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

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

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

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

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

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

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

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

DO YOU BACK UP?

You know “the curse” I have been talking about?  Well it hit again.  Due to all of the craziness and lack of time in general plus time lost to the craziness and need to do things over and over, I had not backed up my main computer or my work laptop (the old one, not this new one which is still being slowly fed software) for the last quarter of 2018 - which I would normally have done around January 15 - nor did I do a monthly backup for December either.  So last Friday I decided to do both.  I backed up one computer to the quarterly hard drive and the other to the monthly hard drive at the same time.  All went well.  I also backed up my calendar, client who I have a separate flash drive for, and my data to each.  All went fine.  Saturday we were home as there was to be rain so I backed up each of the computers etc to the opposite drive.  Still all okay. 

I then went to back up for the week.  I have a flash drive which holds 6 weeks of data, client, ad calendar files.  I update the oldest one each week.  This week if the data drive went bad and both of the regular “every session alternately” backups went bad I will have data from a week ago to work with.  I back up with a software program that updates the files already in the file I am updating to.  It finished running while we were out having dinner on Saturday.

When we got home the backup file did not show everything as finished.  There were problems with several older tax client files - this is pdf copies of the returns, info used from the clients and my work papers.  When I opened those files - it was all gibberish.  Husband looked at them and told me that the drive had gone bad and the files were corrupted. 

I did not panic - I have backups and they must be right as the backup program had not had a problem when making them.  The back up from Saturday afternoon had the same corrupted files. I should say that, luckily, I had not gotten around to do any actual work on the computer for a couple of days - checked email, updated calendar, started one letter.  I tried the backup from Friday and it was fine - whew!! 

Husband tried to format the bad drive and it could not be done.  So he broke it with a hammer to dust and threw out the dust.  (Security is important when financial records are involved.)  I had a new, larger flash drive and copied the backup from the day before to that drive.  Husband suggested I use all new drives and change them annually from now on.  I also have an archive drive - I will soon copy my 2018 files into my archive and remove them from the data drive I use to keep it more compact.  Robert suggested that I get a new archive drive also.  When I update the archive drive I also make 2 DVDs of it - one goes into my regular disk box and one goes into my “grab and go” accordion folder.  This holds copies of our house and car titles, stock certificates, last month’s reconciled bank statements, wedding licenses (we actually have 3 - one government, one from each of our religions), medical insurance and the like.  In case of an emergency we can grab this folder and have copies of our important papers to take with us - including DVDs of the archive and of my monthly backup to take offsite. 

So I planned to go on Monday to a MicroCenter - a location of the chain and buy 3 new flash drives - one each for the session backups and a larger one for the archive.  However, while at Costco on Sunday, husband noticed that my laptop dropped $50 in price since we bought it, so Monday we forgot about buying the new drives and went to back to Costco as they will refund the difference with the receipt.  (This is a actually a very good idea.  I could have returned the laptop and bought it again to take advantage of the price drop, and they would be stuck with a used laptop, this way I keep my laptop, am happy to get the lower price, and they don’t have to deal with a used laptop - and extra credit card fees for a return and another purchase.)

So yesterday, Tuesday, we bought the new drives.  I made two new regular backups yesterday of data, client, and calendar files.  I still have to check the hard drive backups and make a weekly backup for last week - though at this point, I will probably not bother and just do this week’s weekly backup on Friday.  I also still have to copy the archive to the new drive.

I feel as if I am not getting anything done. I generally can tell how much I have been getting done by the number of papers I have to file at the end of a week, the number of items I have to mail out, and how deep the dust is in the house (okay, there is always too much dust in the house).

 I have not finished client’s tax return yet - due March 15 - and need to have it finished and go to her with it before then.  I have not heard from my other clients yet - they tend to contact me in March.  I am still trying to get missing papers for our personal returns - one corrected IRA 1099 has not come yet - called yesterday about it - to be sent to us.  I also have not received a corrected summary statement - but that is for something later this year.  I did not get a dividend 1099 either, called up and I am not sure one was sent as the first thing the computer talked about was how much our dividends were and that we don’t need a 1099, but if we want one, they can send “a replacement”.  So hopefully that will come soon.  I know the amounts for all of these and can do the return without them, but need the paperwork for the same thing later in the year.  We have two business returns to do for ourselves. One is due March 15 also and has no income - it is inactive, but we don’t want to close it down.  So yesterday, just to get something done I did the inactive company’s tax returns.  Well, something is done at least. 

And - husband is thinking about going to a woodworking show out of state this weekend - which means Friday as we have the annual party for our reenactment unit on Sunday so we cannot go then and we cannot get up early enough to do that on Sunday and go to the woodworking show on Saturday.  We will see.  This was a nice show, but the venue it was in was closed and it moved to one that is not at all convenient to deal with.  (A quilt show at the same old venue moved elsewhere and was awful and is no more.)

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
BACK UP!  No, not away from the computer.  Make sure that you are doing backups of at least important data and things like your important photos.  We don’t use “the cloud” for anything including backup as another name for the cloud is “someone else’s hard drive, which is more attractive to hack than yours as they will get so much more” and most of the cloud drives have been hacked.  An external hard drive is fairly reasonable to get and one can back up to it on a weekly or monthly basis if they don’t need to back up as often I do.  (Remember a lot of this is work stuff I am backing up.)  An external drive would also let you take the drive with you in an emergency. 

VERY FRUSTRATING WEEK

We had a very frustrating week.  Husband has been weaving a scarf for me.  He is using a yarn that he had used before - lighter in weight than most yarns he works with and thinner.  I like a light weight scarf.  He bought a skein each of light and dark blue - my favorite color.

The first sign that this project was not going to be as simple to do as past weaving projects was when we set up loom to do the weaving.  To do this we have to run long pieces of yarn which are attached to the loom on each of the two ends of the pieces of yarn and stretched out tight between them.  When we did this we saw something we have never seen before. The yarns pieces, parallel to each other, were pushing away from each other - static electricity.  Remember, he has used this yarn before.  We ignored this and went ahead.  There are various other steps to setting up the yarn to be woven through and they were hard to do as the pieces of yarn kept pushing away from each other. 

Well, this is a bit like the frustrating things which happen when we try to organize and declutter.  Dividers we know will fit in a space do not.  We start doing one part of a project and find ourselves led into another project.  But, we carry on trying to get the end of the project.My part in the weaving is done after the loom is set up and I left husband to work. 

The easy part of the weaving follows - the actual weaving.  Yarn wrapped around a long piece of wood - the shuttle - is pushed through the yarn pieces that have been tied onto the loom.  Then the yarn that has been taken through is pushed against what has already been woven in a process called “beating”.  Then the yarn pieces on the loom are switched so what was up is now down and vice versa and the process is repeated.  On the kind of loom my husband has - with a solid bar that the yarns on the loom have been tied through to lift them up and down - the same bar is used to beat the yarn after each pass - the yarn passing through alternate holes and slots in the bar. 

Husband, upset, comes upstairs.  He is having a problem.  Apparently the yarn that he was using is yarn wrapped around a core thread - we did not know this.  At one spot on one piece of tied on yarn the wrapping had unwrapped and was being pushed backwards as he used the bar as a beater - a bunch of fluff sitting on the wrong side of the bar.  We managed to get the fluff through to the right side and he glued it in place not knowing what else to do and left it to dry.

Again, similar to doing organizing - if we hit a snag (which is what this was) we try to fix it and move on. 

The glue was not enough to hold the wrapped yarn in place, so we repeated getting it through to the right side and then husband kept weaving, but used a large comb as a beater - needing to repeat this several times across the loom for each cross thread being woven. 

Along the way a second spot on the same yarn had the same problem.  We again pulled it through and glued it into place and husband kept working with the comb. 

Well sure, we have all had the same problem repeat - perhaps magazines which are sorted for storage and then additional magazines are found and they all have to be sorted again.

Finally all of the problem yarn was woven into the piece.  Husband looked and the rest of the yarn he could see looked fine and he relaxed and went back to his regular manner of weaving.  Happy that he was making something for me and it would be greatly appreciated.

Suddenly he is back upstairs.  The same problem on the same yarn piece has appeared again in a new spot!  At this point he could not deal with it and he decided that the piece had to be finished, even if it was not long enough to be a scarf. 

Frustration - we all know this feeling when organizing - what we think will work does not.  The time we think something will take is underestimated.  Mostly we go on, but sometimes something is so impossible that we have to stop and figure out an alternative.

I know the work he had put into the piece and how disappointed he was that something he was making special for me did not work out.  I figured I would take the short piece when it is finished, and use it a table runner or mat (depending on how long it is).  It turned out to be long enough for me to use as a scarf - although it will get a bit smaller when it is finished (washed to set it), so I will be able to use it as scarf and show it off to friends as something special he has made for me.

Again, sometimes an idea we have had about how to organize something does not work out - and we must rethink what can be done - how the containers or dividers can be repurposed to be used.

Yesterday we set up the loom for a new project for him - with a more basic yarn which he uses much more often.  He has been happily weaving since then.

Similarly, if a project to improve our organization goes awry we must go on and continue doing what else is needed for us to clear clutter away and organize.

He had bought 2 other skeins of the yarn that he had problem with in other colors (it was a sale) and I have pulled the receipt for them and we will be returning them.  After all, if they stayed around and he would not feel comfortable using them, we would just be adding to the clutter in the house in addition to being out the cost of them.

Just to add to this week’s frustration, we are suppose to go to a woodworking show (he is a man of many crafts) this weekend.  The show is in the next state and is here only once a year.  While he does not buy much - if anything - he had in mind to buy a few very small, inexpensive items which are not sold locally (and we don’t like to order things) and it is something different to do and see.  So far in this year’s planning to go we have dealt with it being moved to a different venue - not an easy one to get to - and the fact that there seems to be no place nearby for a quick, cheap lunch - found a place 15 minutes away, we hope - and now - the rain and wind storm that is coming may also have - snow.  Snow would be a deal breaker and he would have to miss the show - or what is known around here as the typical end to a planned trip.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -           

Frustrating things happen.  Things go wrong.  All we can do is look at what went wrong and what we can do to deal with what happened.  It is life and it just must be dealt with.  Sometimes the alternatives are better than the original idea - based on the length of the finished scarf, if he had made the entire scarf he planned, it would have been much longer than I wanted - sometimes they are not.