Ikea for dinner on New Year’s Day.

Since then I have been doing my regular chores while archiving last year’s computer files.  I transfer the files from last year to an archive drive.  When I am done with what has to be archived at this point I will make 2 DVD copies of the archive drive for backup and then update the archive files on my “offsite” drives (the ones I take to the bank vault each month) so I have additional updates of the archive files.  Not all the files can be archived right now - I will wait to do my bank recs this month so the year end rec is in the 2016 records.  I will archive my Quickbooks files after I close them out for the year, which will take a couple of months to do the taxes.  After I have the archive copies made I will remove the matching 2016 data from my data file.             

I had decided that my good china was in the wrong spot in the cabinet over the stove and needed to come down a shelf - those dinner plates seem to have gained some weight and gotten heavier over the years.  When I put away the dishes after New Year’s I thought it a good time to deal with this.  I took everything off the bottom shelf and brought the china down from the middle (of 3) shelves.  I then went through the rest of what was on the 2 bottoms shelves (I can’t reach the top shelf without a ladder - I was on a chair - so it had to weight).  I looked at each item and thought about when I had used it last, if I would use it, could I buy one if I decided I needed it if I got rid of it, and a number of pieces were not put back in the cabinet.  Today I took them to Goodwill and donated them.  I am trying to find stuff to get rid of and take to Goodwill each month on the day I have my embroidery club and go out alone - husband always insists we need to keep whatever I am donating, so best not to have him along (although I am not taking his stuff to donate, which I would never donate without his permission - only what is mine or basically mine, such as the kitchen stuff).

Husband has a craft business through an online site.  Somehow I missed his renewal of about 15 items in mid December and never changed my records to match up to the end of month statement of fees charged. We had a sale on January 1 (we have few sales in general and we hope this is a good sign for 2017).  When I found out that I missed the renewals I found out that we did not sell the item listed in July, but the relisted item in December and had to fix the inventory records.  (We accountants actually like this sort of stuff so while it is boring to you, it is fun to me, if annoying that I had to do it to close out last year’s inventory.)

I also received an email from our reenacting group that we needed paperwork done for an event coming up soon.  I managed to get that done and out.

My embroidery chapter president had me send out a notice that a project we had been working on needs to be done by the Wednesday meeting - on Tuesday.  I forwarded out the message and finished my part of the project.  At the meeting I found out that I was suppose to do something on the piece, which I did not know and now have to get it finished again, as soon as possible (notice that I am not working on it, but writing my blog.

I had a half hour waste of time returning plastic bottles.  There were two women in the bottle room who did not seem to completely understand the set up.  They would put a small plastic watr bottle in the plastic bottle machine.  The machine would reject it. (Don’t know why.)  They would try again with the same result - then try putting it in the can machine.  They were putting cans in the can machine which were not deposit cans - I could tell by what they were for.  Again they would try twice and then put the can in the plastic bottle machine!  Then they would again try the bottle/can in the correct machine to have it rejected again.  I go to this location as normally no one is there as it is hidden away and the supermarket next to this “big box store” has a bottle room adjacent to the entrances to both stores and tends to pick up most of the business.  One of the other plastic bottle machines was out of order and the last one was full.  Not wanting to be the always complaining customer, I waited for the machine.  They finally gave up.  I put a bottle in the machine, then a second one - machine full.  I started towards the store entrance and 2 employees approached.  I followed them back into the bottle room and asked if either could deal with the machines - no, but they said they would call.  10 minutes later, no one had come and they were gone.  I headed into the store and asked for someone to be sent to the bottle room.  10 minutes after that I gave up and went to the supermarket bottle room.  I walked in to the room - no line coming through the door and looked at the people with carts full of small water bottles.  A woman nastily said to me that there was a line for the machines.  It was too crowded for me anyway and I left - outside there was a line of shopping carts filled with more water bottles!  I was about to head back into the store when I saw an employee who asked me if I was the one waiting for the bottle room and he went and emptied the 2 full machines.  I was surprised at who it was.  It was an older gentlemen, who is normally at the door of the store as one goes in.  He has an excellent sense of humor - I think he used to be a comedian - and he was efficient at his job and told some jokes while doing it.  I thanked him and finally got rid of the bottles (maybe 20 of them at most) - about 45 minutes after I started.

After dinner I called my mom.  I love my mom.  She is 87.  She lives alone in the family house.  She has two master’s degrees.  But I can talk forever and so can she - so tonight’s call ran around 3 hours.  Most of it while she was unpacking her food shopping as she was preparing for the huge snow storm coming this weekend - huh?  I try to guide the conversation to subjects that we won’t get into arguments about.  We discussed needlework - the project my group started today and pieces she did decades ago.  My Christmas decorations and the holiday.  New Year’s.  Medicare.  And I don’t know what else. 

When I started this blog my idea was that I would tell people about what I do to organize and how I do it.  I ended up doing a series of posts towards the beginning of the blog about where I put what in my kitchen - something like 3 columns and one or two cabinets later I realized that I was putting myself to sleep.  I then decided to write more about what goes on in my life as I try to get more organized as that seems, to me at least, more interesting.  I have been thinking and decided that to get back onto organizing more formally I will offer a “thought” as opposed to calling it a tip or suggestion on organizing each post.

TODAY’S THOUGHT ON ORGANIZING -
Start with today.  Do something today to take a step towards organizing.  One thing.  Pick up the clothes on the floor and put them in the laundry.  Wash the dishes and put them away.  Go through today’s mail - toss the junk (always shred or rip up anything with your name or address or the name of any of your financial institutions on it first) - decide what to do with the rest - check the bills, mark the date and amount due on the outside of the envelope ( I do this on the end of the envelope and date it for a week before it is actually due) and put them together in date due order somewhere - deal with other important mail now & find a place to keep the mail to be dealt with later.    Clean the cat’s litter box. 

Do any one thing, but do one thing.  Tomorrow do it again.  Do it every day and you will be cutting down on what stacks up for you to do - you will be making your future easier and more organized and then you can start on dealing with the past.

CHRISTMAS FOLLOWUP AND NEW YEAR'S TO COME

Well, Christmas is over.  Did you have a good Christmas?  I will tell you about ours in a little while. 

Did you find all the gifts you had bought to give to people?  I admit it, once when my youngest sister was young (she is 12 years younger than me) my husband and I forgot to bring her gift when we got together with my family for Chanukah - terribly embarrassing and of course we had to get the gift and bring it to her later that week.

I finished decorating our two main trees on Thursday.  I did the rest of the decorating, including a small tree with the brass ornaments we have received as contributors to Colonial Williamsburg over the past few decades - they were taking up too much room on the main tree, we have 2 duplicate ornaments and put one set of them on the main tree and the rest on a small tree in our dining room. 

Friday afternoon I also went to wrap the gifts.  Since we bought few gifts this should be a fairly quick process.  When I can I put our gifts to ourselves into recycled small Christmas gift shopping bags (the bags were received with gifts from others in the old days when we traded gifts with others).  I thought I had plenty of Christmas wrapping paper as I had not made any notes under “Christmas” in my “buy” shopping list in my cell phone.  Oh no!  Just a bit left on one roll.  I had plan to wrap our gifts as husband was busy upstairs and I could wrap the gift I had for him that he did not know about without him seeing it.  Plans changed due to the shortage of wrapping paper.  It was more important to nicely wrap his niece’s gifts.  I laid out the Barbie for one and DVD set for the other on the paper and cut the paper and wrapped the gifts.  I then needed paper to wrap the scarves husband had made them, which I then planned to put into two of the recycled bags.   I laid out the rolled up scarves and cut a large enough piece to go around the larger scarf, which was, of course the thicker of the two rolls.  Luckily, there was plenty to wrap both scarves.  I then went up to talk to husband about the exact wrapping and including a photo with each of the scarf while it was being made.  He got all excited as he was not ready to wrap the scarves and had to print laundry instructions for them.  I told him to calm down and not rush - but of course he did.  While he was doing so I went back down and wrapped in the paper which was left, two of his gifts and used small pieces of the wrapping paper which had been left over in the past to wrap a couple of pieces which I planned to put in his stocking.  The other items, which were small enough, I put into other of gift bags.  I put all 4 of my 4/$1 hair clips in one bag for me.  He came down and we wrapped his nieces gifts.  His gifts and my one gift when into 2 regular paper shopping bags (mixed, I did not take a bag just for my bag of hair clips) and the 4 gifts for his nieces into another paper shopping bag.  Did not want to chance forgetting a gift for a niece as I did with my sister decades ago.  The bags were set aside in the dining room out of the way.           

Saturday afternoon I got ready for Christmas Eve dinner.  I put the ham in the oven and careful read the directions for the other items I was making 3 hours before we planned to eat.

I then took out the ornament I had embroidered for my husband.  I was unhappy with it when it was assembled and decided it needed a decorative edging.  I sat and braided red pearl cotton (a type of thread).  I then stitched the braid around the front edge of the ornament - made it much better looking.  I then wrapped it in tissue paper, having run out of wrapping paper, and added it to the bags of husband’s gifts.  I then returned to my cooking.

One of the things I was making as a side dish is something called dried corn.  This is a Pennsylvania food.  Corn is dried by heat for storage.  When it is cooked it is soaked to bring it back.  In the past we had bought the canned - ready to heat and eat - version.  The one company that makes this item had shut down several years ago and finally someone had bought up the business and was making it again.  When we were in the Lancaster, PA area we had bought the canned version and also a version in a package.  We have made the canned version and it was not what it used to be.  For Christmas we decided to make the packaged version.  This version is just the dried corn itself, so it has to be soaked for use.  I had misread the package and had thought it would be soaking and cooking for an hour and then another 5 minutes after adding milk - oops, it was to soak for an hour and then cook for 40 minutes plus the 5 minutes after adding milk.  Luckily I caught it in time - and hour and 45 minutes would be just about 15 minutes longer than when we would sit down and we were having soup first.  It came out pretty close to what we had before.

We had meat tortellini in chicken broth for the soup.  Not much involved in cooking same, boil the tortellini, add to the chicken broth when same almost heated. 

We had also bought a box of potatoes au gratin.  I had never made this before. I waited until the ham came out as I wanted the ham to set a bit before slicing and eating and the potatoes needed a temperature 25F degrees higher than the ham.  I of course checked the ham with a meat thermometer to make sure it was cooked through.  I followed the instructions for the potatoes.  I took out the size baking dish needed and added the cheese mix plus butter and milk as it said.  I then was to mix with a whisk - uhhh, the size baking dish it called for was completely filled and any mixing would make it run over, so I had to take it out of the baking dish, mix it and then put it back in.  I careful added the dried potatoes to make sure I did not run the cheese mixture out of the baking dish. The box said that the sauce would thicken as it cooked, not really.  I cooked it almost double the time with no luck - and I have a fairly quick oven and the oven had been well preheated by the ham cooking in it.  We had it anyway.

Dinner in the dining room with tablecloth and cloth napkins and the good china and silverware.  3 hours of cooking 45 minutes of eating and then the clean up has to be done.  I had looked up in advance the times for mass.  Several years ago midnight mass was moved to 10 or 11 pm at most of the churches around here.  We found one that still has it at midnight and it is a pleasant church with nicer people than the others.  When I checked the times I found out that there was a midnight mass and also a 10 pm mass.  Husband decided we should go to the 10 pm mass.  (His choice as it is his holiday.)  Clean up had to wait until we returned. 

When it was time for bed husband went up and - spoiler alert -  “Santa” put our gifts under the tree from the bags in the dining room.  So Christmas Eve had gone fairly well.

We go to a family member of husband’s on Christmas Day.  We got there and gave the nieces their gifts - which were lost in the numerous and huge gifts from Santa and other relatives.  Then the host started in on the subject which polite people have been avoiding discussing, especially when they are the host and they know that their guests disagree with them - the election.  Husband got so ill over this discussion that we had to go home and he had to go to bed.  Short Christmas Day.

We are now awaiting New Years.  I am getting ready for the change.  I have made up a list of the todo’s and appointment reminders I need to put into my computer organizer for 2017.  I have some entries which are annual ones and are already in the softwear data through 2020, but the daily, weekly, monthly and so on entries I put in each year as they might change and to keep the file smaller.  On January 1 or 2 I will back up the file for my archive as 2015-2016.  I will then delete the 2015 entries.  I will then add the 2017 entries and I will be ready to go for the new year - and still have this year for reference if needed.  I keep 2 years current each time and back up 2 years each time.  This has worked great for me since the early 2000's. 

We have renewed all our prescriptions so as we start the new medical insurance year, we know that we have a start on it and won’t have to worry about any changes not made in the insurance company’s systems for prescriptions delaying us from a needed renewal.

We don’t have plans for New Year’s Eve yet.  Husband is thinking of finding out if the movie theater we go to will be open then.  Normally we do not do much.  We watch the ball fall here in Manhattan on TV.  No, we have never gone.  It is too big a crowd for us to be happy with in so many ways. 

When I was a girl New Year’s Eve was confusing to me.  I could not understand why it was a bigger deal than the change of any other month.  I would be allowed to stay up until midnight.  At that time “The Tonight Show” was done in New York City by Johnny Carson.  On New Year’s Eve they would do the show live and cut away to the ball drop.  I remember one year it was to be New Year’s Eve on Saturday and I was not sure if they would show the ball drop as the show was only on Monday to Friday.  My parents, correctly, assure me that they would show it. 

Since I am talking about New Year’s and this blog is, at least nominally, about organizing - the question of resolutions has to be mentioned.  I found that I never kept any and felt bad about it.  One year, some decade or so ago, I made my last resolution which was not to make any further resolutions.  I do think over the past year and changes I might like to make or things I might like to do, but I do not make any resolutions - they just cause guilt when they are not kept.

Think of one thing you would like to change to make your life better or easier - and try to do it.  Don’t resolve, just try. 

I am going to try to do a better job of regular cleaning of the house.  I used to be much better at doing so.  When first married in and were in our apartment, husband would come Friday night and fall asleep early after dinner from the week.  I was also working full time then outside the house.  When he went to sleep I would clean the apartment.  As we went along we bought the house and I stopped working outside the house and moved the accounting practice I had taken over from my dad into the house and was therefore in the house more, I started doing the cleaning on Wednesday mornings.  When he left work, I moved it to Wednesday nights.   I am thinking Tuesday nights might be a better choice and will see about it.  It is in my calender as a “todo” and I will schedule it for Tuesdays instead.  I spread the chores over the month - one week upstairs, the next down, repeat.

My best wishes for a wonderful New Year for us all.


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