VACUUM FOLLOWUP AND KEEPING TRACK OF WHAT HAS TO BE DONE

 Saturday night last week husband had an idea.  He took one of our older vacuum cleaners, opened the bottom of it and took out the roller.  He then plugged it in and tried to vacuum with it – it works fine without the roller – no roller, no hair problem.  We did find out, which I am sure we knew and forgot over the years since it was used, that the on/off switch is broken on the old vacuum – it is on if it is plugged in – better than being turned off when plugged in.  

We returned the other vacuum we bought.

Husband figured out how to attach hose and floor shaped piece to a small wet dry vacuum we have.  Between the two – we can vacuum as much as we need to.  We only have 3 rooms (office, studio, and teddy bears' room – aka spare bedroom)which have carpet so the floors mostly do not need the roller brush that is the problem with the hair.

And if he will use the vacuum cleaners – yippee for me.  I mostly do the cleaning in the house (and in the RV).

Speaking of our little RV – we went out today with a print out of the list of what we need to have in it for a trip.  While we pushed our July 4th trip back to last week and then pushed it off until July 4th, 2022, we still want to get it ready for a trip, even if only a day trip.  (Moved it back to next July as easier than calling each time we decide we are not ready to travel plus we know we have a reservation for then as they normally fill months in advance.  We can make reservations for trips between now and then as we go along and decide we are going.)

In normal times we keep a lot of common items in the RV – hand soap, shampoo, dish soap, suntan lotion, toilet paper, paper towels…  In March 2020 when husband was in a panic over the coming pandemic and lack of available items in stores, we took many of these items into the house in case we needed them.  Oddly, when he looked through quickly a few weeks ago the holder piece for the toilet paper holder was missing and we bought a new one as we knew we had NOT taken that into the house.  

I have the list and check it before each trip we take just to be sure.  Much of it is items we pack for specific trips – clothing, jackets, shoes (though we keep slippers in the RV), snacks, chargers for everything we bring, plastic bags of all types and sizes, and so on.  In this case we were just checking what items normally stored in the RV we need to replace.  I made notations on the paper as we ran down it.  We found out we need to buy new toilet liquid (goes into the tank to help dissolve the tp and get rid of odors and help make what goes into it into “liquid”).  I put it on the shopping list.  

So now we know (though I am sure we will miss something) what has to go back in in addition to what we put in for each trip.  

In addition to the check list mentioned above, I also have a small checklist of what we need to make sure that when we leave our RV space each day we have done what we need to do – disconnected and put away the electricity connection and the cable wire which we use to connect the RV to the connections in the site.  I also list the water/toilet connections although we generally don't use the water connections at all (we fill the clean water tanks before leaving home) we do need to “dump” the sink and toilet water tanks before we leave our last morning at the campsite (on longer trips also during the trip once or twice).  I have reminders to check that curtains are open around the RV (closed at night for privacy), decorations we put out have been taken and stored, things inside the RV are shut off and put away in place so they don't move about while driving – don't want a plastic box coming at one's head if one has to stop short for example.  Jackets and sweatshirts back in place on the third seat and seat belt around them to keep them there.  Cabinets have to closed and the closures snapped closed to hold them close while driving and so on.  I have all these items listed on this smaller checklist and I check off each item or note that it was needed to be needed that morning with an “X”.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you do something repeatedly – make yourself a check list of what you need to do it.  I use a computer spreadsheet – easy to change if needed and easy to print out when needed.  

ITS THE LITTLE THINGS GOING WRONG WHICH TAKE UP OUR TIME

 Sorry for posting so many days late.  

As I have mentioned in other recent posts, for some reason husband and I are going through a period of one small problem after another.  None are life changing, but it is a constant thing.  As soon as everything is dealt with and I think I can ease up - something else goes wrong.  

This past week I managed to mostly put to rest the problems of dealing with the renewals for both organizations of which I am treasurer and I started to breath normally again.

We went for our second meal out of the house (lunch at a different Wendys).  The plan was to go to two major stores near the Wendys and buy some plumbing items for our RV and some paper goods and two food items for which we had coupons from the other store. 

We went to the store for the plumbing items - they did not have them.  We had lunch.  We went to the other store and were able to buy all the items  - except for some reason they do not carry the paper towels which their main office had on sale.  A quick stop home to put the food in the fridge and we were off to another are where both chains had stores.  We were able to get one of the two plumbing items husband needed at one and the paper towels at the other.  We then drove past our house to a different chain's store to buy the needed plumbing piece.  An entire day gone - again.

Yesterday (Saturday) husband suggested we change the registration sticker for our RV as it comes due in early July.  I don't have it.  I checked my records of what has come in the mail.  (Life has been so confusing that all non-junk mail is listed in a computer spreadsheet with date received and date opened (as husband has me wait 3 days with the mail in a sealed plastic bag before opening.) We have not received the registration.  

I keep track (for years) of when outgoing mail is posted in my organizer files.  I did mail out the registration and payment.  Our van renewed a month ago - it took 20 days from when I mailed the renewal until we received the registration (based on my records mentioned). It is now almost a full month since I mailed the registration for the RV.  I called our bank and checked on its computer - the check has not yet been cashed.  UH OH!

Now in normal times this would involve a trip to the DMV, enough of a problem.  But our DMV offices are only open with an appointment and there are very limited things that one can make an appointment for - where is my registration (or even, I need to renew my vehicle) is not one of them.  

I could check the status of the renewal online - but I would have to open an account for my husband and we don't want to put all the information they ask for online.  Sooo, I will be spending tomorrow - Monday - on the phone trying to find out what to do.  There goes tomorrow!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is amazing how little things can mess up our lives.  Breath deep and keep working away at them. 

COVID 19 #3 - GETTING BILLS PAID IN NEW WAYS

I have mentioned that I am in an embroidery club.  We meet the first Wednesday of the month except in summer.  I reserve for the group the room at a local park in which we meet.  This is done in November for the coming year.  When I saw that the April meeting would be today – April Fools Day – I wondered what might happen.  I never dreamed that we would not be meeting due to a pandemic – or even just an epidemic.  I hope that all of you and your families continue to stay safe and well.

We are learning bit by bit about how to deal with the threat of  COVID 19 as I am sure most to all of you are also.  Every time I touch something to use it – my husband gets upset that we will use up all of whatever it is I go to touch so I have been figuring out how to do more with less and alternatives for consumable items that I normally use without thinking about it.

Luckily we did manage to buy an extra huge package of toilet paper just as the emergency was becoming obvious – husband, as I have said panics easily – so he has not started rationing same.

We have a lot of paper towels  - but did not think to buy extra when we could.  We have started packages of both full and half sheet paper towels.  (And as I always mention to him – a started and a full roll out in our RV – we have spares of most household items there – including at least 2 started and 2 full rolls of TP.)  But he did not like that I was using a half sized sheet each meal to wash the dishes – this quickly became one half sheet for the day's dishes.  I offered to go back to using a sponge to wash the dishes (we had stopped same last summer when we had ants) but he did not like that either and told me to stay with one half sheet a day.  Then looking in the cabinet under my kitchen sink I had an idea.  I keep several old kitchen towels there to use for things like wiping up a mess, covering the front of the sink/counter when husband washes his hair in the sink, etc. I took one of them – actually a rag by now – and thought about it.  I pulled out a pair of shears and cut it in 6 pieces (smaller would be too small).  I now have a small dish rag to wash the dishes , etc – as well as wipe up spills  - I change it every day and throw the piece from the day before in the towel laundry bag in the kitchen.  They actually work pretty well – they are “bumpy” so they scrub a bit.  I cut 2 more pieces off another towel, leaving the rest of it intact – for now.

I normally do laundry on Wednesday night (while writing to you) and sometimes more than one night is needed so Thursday sometimes also.  The downstairs laundry bag almost always holds nothing but towels (sometimes a sock wet from the rain or similar might end up in there also).  My upstairs laundry bag holds clothes, bedding and towels to be washed.  I put a second bag upstairs for just towels.  I normally change all the towels on Monday, the hand towels in the 2 bathrooms again on Thursday, so each time they are used for about half a week, and the kitchen towels again on Wednesday and on Friday.  Now all towels are changed every other day – so the towel laundry is now done on a day that changes as I do so every 3 changes of towels – hence the need for a special bag for them upstairs.

Last weekend I went online and signed up to have our mail forwarded from our Post Office Box to our house.  No more late Sunday night runs there to get the mail – I forgot which hand was for touching mail items and doors and which was never suppose to do either once too often for husband and was annoyed at having to do so – and we wore plastic gloves on both hands.  Our only trips there now will be at night to mail out items that have to go out – and they will go in the mail boxes outside the Post Office.  I only take in the mail at our house 3 times a week – Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  The mail goes into a sealable plastic bag and I spray Lysol into it – the bag then sits until the matching day of the next week – once our mail starts coming here on the forwarding, it will not sit that long as it will already be 7 -10 days additional time in the mail – and bills cannot wait that long.  These procedures are to make husband less terrified – not recommended by anyone.

Bills – I thought we would be okay.  We are both on Social Security and most of our income comes from same.  Our payments are deposited in our checking account and ready for use.  Luckily within the past year  I had changed our Social Security to go into our checking account instead of our savings account where it used to go.  Well, we ran into two problems with our bills. 

First, I realized last week that we had to pay our electric bill – and did not have the money to do so in our checking account.  In normal times we would have gone and transferred money from somewhere – perhaps some extra cash that we ended up with in the house after one of our few trips would be deposited back in the bank or we would transfer it from savings – but we are not going out and not going to the bank to do so.  I realized that we could pay the electric bill with a credit card – we never do this, but since we pay all of our credit card bills in full in monthly, there is no interest that will do on same. 

We use one credit card for rare online, mail, phone order purchases or recurring items that have to be credited to a credit card – it has only has $1000 line of credit due to what it is used for – did not want to tie up that line with an amount equal to the electric bill.  So I decided to put the electric bill on one of the cards that we do not normally use at all – I use it once a year to keep it active for, generally, an under $5 purchase.  I was concerned that using it pay of a couple of hundred dollars of electric bill all of a sudden might get rejected.  So I figured that I would call the credit company in advance and let them know. I started calling Monday early afternoon.  I would be told by their computer that they have an unusually large number of calls and to please be patient.  I understood this and was prepared to be patient.  The computer kept trying to get me to use their website instead – I don't do financial things online unless there is ABSOLUTELY no other way to do it.  I started to wait.  I was then told to call back later and the computer hung up on me.  I called again and tried to use the computer – same thing.  I tried several times during the afternoon (no where to go anyway) and again in the evening.  No luck.  I waited until 12:05 (the next day) and then called, figuring how much “later” could one call and also that it was night it in the most US and that hopefully there were different offices to handle customers in other countries – after all on the back of my credit card it said that it was “24 hour number”.  It seemed to work.  This time I was told to hold – and I did – I was prepared to hold as long as needed.  At 1:05 am a message came on telling me the office was now closed and I should call back – yes, - later.  Now how can a 24 hour office be closed?  I thought about this and applying some logic – perhaps they switched to the next office in the time line and if I called again I could be hold with that office.  So I called again.  To my shock the call was transferred almost immediately after I spoke to the computer to a LIVE PERSON!!  I managed to make the arrangements with her to have no problem with paying my electric bill with their credit card.  Now as annoyed as I was, I knew that these are rare circumstances, though I was a bit po'd at the treatment that I had received – but thought that all the credit companies might be like this.  Yesterday, I called the electric company and paid the bill with the credit card – by the time the credit card bill comes in – our Social Security will have done so also.

I keep our bills organized with Quickbooks – the repeating bills (even for credit cards that we do not normally use) come up in the QB calendar  two weeks before they are normally due – a week to remind me to pay in a week and I pay them and mail them a week before they are do.  Normally I am in our Quickbook files almost daily.  But since we don't want to go out more often than we need to, I have been paying bills in advance of when they are due if we have the money in the account, so I am not in QB that often.  Today I decided to go into the file and take a look.  GOOD THING!  Our cable/Internet bill has not come and is due next week – and suffers from the same problem as our electric bill!  I tried calling our cable company today – they are taking no calls – we are to do everything through the website as the telephone system is overrun also.  I need a week delay from them to pay the bill and knew that under the current conditions it would be given.  Husband signed into the cable company's website and tried to get to “chat” to talk to someone about this.  The chat must have been jammed – it would not even all the way!  So, again, knowing that there is someone there 24 hours a day (to help in case Internet or TV goes down – they tell one to pull the electric cord and plug it back – as if we have not that already) I waited until after dinner.  I then signed into their website again.  In the interim while I cooked dinner husband had played around and found a COVID 19 part of the site with a chat.  I had to wait about 10 minutes but a very nice fellow came on the chat – I explained that we needed an extension to pay until April 15 and he told me that there is automatic 60 day extensions on all payments – matter resolved.

In the middle of sitting and making these long extended time phone calls and website connections, yesterday was my mom's 91st birthday.  Of course we cannot visit her.  My sister who is younger than me and lives near the assisted living residence mom is in, went and left a cake and flowers for mom on a car the residence has outside for items to be left to be given to one's family in the residence.  I tried telephoning my mom – I called her 7 times,  She is barely and rarely allowed out of her room these days due to COVID 19.  I even tried yelling a message when her answering machine picked up – she does not check for messages, but I hoped she would hear me and pick up (and I had proof that I tried to call her).  How could she not be in her room?  I later contacted my sister and she told me mom had a bad stomach and did not feel well and went to bed early.

When I did not reach mom the first time I called her yesterday I called a client and friend as I had sent her email about the need to file her 2016 tax return or she would lose her refund (no one says the deadline before same goes is lost has changed) – so I also spent time on the phone with her.

So instead of getting lots things done for work and in the house  - I am spending time on the phone and online dealing with problems!  But I do get to go outside to the front of the house and take in mail tomorrow and then I get to open last week's bag of mail – yippee!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – This too shall pass as all things do.  The important thing is for all to stay well – stay home if you can and be careful if you have to go out.  I only have a few followers on this group – I can't afford to lose any you!

REORGANIZING AND CLEARING OUT THE LINEN CLOSET

That was a short week!

I am starting a new project.  We have a linen closet in our upstairs hall.  We keep what I presume is normal stuff in it – towels, bed linens, cleaning supplies, band aids + related, spare shampoo, spare soap, spare Diabetic supplies, and the like.  It had been fairly well organized, but suddenly it just doesn't work any longer.  This is not a large closet – similar to our other closets – about 2 feet across and a little less in depth.  It is one of our closets that has the roof line coming down through the ceiling so the ceiling is not flat.

Mostly the problem is in the towels – somehow they no longer seem to fit.  I started looking through them to try to figure what the problem is.  I remembered that we have 2 bath sheets with our name embroidered on them.  When we were first married a local store was doing the embroidery and it was something that “everyone” was doing.  The towels are also red  (white embroidery) which is not my favorite color.  These two towels are on the shelf below our other towels and behind the spare mattress cover.  I pulled the towels out for now I will bag them (in clear bag so I know what it is in it) and store, if they fit, on the top shelf of the closet – in the back of same. 

We have too many of our other bath sized towels also.  I figure if I keep 4 of the bath size and 2 each of the size each of us uses for our hair plus 2 towels for the top of the cart in the bathroom (we have no counter and made the cart instead) where they can be reached and store the rest of the towels away – and one set of each will be in use and one set stored.  In case you were wondering – husband likes a towel on top of the cart so if he drops anything – on them nothing will break – he tends to drop a lot of things lately.

I will refold the larger towels in thirds so I can get 4 rows of towels on the shelf.  I have been rolling the hand towels and will continue to do so – I will keep all of them available as I change them twice a week and have 5 sets in each bathroom (downstairs half bathroom has its towels in the cabinet under the sink there). 

We have set of wire small shelves that hangs inside the door of this closet to hold bottles and things. I am going to go through the assortment of started and upstarted shampoos and lotions on the shelves and get rid of them.  That will allow us to store some of other things on the shelves more safely – we both get hit in the head by bandaid packages that are stacked on each other above the height of the front of the shelves and fall on us.  I am sure that there a lot of other items on these shelves that can be tossed out. 

I might even find a place to hang the roll paper towels which wanders around in this closet.  I have gone through the top shelf (where the extra towels will go) before and gotten rid of excess items from up there but I am sure that there are more items to get rid.

Other than the top shelf, towel shelf, and bedding shelf I have a half depth shelf below them which holds cleaning supplies.  The bottom of the closet is where our laundry hangs (off the half depth shelf above it) and where we keep spare toilet paper and boxes of tissues.  I also have 4 wire hanging shelves.  Two of them hang from the bedding shelf.  One has our spare pillow cases and the other has older spare pillowcases – just in case they are needed.  We do have a single bed in the spare bedroom and some of these spare pillow cases are for it (bed has sheets on it and spare blanket for it would be one of the twin bed blankets we use in the RV and in winter in our bed for extra warmth).  The other two hanging shelves hold spare medical items and small items – which hopefully will fit in the shelves on the inside of the door.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Try to find a small area to work on – especially if it is one that you know has stuff you can get rid of.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO ALL OF YOU.