In preparing for the old refrigerator to leave and the new one to come in - the first time - we had to make room for the crew to bring the fridges through the house. Being lazy - plus going away in the middle - we left the house as it was after the first new fridge - until the second one was here and installed.
I am not so much talking about moving clutter as moving furniture and household items in common usage. We have a small house. The new fridges had to come in the front door go to the left into the living room, close the front door, then double back in the opposite direction into the dining room through a doorway. We took the floor mats out of the front hall - put in living room. We have a standing chest for our good silver/tableware - it blocks the doorway into the dining room. It had to be moved - which we did, moving it further into the dining room. A wooden box with husband’s reenacting gun stuff that is kept under the silver chest also had to be moved into the room. We set up in the dining room a table which we take when go to reenactments to set up some stuff we put out for education and sales at events to put stuff from the kitchen/fridge on. So this gave a wide pathway through the dining room into the kitchen. What is on your fridge? We have 4 magnetic pockets on ours - one each with stuff to take when we go out, one with pencils and pens (and emery board) and one with papers which we need in the kitchen - maybe a dozen recipes or package instructions and other items. Magnets that hold our keys - 2 each. Magnetic calculator. Decorative magnets which hold small items. On the front of the fridge we added 2 years ago a large dry erase calendar - we use it to keep track of TV shows we want to watch since seasons no longer run as long as they used to - held on with magnets. Much of this went onto the table we set up in the dining room - the small magnets and the, oh, forgot to mention, the clippers I keep on the side of the fridge near the stove, held with magnets and potholders hanging on magnets went into a plastic basket that is normally next to the silver chest in the dining room - it normally holds items we have bought or received in the mail that we are concerned may have bed bugs and we need to heat in our Packtite heater until we have enough items to run it - this basket went into our studio behind the office with the magnets in it, and during the following week the items we wanted to heat were added. (Doing laundry and running the Packtite as I write to you.) The food that did not actually need to be in a fridge - soda, condiments, beer (hey, we did not even know we had beer), and the like took over the one open kitchen counter area. Our kitchen chairs were in the back room during the time(s) they were actually moving the fridges. Things were so confused that the first time I went to cook after all this, I stuck my hand out (by habit) to grab a potholder - and there were not only no potholders - but no hook for them either and I could not for the life of me remember where they all went. (I used a kitchen towel as a pot holder.) If I had to write something down no pen or pencil, no paper?) Leaving the house - where the heck are our keys? A couple of days after the second fridge was put in place and we knew it was staying we started putting stuff back. We also were adding back the soda, condiments, and such to the fridge - a little bit at a time to keep the temperature in the fridge from going up. I filled plastic bottles with water. It is recommended that the fridge be kept half full and we generally don’t have that much in it - and certainly we don’t now. So bottles filled with water are going in. We found out that the drawers stay a little warmer than the rest of the fridge, so husband’s insulin pens will go in there as too cold is more of a problem than them being a bit warmer than the food needs to be.
Then it hit us. Our reenactment unit’s big event at our headquarters would be on Sunday (this past). We needed the table we had set up. We needed access to 2 large box/benches that we bring for storage - and where the heck are the folding seats we have we bring with us? So we did a lot of putting back quickly - the silver chest and goes under it, as well as what was on the table. We broke down the table- the legs unscrew - and put the legs together in their carrier. We took out the box benches to the middle of the room so I could sort through - make sure we had what we needed for this event and not bring things we did not - this including checking that we had money for change if we sold anything and setting my embroidery so I could work on the area I intended to stitch without taking out anything modern. Husband packed a small loom he was taking with what he needed to work with it at the event. This all went out into our van on last Friday - Saturday was to be rain and we did not want to load it all in the rain if we could avoid it. Event went extremely well - hot day, but bearable, good sized crowd - no rain. Everything from the event is back in place in the house.
Yesterday we went and visited my mom. She has moved into what is called the “assisted living” building at the facility she has been in. My sister’s plan had been for mom to go to same for a few weeks so mom would realize that she cannot be home alone and then move mom home with her and then into an apartment with aides. Mom has liked it here so much that as of now we plan for to stay as long as the money can be found for her to do so. (It is not cheap.) It is the same group/agency as the one that runs the physical rehab she was in and it seems a wonderful place. We had not visited since her move to assisted living until yesterday. She has a small apartment - tiny main room with microwave and fridge and kitchen cabinets (no stove). It is set up to put one’s own TV and attach to the cable. It comes with a love seat and chair, as well as table and 2 chairs. (My sister plans to bring the living room chairs from mom’s house and get her a drop leaf table.) There is a good sized bedroom for one it is - another TV cable connection in same - she has a small TV for right now. The bathroom has a walk in - no lip shower and seat to use in same. Very nice, very modern, and housekeeping will keep it clean for her. She has a key and locks the apartment when she leaves. There are pull strings in case of emergency to get help. Talk about an efficient setup that is nice. Her meals are included so the cooking/fridge are just extra or if she wants to cook for herself. The breakfast is served too early for her and instead they bring cold cereal and muffin for breakfast to her apartment. There are trips - including shopping and entertainment trips that one can sign up for. They will take her to the doctor. Of course, she can go out with us whenever she wants and I am pretty sure she could call an Uber, Lyft or cab to go out if she wanted. Movies in a theater twice every day. Other programs are in a large space which also functions for religious services. My sister has decorating plans for it for mom with items from the house. Husband and I were highly impressed. The halls look like one is in a hotel. We were very impressed. She has made friends already which is good as before she sat home alone. The apartment is a model of efficiency and organization.
On the other hand the family now has to go through the house and deal with everything in it. My sisters, their husbands and the adult children of one of them started last weekend. (We couldn’t go as we were at the reenactment event. I have to clear out the stuff left in the last bedroom I used in the house (and maybe in the other bedroom I used for awhile) and help with the rest of the house. Since the house was hit by Hurricane Sandy the basement is empty. I am actually glad of same now, as the toys down there would have been the hardest to go through and get rid of it. I am not sure what is still in my old bedroom, but I think I can deal with it okay. I let my sisters know that I embroidered a tablecloth when in high school and when I got married I could not find it - I gave a description and told them that if they came across it to hold onto it for me. I am lucky that one of my sisters has a plan for items that are not toss, donate or take - but try to sell as they are of value and will follow her suggestions.
Today the monitor we ordered for me came in. I like it much better than the one we bought quickly at Walmart - it is squarer (more similar to my old one) and it can be turned vertical for when I am reading pages so I can see the full page. We are not sure we may return the one we had bought for me or we may keep it in case we have another problem like this and need a spare monitor that is easy to move around.
So last night - husband’s computer started shutting itself down while he was working on it. We spent most of this afternoon pulling it out from under his work table, clearing off a space on the top of one file cabinets for it stay now. We opened it and vacuumed it out. (He read that too much dust in it would make it overheat and shut down.) We then rewired everything so instead of connecting to the computer on the right side of his desk on the floor, it does on the left hand side of his desk on the file cabinet. We may be getting rid of a printer that is rarely used and was where the computer now is. Some small items have to be rearranged - including a label maker that may end up on top of our secondary printer and then be moved when that printer is needed.
Weather is very hot - over 91F today - and humid (thunderstorm tonight), plus everything we had to do - and I never even checked email yesterday - so we stopped at the supermarket while we were out and bought sliced deli turkey for us and potato salad for husband - added to bread in the house and turkey gravy we bought yesterday made a quick relatively cool dinner. We normally have soup with dinner, but skipped it tonight.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Oh, so many this week -
Make dinner quick and easy, even if it costs more than normal dinner, when you need to.
Just because a facility is a care facility does not mean that it cannot be nice. (Oh, I forgot, mom had her hair cut and dyed today - first time in year. She looks 20 years younger than she did before - she is 90, but to be honest, husband and I both liked her hair better how it was.) One has to be open to what help one needs as hard as it is to admit to needing it and moving to have the help.
Keep your computer clean - outside and inside.
Hurricanes have a good side - I hate to think what it would take to go through the basement and decide what to keep and what to get rid of.
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Thursday, July 11, 2019
REFRIGERATOR AT LAST? AND ON TO THE NEXT PROBLEM
We arrived home last Friday night - much earlier in the evening than usual. It was a combination of exhaustion, the heat, possibility of heavy rain later in the evening, and knowing that we might have to be up and about early on Saturday for the delivery of our new refrigerator. Normally no matter how late it is when we arrive home we clear out all - or just about all - of the stuff in the RV. This time we only brought in what we needed to have for the night and Saturday morning. We did not want more stuff in the house - which was still discombobulated from when the new fridge had been delivered the week before. There was no computer phone call with the time that the delivery would be made the next day as we were suppose to receive and had received the night before the first refrigerator was received. Knowing that the crew also calls about half an hour before they actually come, we went to bed expecting a call the next day.
I was woken by someone ringing our doorbell and pounding on the door at 7:30 am. I was unsure if it was the delivery as no one had called and was physically too exhausted to get up and look out the window. At 9:30 am my alarm went off. I telephoned the store and was told that I was not on the delivery list for the day. (Glad I didn’t force myself out of bed at 7:30.) The delivery manager who told me this seemed to have no memory of who we were and what was going on. He put me through to the appliance manager. She remembered us, but it was as if we had not been told the week before that it would be delivered on Saturday - the day I was calling her. She told me that she had the fridge and it would be delivered the next day - Sunday. (Quite frankly we were surprised that they deliver on Saturday or Sunday - it used to be week days only.)
The time frame for the first refrigerator to be delivered was 11:30 am to 4:30 pm. We figured that there was a delivery time which ended at 11:30 am and one that started at 4:30 pm. We were called and told that the time range was 12 pm to 5 pm. Lunch was problematic - there was food in the basement freezer and some packaged food in the house - but we had not had a properly working fridge in over a week and a half and did not really have food in the house for the lunch, but we figured we could hold out - and what were the chances we would be one of the last deliveries of the time frame?
We woke up before noon and dressed and went into our home office to work on our computers, sort mail that arrived while we were away, catch up email etc. Around 3:00 husband said that he really needed to eat something as his blood sugar had dropped. Crackers were not enough - so I made him a can of pea soup. I had a small individual applesauce. We went back upstairs. Now, I did get work done - I managed to transfer files to a DVD for my annual archiving of last year, caught up on email, etc. At 4:00 the phone rang. It was the delivery company’s computer again - delivery was now to be 4:30 pm to 8:30 pm!
I telephoned the store - they had the same info, but they did give me a phone number for the delivery company. I called same - 3 times as the first two times I was dropped off hold. I got a nice woman named Becky. I explained that entire saga- damaged refrigerator delivered, having to wait a week for a replacement, delivery not set up for the day before as we would be told, the change in time at the last minute, we are both Diabetics and have not eaten and are becoming ill... She went and checked. There had been a problem on an earlier delivery that set the crew back 90 minutes! She also told me that there were 4 deliveries ahead of us so it would be an hour to an hour and a half before they came and we should be able to go out and eat something. I thanked her.
We did not go out for lunch as we did not trust doing so. Glad we did not. We received a call around 5 pm that they would be here within half an hour. Husband went outside to wait. Good thing. The numbering is odd on the houses here plus depending on the GPS it can show us up the street or about 5 + blocks of where we are. Husband saw a truck stop about 2 houses up the street from us with the men in the truck looking confused and he waved them over.
As opposed to the first crew which was just the other side of perfunctory - meaning a little short of same - this was the type of the delivery we expected (other than the time problem). Two friendly delivery men. Robert had explained to them that they were taking back the same model that we had recently received because of damage. They came in and measured the doors again. (The last one came in, so this one had to - they were twins.) The one in charge looked at the damage and shook his head that it had been delivered like that. They took the old one out. They unpacked the new one. The one in charge called husband over - there was a scratch in the freezer door of the new one - he and we had the same idea - the freezer doors were switched. They brought the new fridge in. They removed the plastic wrapping from it. It was plugged in so all knew it was working. They saw that it was not level and leveled it. (The prior crew had told us it could not be leveled when we asked them to do so.) They did not set up the inside, but I had been told by the manager that they are not suppose to do so. If this crew had come with the original fridge and same had not been damaged and had worked right - I would be just as happy with this store as I was after I bought a washing machine from them. (Which is why we bought from them again.) We tipped the two men - husband is not one to tip for deliveries and such, but we agreed that they did that good a job - especially compared to the last crew. After delivery and setup the fridge is suppose to sit set at the middle range for 24 hours without opening and closing the door or putting any food in it. We shut it off and set up the shelves inside, put in the remote thermometer and shut the door. We went out for a much needed dinner at the Asian buffet we go to.
It is more or less working properly. Apparently it is suppose to go up and down more than our older fridge to keep the proper temperature - although not as much as the first one did. It is also suppose to do so less after it is filled - it is suppose to be at least half filled and food added a little at a time. We have put a lot of bottles of water (made by us, not commercial) in it to add food to it as we have not yet been food shopping and even then, do not have a lot of food in the fridge at any one time in hot weather (in case storm takes down the electricity), and not that much in the winter either other than at certain times as there are only two of us.
So Monday afternoon after picking up the mail at our box - from over a week - and lunch out at Wendys, we came home and I was ready to start catching up on work at my computer. Our bank statements, as well as those for our business and for the two clubs of which I am treasurer had all come in and I planned to work on them. ( I had caught up on email on Sunday while we waited for the delivery.)
I turned on my computer. Some message went past too quickly for me to read. I then tried to go to the Win XP virtual machine in my computer to catch up and sync my Organizer entries in my old Palm Centro with Organizer - but the computer would not switch to the XP side. Husband came to figure it out. Unfortunately I have been having problems with my old, analog monitor recently and it decided to die in the middle of this. We managed to turn my computer sideways and hook it up to the monitor from husband’s second computer - hanging on the wall on his side of the office. He fixed the computer problem.
He had been looking for a new monitor for me. I really did not want a digital one, but that it is all there is. The big problem was that unless we were going to rearrange a good part of the office, I needed a small monitor - about 18 inches across - or it would not fit. There were two candidates he had found. One was Walmart and one was from Staples - but the latter had to be ordered. So Walmart it was. We went in to a local Walmart. We found the monitor we had been looking at - on our trip last week we actually had a chance to see it running and it looked okay. We also found one that he had not seen anything about that was smaller. He looked it up online on his cell phone - well rated and only US$60 (plus sales tax). We decided to go with same. It could be returned and at that price if we decided that I should have the other monitor (it can be turned vertically which might be good for me when reading full page things such as IRS manuals), this was cheap enough to keep as a spare emergency monitor around the house. We took it to the electronics desk - it was $90? Husband pointed out that it was $60 online - we were told that we had to ask for a price match (to Walmart’s own online price). He walked away in reference to a call he had taken. Husband checked and he told him that we should take it to customer service and buy it there, asking for the price match.
This Walmart is in the middle of being updated. The entry now has a gate that when closed only lets one into the store, not out, and when open bings when one someone walks out. Plus there is a security device on the box - how do we get to the service desk - without security descending on us? He decided that he would stay inside of the entrance and I should go out, get in line and explain and ask what to do. I walked over to the first register aisle (empty of customers) and walked out and got on the service line. I was 3rd in line. But there were problems with everyone ahead of us. Finally after he watched people walk out the entrance, set off the alarm, and have nothing happen, he met me at the line. We bought it for the online price and started home.
My old monitor sat on a small plastic shelf, which I do not want to get rid of. (I keep my 2 external hard drives for backup under it, as well as it having sections to hold both kinds of paper clips, pencils, pens, etc. ) Apparently the old monitor bent the shelf and the new monitor rocked. We finally got it balanced and working. I then ran to cook dinner and add some items to the refrigerator after shutting off the computer.
Yesterday, Tuesday, we finally went for our annual eye exams. We were due last November - back when husband’s shoulder was in pain and we could not go that far. Since then this and that has happened, so it took until now. (All was good at the appointment - thank you for asking.) We drove home afterwards despite the drops in our eyes.
On arriving home I helped husband set up our portal air conditioner in the living room so he could finish a weaving project on his loom and went upstairs to try to catch up on computer - and pay a bill. I had trouble seeing anything on the screen - it all seemed overwhelming (husband had changed the settings to make the icons larger - something I really did not need or want). Colors were too bright. The white was too bright. I figured it was all related to the eye drops. I managed to work around it - checked email - first time since Sunday, paid the bill, etc. Husband later changed the icon settings back for me.
So today when we came home from a couple of errands I was ready to go to work on my computer and get work done. It was still too bright - the white too bright, the colors too bold - and I am talking about type - not pictures. I ended up switching to my distance glasses (normally use reading glasses - as I am doing now with my laptop - when working on the computer) and pushing my seat back as far as my arms could reach. He spent a good deal of time - dinner was late tonight - trying to get to the colors and white so that they are not too bright/bold for me, but not so that the white is grey either. Not sure if he/we are done with it with yet.
And he does not understand why I say - change is never good.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
For some reason change is easier for some people. There are people who look forward to something new - new clothes, new car, new computer, new household appliance, new house, going someplace new on a trip. Are you one of them? Or are you like me - someone who wants everything to stay as it is and has trouble adjusting to change?
I was woken by someone ringing our doorbell and pounding on the door at 7:30 am. I was unsure if it was the delivery as no one had called and was physically too exhausted to get up and look out the window. At 9:30 am my alarm went off. I telephoned the store and was told that I was not on the delivery list for the day. (Glad I didn’t force myself out of bed at 7:30.) The delivery manager who told me this seemed to have no memory of who we were and what was going on. He put me through to the appliance manager. She remembered us, but it was as if we had not been told the week before that it would be delivered on Saturday - the day I was calling her. She told me that she had the fridge and it would be delivered the next day - Sunday. (Quite frankly we were surprised that they deliver on Saturday or Sunday - it used to be week days only.)
The time frame for the first refrigerator to be delivered was 11:30 am to 4:30 pm. We figured that there was a delivery time which ended at 11:30 am and one that started at 4:30 pm. We were called and told that the time range was 12 pm to 5 pm. Lunch was problematic - there was food in the basement freezer and some packaged food in the house - but we had not had a properly working fridge in over a week and a half and did not really have food in the house for the lunch, but we figured we could hold out - and what were the chances we would be one of the last deliveries of the time frame?
We woke up before noon and dressed and went into our home office to work on our computers, sort mail that arrived while we were away, catch up email etc. Around 3:00 husband said that he really needed to eat something as his blood sugar had dropped. Crackers were not enough - so I made him a can of pea soup. I had a small individual applesauce. We went back upstairs. Now, I did get work done - I managed to transfer files to a DVD for my annual archiving of last year, caught up on email, etc. At 4:00 the phone rang. It was the delivery company’s computer again - delivery was now to be 4:30 pm to 8:30 pm!
I telephoned the store - they had the same info, but they did give me a phone number for the delivery company. I called same - 3 times as the first two times I was dropped off hold. I got a nice woman named Becky. I explained that entire saga- damaged refrigerator delivered, having to wait a week for a replacement, delivery not set up for the day before as we would be told, the change in time at the last minute, we are both Diabetics and have not eaten and are becoming ill... She went and checked. There had been a problem on an earlier delivery that set the crew back 90 minutes! She also told me that there were 4 deliveries ahead of us so it would be an hour to an hour and a half before they came and we should be able to go out and eat something. I thanked her.
We did not go out for lunch as we did not trust doing so. Glad we did not. We received a call around 5 pm that they would be here within half an hour. Husband went outside to wait. Good thing. The numbering is odd on the houses here plus depending on the GPS it can show us up the street or about 5 + blocks of where we are. Husband saw a truck stop about 2 houses up the street from us with the men in the truck looking confused and he waved them over.
As opposed to the first crew which was just the other side of perfunctory - meaning a little short of same - this was the type of the delivery we expected (other than the time problem). Two friendly delivery men. Robert had explained to them that they were taking back the same model that we had recently received because of damage. They came in and measured the doors again. (The last one came in, so this one had to - they were twins.) The one in charge looked at the damage and shook his head that it had been delivered like that. They took the old one out. They unpacked the new one. The one in charge called husband over - there was a scratch in the freezer door of the new one - he and we had the same idea - the freezer doors were switched. They brought the new fridge in. They removed the plastic wrapping from it. It was plugged in so all knew it was working. They saw that it was not level and leveled it. (The prior crew had told us it could not be leveled when we asked them to do so.) They did not set up the inside, but I had been told by the manager that they are not suppose to do so. If this crew had come with the original fridge and same had not been damaged and had worked right - I would be just as happy with this store as I was after I bought a washing machine from them. (Which is why we bought from them again.) We tipped the two men - husband is not one to tip for deliveries and such, but we agreed that they did that good a job - especially compared to the last crew. After delivery and setup the fridge is suppose to sit set at the middle range for 24 hours without opening and closing the door or putting any food in it. We shut it off and set up the shelves inside, put in the remote thermometer and shut the door. We went out for a much needed dinner at the Asian buffet we go to.
It is more or less working properly. Apparently it is suppose to go up and down more than our older fridge to keep the proper temperature - although not as much as the first one did. It is also suppose to do so less after it is filled - it is suppose to be at least half filled and food added a little at a time. We have put a lot of bottles of water (made by us, not commercial) in it to add food to it as we have not yet been food shopping and even then, do not have a lot of food in the fridge at any one time in hot weather (in case storm takes down the electricity), and not that much in the winter either other than at certain times as there are only two of us.
So Monday afternoon after picking up the mail at our box - from over a week - and lunch out at Wendys, we came home and I was ready to start catching up on work at my computer. Our bank statements, as well as those for our business and for the two clubs of which I am treasurer had all come in and I planned to work on them. ( I had caught up on email on Sunday while we waited for the delivery.)
I turned on my computer. Some message went past too quickly for me to read. I then tried to go to the Win XP virtual machine in my computer to catch up and sync my Organizer entries in my old Palm Centro with Organizer - but the computer would not switch to the XP side. Husband came to figure it out. Unfortunately I have been having problems with my old, analog monitor recently and it decided to die in the middle of this. We managed to turn my computer sideways and hook it up to the monitor from husband’s second computer - hanging on the wall on his side of the office. He fixed the computer problem.
He had been looking for a new monitor for me. I really did not want a digital one, but that it is all there is. The big problem was that unless we were going to rearrange a good part of the office, I needed a small monitor - about 18 inches across - or it would not fit. There were two candidates he had found. One was Walmart and one was from Staples - but the latter had to be ordered. So Walmart it was. We went in to a local Walmart. We found the monitor we had been looking at - on our trip last week we actually had a chance to see it running and it looked okay. We also found one that he had not seen anything about that was smaller. He looked it up online on his cell phone - well rated and only US$60 (plus sales tax). We decided to go with same. It could be returned and at that price if we decided that I should have the other monitor (it can be turned vertically which might be good for me when reading full page things such as IRS manuals), this was cheap enough to keep as a spare emergency monitor around the house. We took it to the electronics desk - it was $90? Husband pointed out that it was $60 online - we were told that we had to ask for a price match (to Walmart’s own online price). He walked away in reference to a call he had taken. Husband checked and he told him that we should take it to customer service and buy it there, asking for the price match.
This Walmart is in the middle of being updated. The entry now has a gate that when closed only lets one into the store, not out, and when open bings when one someone walks out. Plus there is a security device on the box - how do we get to the service desk - without security descending on us? He decided that he would stay inside of the entrance and I should go out, get in line and explain and ask what to do. I walked over to the first register aisle (empty of customers) and walked out and got on the service line. I was 3rd in line. But there were problems with everyone ahead of us. Finally after he watched people walk out the entrance, set off the alarm, and have nothing happen, he met me at the line. We bought it for the online price and started home.
My old monitor sat on a small plastic shelf, which I do not want to get rid of. (I keep my 2 external hard drives for backup under it, as well as it having sections to hold both kinds of paper clips, pencils, pens, etc. ) Apparently the old monitor bent the shelf and the new monitor rocked. We finally got it balanced and working. I then ran to cook dinner and add some items to the refrigerator after shutting off the computer.
Yesterday, Tuesday, we finally went for our annual eye exams. We were due last November - back when husband’s shoulder was in pain and we could not go that far. Since then this and that has happened, so it took until now. (All was good at the appointment - thank you for asking.) We drove home afterwards despite the drops in our eyes.
On arriving home I helped husband set up our portal air conditioner in the living room so he could finish a weaving project on his loom and went upstairs to try to catch up on computer - and pay a bill. I had trouble seeing anything on the screen - it all seemed overwhelming (husband had changed the settings to make the icons larger - something I really did not need or want). Colors were too bright. The white was too bright. I figured it was all related to the eye drops. I managed to work around it - checked email - first time since Sunday, paid the bill, etc. Husband later changed the icon settings back for me.
So today when we came home from a couple of errands I was ready to go to work on my computer and get work done. It was still too bright - the white too bright, the colors too bold - and I am talking about type - not pictures. I ended up switching to my distance glasses (normally use reading glasses - as I am doing now with my laptop - when working on the computer) and pushing my seat back as far as my arms could reach. He spent a good deal of time - dinner was late tonight - trying to get to the colors and white so that they are not too bright/bold for me, but not so that the white is grey either. Not sure if he/we are done with it with yet.
And he does not understand why I say - change is never good.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
For some reason change is easier for some people. There are people who look forward to something new - new clothes, new car, new computer, new household appliance, new house, going someplace new on a trip. Are you one of them? Or are you like me - someone who wants everything to stay as it is and has trouble adjusting to change?
Thursday, July 4, 2019
THE REFRIGERATOR SAGA CONTINES -
Well,, they delivered the new refrigerator on Friday. We had to set up the inside of the fridge “we don’t do that”. I asked to have it leveled as it was to the eye extremely out of level. When I put a small jar in it, it rolled quickly to the back of the fridge. “It cannot be leveled. The only way to do so is to remove the feet and then it will be sitting only on it’s wheels and when you try to open the door, it will roll instead of opening. Husband leveled it after the crew left. I telephoned the store shortly after the delivery crew left - we had found 3 big black lines on the front of it - not the door, the fridge itself. The delivery manager was not there - apparently he left for the day before 3 pm - and I was told that he would telephone me back - “first thing in the morning”.
During the evening and overnight we were checking the temperature in the fridge with a remote read thermometer. It would suddenly jump to 45 degrees Farenheit, then drop to 32 (freezing) in the fridge. There seemed to be no way to adjust this huge variance in temperature to below what husband’s insulin can be stored at and to over the maximum temperature food can safely be stored at.
I waited until 9:30 am the next day and then called the manager as he had not called me. He did not seem to know anything about my call. He apologized as I explained the original problem, our dissatisfaction with the delivery, and that the temperature varied so greatly - continually. Husband had checked and this - and most - refrigerators are suppose to have a temperature range of 34 to 44 degrees F. He also told me that the delivery crew is only suppose to bring in the fridge, put on the doors, plug it in, turn it on - and level it. Anything else we had to do. Nice of them to tell us this when we bought it - if my 90 year old mom had it delivered she would not be able to deal with setting up the inside and would not be able to use the fridge until one of us came over and set it up for her - I am sure many other people would have similar problems. I told him that they refused to level it - and the story about how it could not be leveled. As to the problems with the refrigerator itself, he would exchange it, but they were out of that model. I asked why they could not get one from one of the local locations of their store (a major national chain) - “it doesn’t work like that” was his reply. I could have another one of this model delivered in a week - a week?! He checked with his appliance manager and she had the other two models (from other companies) in stock and we could get one of those delivered. Since neither of them had been acceptable - which is how we picked this one - we had to go in and remind ourselves of what we found to be problematic with the others. We dressed and went in to the store. After looking at the other 2 models again - neither would work (including that one of them was too tall). So, we have to deal with this one for a week. We left the RV plugged in and its refrigerator running. Coincidentally, we were going away this week, so we were only home until Tuesday morning, making dealing with this fridge a little easier.
Monday night we emptied the RV fridge and unplugged the RV. Biggest problem was husband’s insulin. He gets them in what are called pens - they look like big pens. He puts a new needle on the pen each time he uses it. The insulin pens cannot go below 36 or above 46 in temperature when they have not yet been used. Once they are used they do not go back in the fridge and can go to a higher temperature. They can be at the higher temperature for 42 days maximum. I figured that 2 pens left in the box plus the one already in use would be used in less than 39 days - so the pens are out of the fridge. We then packed the RV with everything needed for the trip.
Tuesday we added the last items, turned on the RV battery and started the RV fridge. Problem was that the light that shows that there is enough electricity in the battery showed that there was not enough. After debate about canceling the trip - and we would be out the amount paid for the RV park site - I suggested that we go ahead going on the trip. It was Tuesday and we were going to a farmer’s market during the day and we had planned to go a local major crafts festival that we go to annually on Wednesday. I pointed out to him that we could drive down, stay overnight and if the batteries were still not charging, come home on Wednesday and we would have gone to 2 places we were looking forward. With the RV battery off we started on our trip. When we were in NJ we stopped at the first rest area and checked that the batteries were being charged. They were.
Why did we have this problem? First, the batteries are beyond the normal life - they need to be replaced - between buying them and having them installed it will cost over $1000 and we keep putting it off. Second - apparently running the RV’s electrical system on our home electric system at 20 amps does not have enough “juice” to recharge the batteries and to also run the RV fridge.
We kept the fridge off until after we plugged in to the electricity (30 amp) at the RV park at night - warm soda. Today when we out we again shut off the fridge to let it keep charging. On our return tonight we again turned it on after plugging in. Since tomorrow we will be in and driving around, we will live the fridge on and probably do so again on Friday when we go to a different farmer’s market and then drive home.
Yes, we will get home extremely late Friday night - really extremely early Saturday am - and then have the new fridge for the house delivered on Saturday - with the possibility of a very early am delivery.
So, early last week we were getting up, going down, and checking the temperature in the RV overnight after going to bed. Wednesday night I had 3 hours sleep as I woke up early for work. Thursday night we kept waking up in anticipation of the delivery coming. Friday night I was up all night checking the temperature of the fridge - I slept an hour and a half in 3 separate half hour naps. I was up early in the morning waiting for the call from the delivery manager and then making the call to him instead. Saturday night we continued to wake up all night to check the temperature in the fridge. Sunday night I went to bed and had trouble falling asleep. Monday night we went to bed after finishing packing and the woke up 3 hours after I fell asleep to go on the trip. Today, Wednesday, we woke early to go to the crafts festival - so 4 hours sleep for me. Friday we have to again wake early (for us) as we have to dump the dirty water tanks and be out of the site we are in by 11 am. Then, anticipating the delivery on Saturday I probably won’t sleep - plus we have to unload at least part of the stuff from the RV when we get home, and possibly need to wake up as early 7 am for the new delivery. This all works out to about 2 full nights of sleep over the week and a half that this is going on. I hope husband plans to sleep in a bit tomorrow.
In addition our house is in a state of disarray. In order to clear room for the refrigerator to be brought in and placed in placed, we had to move things in our front hall (into the living room) the dining room, and the kitchen. Part of this went into our studio behind the kitchen. I have not been able to find even a pen and paper at times as nothing is where it belongs.
Oh, and I tripped and turned my foot on my way home from work last Thursday - luckily that was the only injury from the fall and the foot felt better the next day.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Some matters take much more time to resolve due to the problems that arise in dealing with it - and with life. If needed a quick cry - and then hopefully a hug from one’s significant other - then same cries and you hug them. That is life.
Hopefully the new refrigerator will work properly.
For those in the US - Happy 4th of July.THE REFIR
During the evening and overnight we were checking the temperature in the fridge with a remote read thermometer. It would suddenly jump to 45 degrees Farenheit, then drop to 32 (freezing) in the fridge. There seemed to be no way to adjust this huge variance in temperature to below what husband’s insulin can be stored at and to over the maximum temperature food can safely be stored at.
I waited until 9:30 am the next day and then called the manager as he had not called me. He did not seem to know anything about my call. He apologized as I explained the original problem, our dissatisfaction with the delivery, and that the temperature varied so greatly - continually. Husband had checked and this - and most - refrigerators are suppose to have a temperature range of 34 to 44 degrees F. He also told me that the delivery crew is only suppose to bring in the fridge, put on the doors, plug it in, turn it on - and level it. Anything else we had to do. Nice of them to tell us this when we bought it - if my 90 year old mom had it delivered she would not be able to deal with setting up the inside and would not be able to use the fridge until one of us came over and set it up for her - I am sure many other people would have similar problems. I told him that they refused to level it - and the story about how it could not be leveled. As to the problems with the refrigerator itself, he would exchange it, but they were out of that model. I asked why they could not get one from one of the local locations of their store (a major national chain) - “it doesn’t work like that” was his reply. I could have another one of this model delivered in a week - a week?! He checked with his appliance manager and she had the other two models (from other companies) in stock and we could get one of those delivered. Since neither of them had been acceptable - which is how we picked this one - we had to go in and remind ourselves of what we found to be problematic with the others. We dressed and went in to the store. After looking at the other 2 models again - neither would work (including that one of them was too tall). So, we have to deal with this one for a week. We left the RV plugged in and its refrigerator running. Coincidentally, we were going away this week, so we were only home until Tuesday morning, making dealing with this fridge a little easier.
Monday night we emptied the RV fridge and unplugged the RV. Biggest problem was husband’s insulin. He gets them in what are called pens - they look like big pens. He puts a new needle on the pen each time he uses it. The insulin pens cannot go below 36 or above 46 in temperature when they have not yet been used. Once they are used they do not go back in the fridge and can go to a higher temperature. They can be at the higher temperature for 42 days maximum. I figured that 2 pens left in the box plus the one already in use would be used in less than 39 days - so the pens are out of the fridge. We then packed the RV with everything needed for the trip.
Tuesday we added the last items, turned on the RV battery and started the RV fridge. Problem was that the light that shows that there is enough electricity in the battery showed that there was not enough. After debate about canceling the trip - and we would be out the amount paid for the RV park site - I suggested that we go ahead going on the trip. It was Tuesday and we were going to a farmer’s market during the day and we had planned to go a local major crafts festival that we go to annually on Wednesday. I pointed out to him that we could drive down, stay overnight and if the batteries were still not charging, come home on Wednesday and we would have gone to 2 places we were looking forward. With the RV battery off we started on our trip. When we were in NJ we stopped at the first rest area and checked that the batteries were being charged. They were.
Why did we have this problem? First, the batteries are beyond the normal life - they need to be replaced - between buying them and having them installed it will cost over $1000 and we keep putting it off. Second - apparently running the RV’s electrical system on our home electric system at 20 amps does not have enough “juice” to recharge the batteries and to also run the RV fridge.
We kept the fridge off until after we plugged in to the electricity (30 amp) at the RV park at night - warm soda. Today when we out we again shut off the fridge to let it keep charging. On our return tonight we again turned it on after plugging in. Since tomorrow we will be in and driving around, we will live the fridge on and probably do so again on Friday when we go to a different farmer’s market and then drive home.
Yes, we will get home extremely late Friday night - really extremely early Saturday am - and then have the new fridge for the house delivered on Saturday - with the possibility of a very early am delivery.
So, early last week we were getting up, going down, and checking the temperature in the RV overnight after going to bed. Wednesday night I had 3 hours sleep as I woke up early for work. Thursday night we kept waking up in anticipation of the delivery coming. Friday night I was up all night checking the temperature of the fridge - I slept an hour and a half in 3 separate half hour naps. I was up early in the morning waiting for the call from the delivery manager and then making the call to him instead. Saturday night we continued to wake up all night to check the temperature in the fridge. Sunday night I went to bed and had trouble falling asleep. Monday night we went to bed after finishing packing and the woke up 3 hours after I fell asleep to go on the trip. Today, Wednesday, we woke early to go to the crafts festival - so 4 hours sleep for me. Friday we have to again wake early (for us) as we have to dump the dirty water tanks and be out of the site we are in by 11 am. Then, anticipating the delivery on Saturday I probably won’t sleep - plus we have to unload at least part of the stuff from the RV when we get home, and possibly need to wake up as early 7 am for the new delivery. This all works out to about 2 full nights of sleep over the week and a half that this is going on. I hope husband plans to sleep in a bit tomorrow.
In addition our house is in a state of disarray. In order to clear room for the refrigerator to be brought in and placed in placed, we had to move things in our front hall (into the living room) the dining room, and the kitchen. Part of this went into our studio behind the kitchen. I have not been able to find even a pen and paper at times as nothing is where it belongs.
Oh, and I tripped and turned my foot on my way home from work last Thursday - luckily that was the only injury from the fall and the foot felt better the next day.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Some matters take much more time to resolve due to the problems that arise in dealing with it - and with life. If needed a quick cry - and then hopefully a hug from one’s significant other - then same cries and you hug them. That is life.
Hopefully the new refrigerator will work properly.
For those in the US - Happy 4th of July.THE REFIR
Thursday, June 27, 2019
REPLACE THE REFRIGERATOR?
Well the ants were resolve as of last week. I have been very careful - I wash the dishes, etc immediately after we eat, then dry them and put them away, then dry the drying rack, dishpan and sink. So far, so good. (Fingers crossed.)
The refrigerator is a different story. I have spent weeks now watching the thermometer in it - it is a remote read so I don’t have to open the door. I understand that there is some play in the temperature of the fridge and I sort of know how it works. For food purposes it has to be kept at 40F or less and for insulin related reasons it has to be kept at 36 F or higher. It can go as high as 46F, but since the food has a lower top limit, I basically have to keep the fridge (house or RV) between 36 and 40 F. I try to keep both at 38F and between 37 and 39F to allow some play or in case the thermometer is off.
I know how to adjust the temperature - turn the knob colder if the temperature is too high until the compressor just clicks on, it if too low then turn the knob just warmer so the compressor clicks off. I am at good at this. In the RV I have been known to jump to the back when we stop for gas to make a quick adjustment.
Recently our house refrigerator has been acting wrong. I look at the thermometer and it is 37F. I leave it. I look again maybe 10-15 minutes later and it is 40F. It should not jump that much that fast or without seemingly hitting any temperatures between. It is then hard to get the temperature back down to where it belongs. I am not adding large amounts of food at all, let alone food that is not already cold. I thought I was just missing the adjustments and started setting the timer in my mobile phone to go off every 15 or 20 minutes to remind me to check the timer. Still missed the jumps. Husband and I have been discussing what to do. For what a repair would cost, it would not pay.
So we have been looking refrigerators online and in stores. Since we have a small house, we have a small kitchen and a relatively small fridge. When we moved into this house 30 years ago we owned a refrigerator that we had used in our apartment and brought that with us. Sending the one that came with the house (from the prior owners) to the garage (which did not have electricity) where its main use was to have our, then, Christmas tree stored on top of it. One July 4th week we were away and came home and found that while we had been away the fridge had died. As we threw out most of what was in the fridge, we thought to and tried to plug in the fridge in the garage - it no longer worked. So we bought a new fridge.
For our apartment we had bought a 15 cu ft refrigerator. Due to confusion the company that we bought it from took about a week to deliver it to us - and they delivered an 18 cu ft one - with an ice maker and told us to keep both when I called that they were wrong. (Apparently they kept mixing us up with another customer which led to them claiming that originally they tried to deliver and I was not home - I was home and on the phone, by coincidence, at that time. We bought the fridge in 1982 for the apartment. I know this as I was working on a piece of embroidery at the time, worked on it all work while stuck in our apartment waiting, and it is, yes, dated 1982. I am not sure of when we bought the first one for this house or its size.
When we had our house treated for the bed bugs in 2009 we found afterwards that the refrigerator which we had replaced that one with was no longer working. Since we found several individual bottles of water in the fridge and its freezer which were not ours, so apparently the bed bug crew had stashed their water bottles in our fridge (it was a major heat treatment) and had been opening the doors all day - so our fridge died.
At that time we bought the fridge that is currently in our house. It is 20.9 cu ft. Like all of our other ones it is white and a top freezer. I did not particularly like a number of things about it, but we were in a rush and bought it - it has served us well.
Monday night we decided that we had to replace it. We both looked online and found that there seemed to be 3 possible replacements of about the same size. Tuesday we went to a major house/hardware chain to look at what they had. None of the 3 excited me. They had oddly arranged shelves (all were actually from different companies - not just the same company with different nameplates) and such. Husband had heard about fridges which allow one to set an actual temperature and the fridge will keep that temperature - not the usual turn the dial a little this way or that and stick a thermometer in the fridge to check the temperature. I found one that was “only” $300 more than what we were looking at - or to look at the extra price another way - it added the equivalent of 50% more of the price to the price. This was something he REALLY wanted. He had given me measurements at home before we went out and this one did not seem that much larger in size and we left it in consideration.
We then went to the other major house/hardware chain to see what they had. Basically the same, but the model that we had seen and husband was interested in, was slightly different - or at least it’s number was.
We have bought large appliances from both in the past and based on same decided that we wanted to buy from the first company, but decided to go a different store in the chain which was larger and “maybe” would have something different.
They did not. So I made the decision. As much as I would hate the fancier fridge - it was side by side and I was not even sure a turkey would fit on the tiny shelves and we had to take it in stainless as white add another 50% to the price, it made sense for the problem we have with keeping the temperature in such a small range. We bought it. To be delivered and set up on Friday.
We then went home and measured the front door - it was about an inch too small, but we figured that they could take the fridge doors off as there was a measurement without same and it would fit.
One thing husband had read about is that the freezer in this type of fridge has a small “door” to the main compartment which opens and closes to take cold air into the freezer and it makes the main fridge section warmer. We have a small freezer in the basement - from when we used to grow vegetables and I would actually shop at sales to buy food and would store the extra in this freezer. Now it is mostly empty - when I went to see what was in it - everything had a date to use by in 2016. I tossed them out. I then took all of the items in our fridge’s freezer downstairs to the freezer. Only things I left in the upstairs freezer are some of those liquid filled plastic things that one freezes and puts with food or meds to keep them cold in transit. I then turned the fridge’s freezer temperature almost all the way to the warmest temperature. (We would need to move the frozen food to same anyway as it takes a day for the new fridge/freezer to reach temperature.
Overnight the same thought came to each of us - the fridge also had to pass through 2 doorways in the house - and they were narrower. Then husband went downstairs and laid out the measurements of the fridge we ordered - it was huge! It would not only block part of the entry into the kitchen from the dining room, it would also block access the (only) light switches in the kitchen. I measured the old fridge and came in about 3-4 inches smaller front to back then he had measured. We went back to the store and canceled the order.
Now what to do? Well, the fridge had been working okay since yesterday (Tuesday). Maybe it would keep working - at least until we return from a trip next week. The sale on the various refrigerators continues to July 10, so we could still get the price when we came back. We looked at the 3 fridges in the right size and decided which one we would get - but we figured we would buy it after we returned from our trip.
Husband decided he wanted a chicken pie we had in the freezer. I went down and took it out. Temperature in the fridge was 37F - great! I put the pie in to cook and was playing games on my cell phone. I wanted a glass of soda - in taking out the bottle that was there, I notice we would need more and added a bottle - a room temperature bottle - to the fridge. When I looked up again the temperature was 45F??!!! By now we have several thermometers sitting in the fridge - the one we normally use seems to always be the odd one out. In this case the others all showed the temperature to be 40F - could it be a thermometer problem? We have spare of the remote read and I set that up and took the first one out - same problem. Even with the temperature set to the coldest setting - it was not getting colder, the compressor did not seem to be on. We unplugged the fridge and then plugged it in again (it seemed to help twice before since the weekend). No effect.
Extremely s l o w l y the temperature dropped. After dinner, we went out and ordered the fridge that we had decided to order next week. I don’t love it - but hopefully it will work and it is better than the huge side by side husband wanted - and it should fit through all the doors it needs to. It is suppose to be here Friday.
Now for logistics -
We have an automatic ice maker to old fridge - as we had one before, we had bought it again. We are not getting one for our new fridge - we rarely use ice and end up tossing out the shrunken cubes that are in the freezer. We can do it “the old fashioned way” and have frozen trays of ice in the freezer. But we have to shut off the water to the fridge and get rid of the water in the line. Husband found it and turned it closed as far it as it went. I threw out the shrunken, dried cubes in the ice bucket and turned the ice maker on to use the rest of the water in the line up. We either have much more water in the line than we thought, the ice maker uses much less water than we figure - or the water is not actually off and has a leak in the tap as we keep getting more ice cubes - right now they are just shells of ice, but they keep coming. Just heard more drop. We bought a “cap” for the end of the water line - just in case the water is not and cannot be shut off completely.
Freezer, as mentioned, is basically empty.
That leaves our fridge section. There is an open package of American cheese slices, an open package of cream cheese, 2 hot dogs, and 6 eggs in it. I have 2 of husband’s insulin pens in it. If we cannot keep them below 46F, I am not going to worry about it as they will need to be used within 42 days - and they are 20 days worth, plus husband is in the middle of pen - so they should be used up long before the 42 days. The rest of what is in there does not really need to be in a fridge “to keep” - soda, sealed bottles of ice tea, condiments (no mayo), and similar. Our RV is currently plugged in to charge the batteries (done twice a month, just happened to be doing it now) and we will turn on the fridge in the RV tomorrow and put the food from the fridge in it until we can move it to the new fridge. (Hot dogs could just be frozen and put in the basement freezer.)
I soooooo hope that this is the last of the stupidity that has been going on. (Well, I do have to make a 3rd call to an insurance for our reenacting unit - so, still repeating chores over and over.) I really cannot take any more!
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
When one thinks that everything is resolved - something isn’t and will need to be dealt with and redone.
Oh, and things always break at the wrong time.
Oh, and when all these things are going on and one goes down to do laundry and pours water out of the dehumidifier all over the basement - the laundry can wait!
The refrigerator is a different story. I have spent weeks now watching the thermometer in it - it is a remote read so I don’t have to open the door. I understand that there is some play in the temperature of the fridge and I sort of know how it works. For food purposes it has to be kept at 40F or less and for insulin related reasons it has to be kept at 36 F or higher. It can go as high as 46F, but since the food has a lower top limit, I basically have to keep the fridge (house or RV) between 36 and 40 F. I try to keep both at 38F and between 37 and 39F to allow some play or in case the thermometer is off.
I know how to adjust the temperature - turn the knob colder if the temperature is too high until the compressor just clicks on, it if too low then turn the knob just warmer so the compressor clicks off. I am at good at this. In the RV I have been known to jump to the back when we stop for gas to make a quick adjustment.
Recently our house refrigerator has been acting wrong. I look at the thermometer and it is 37F. I leave it. I look again maybe 10-15 minutes later and it is 40F. It should not jump that much that fast or without seemingly hitting any temperatures between. It is then hard to get the temperature back down to where it belongs. I am not adding large amounts of food at all, let alone food that is not already cold. I thought I was just missing the adjustments and started setting the timer in my mobile phone to go off every 15 or 20 minutes to remind me to check the timer. Still missed the jumps. Husband and I have been discussing what to do. For what a repair would cost, it would not pay.
So we have been looking refrigerators online and in stores. Since we have a small house, we have a small kitchen and a relatively small fridge. When we moved into this house 30 years ago we owned a refrigerator that we had used in our apartment and brought that with us. Sending the one that came with the house (from the prior owners) to the garage (which did not have electricity) where its main use was to have our, then, Christmas tree stored on top of it. One July 4th week we were away and came home and found that while we had been away the fridge had died. As we threw out most of what was in the fridge, we thought to and tried to plug in the fridge in the garage - it no longer worked. So we bought a new fridge.
For our apartment we had bought a 15 cu ft refrigerator. Due to confusion the company that we bought it from took about a week to deliver it to us - and they delivered an 18 cu ft one - with an ice maker and told us to keep both when I called that they were wrong. (Apparently they kept mixing us up with another customer which led to them claiming that originally they tried to deliver and I was not home - I was home and on the phone, by coincidence, at that time. We bought the fridge in 1982 for the apartment. I know this as I was working on a piece of embroidery at the time, worked on it all work while stuck in our apartment waiting, and it is, yes, dated 1982. I am not sure of when we bought the first one for this house or its size.
When we had our house treated for the bed bugs in 2009 we found afterwards that the refrigerator which we had replaced that one with was no longer working. Since we found several individual bottles of water in the fridge and its freezer which were not ours, so apparently the bed bug crew had stashed their water bottles in our fridge (it was a major heat treatment) and had been opening the doors all day - so our fridge died.
At that time we bought the fridge that is currently in our house. It is 20.9 cu ft. Like all of our other ones it is white and a top freezer. I did not particularly like a number of things about it, but we were in a rush and bought it - it has served us well.
Monday night we decided that we had to replace it. We both looked online and found that there seemed to be 3 possible replacements of about the same size. Tuesday we went to a major house/hardware chain to look at what they had. None of the 3 excited me. They had oddly arranged shelves (all were actually from different companies - not just the same company with different nameplates) and such. Husband had heard about fridges which allow one to set an actual temperature and the fridge will keep that temperature - not the usual turn the dial a little this way or that and stick a thermometer in the fridge to check the temperature. I found one that was “only” $300 more than what we were looking at - or to look at the extra price another way - it added the equivalent of 50% more of the price to the price. This was something he REALLY wanted. He had given me measurements at home before we went out and this one did not seem that much larger in size and we left it in consideration.
We then went to the other major house/hardware chain to see what they had. Basically the same, but the model that we had seen and husband was interested in, was slightly different - or at least it’s number was.
We have bought large appliances from both in the past and based on same decided that we wanted to buy from the first company, but decided to go a different store in the chain which was larger and “maybe” would have something different.
They did not. So I made the decision. As much as I would hate the fancier fridge - it was side by side and I was not even sure a turkey would fit on the tiny shelves and we had to take it in stainless as white add another 50% to the price, it made sense for the problem we have with keeping the temperature in such a small range. We bought it. To be delivered and set up on Friday.
We then went home and measured the front door - it was about an inch too small, but we figured that they could take the fridge doors off as there was a measurement without same and it would fit.
One thing husband had read about is that the freezer in this type of fridge has a small “door” to the main compartment which opens and closes to take cold air into the freezer and it makes the main fridge section warmer. We have a small freezer in the basement - from when we used to grow vegetables and I would actually shop at sales to buy food and would store the extra in this freezer. Now it is mostly empty - when I went to see what was in it - everything had a date to use by in 2016. I tossed them out. I then took all of the items in our fridge’s freezer downstairs to the freezer. Only things I left in the upstairs freezer are some of those liquid filled plastic things that one freezes and puts with food or meds to keep them cold in transit. I then turned the fridge’s freezer temperature almost all the way to the warmest temperature. (We would need to move the frozen food to same anyway as it takes a day for the new fridge/freezer to reach temperature.
Overnight the same thought came to each of us - the fridge also had to pass through 2 doorways in the house - and they were narrower. Then husband went downstairs and laid out the measurements of the fridge we ordered - it was huge! It would not only block part of the entry into the kitchen from the dining room, it would also block access the (only) light switches in the kitchen. I measured the old fridge and came in about 3-4 inches smaller front to back then he had measured. We went back to the store and canceled the order.
Now what to do? Well, the fridge had been working okay since yesterday (Tuesday). Maybe it would keep working - at least until we return from a trip next week. The sale on the various refrigerators continues to July 10, so we could still get the price when we came back. We looked at the 3 fridges in the right size and decided which one we would get - but we figured we would buy it after we returned from our trip.
Husband decided he wanted a chicken pie we had in the freezer. I went down and took it out. Temperature in the fridge was 37F - great! I put the pie in to cook and was playing games on my cell phone. I wanted a glass of soda - in taking out the bottle that was there, I notice we would need more and added a bottle - a room temperature bottle - to the fridge. When I looked up again the temperature was 45F??!!! By now we have several thermometers sitting in the fridge - the one we normally use seems to always be the odd one out. In this case the others all showed the temperature to be 40F - could it be a thermometer problem? We have spare of the remote read and I set that up and took the first one out - same problem. Even with the temperature set to the coldest setting - it was not getting colder, the compressor did not seem to be on. We unplugged the fridge and then plugged it in again (it seemed to help twice before since the weekend). No effect.
Extremely s l o w l y the temperature dropped. After dinner, we went out and ordered the fridge that we had decided to order next week. I don’t love it - but hopefully it will work and it is better than the huge side by side husband wanted - and it should fit through all the doors it needs to. It is suppose to be here Friday.
Now for logistics -
We have an automatic ice maker to old fridge - as we had one before, we had bought it again. We are not getting one for our new fridge - we rarely use ice and end up tossing out the shrunken cubes that are in the freezer. We can do it “the old fashioned way” and have frozen trays of ice in the freezer. But we have to shut off the water to the fridge and get rid of the water in the line. Husband found it and turned it closed as far it as it went. I threw out the shrunken, dried cubes in the ice bucket and turned the ice maker on to use the rest of the water in the line up. We either have much more water in the line than we thought, the ice maker uses much less water than we figure - or the water is not actually off and has a leak in the tap as we keep getting more ice cubes - right now they are just shells of ice, but they keep coming. Just heard more drop. We bought a “cap” for the end of the water line - just in case the water is not and cannot be shut off completely.
Freezer, as mentioned, is basically empty.
That leaves our fridge section. There is an open package of American cheese slices, an open package of cream cheese, 2 hot dogs, and 6 eggs in it. I have 2 of husband’s insulin pens in it. If we cannot keep them below 46F, I am not going to worry about it as they will need to be used within 42 days - and they are 20 days worth, plus husband is in the middle of pen - so they should be used up long before the 42 days. The rest of what is in there does not really need to be in a fridge “to keep” - soda, sealed bottles of ice tea, condiments (no mayo), and similar. Our RV is currently plugged in to charge the batteries (done twice a month, just happened to be doing it now) and we will turn on the fridge in the RV tomorrow and put the food from the fridge in it until we can move it to the new fridge. (Hot dogs could just be frozen and put in the basement freezer.)
I soooooo hope that this is the last of the stupidity that has been going on. (Well, I do have to make a 3rd call to an insurance for our reenacting unit - so, still repeating chores over and over.) I really cannot take any more!
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
When one thinks that everything is resolved - something isn’t and will need to be dealt with and redone.
Oh, and things always break at the wrong time.
Oh, and when all these things are going on and one goes down to do laundry and pours water out of the dehumidifier all over the basement - the laundry can wait!
Thursday, June 20, 2019
GOODBYE 2009
In between trying to get rid of ants in the kitchen and the refrigerator needing monitoring to stay in the small temperature range we need to get it to stay in, I had some time in our office to catchup on paperwork a bit - still 2 piles, but the “to do” one is getting shorter.
One job I have not have had a chance to do is store files from 2018 that I need/want to keep. Before doing this I have to clear out the oldest box saved files - in this case it was 2009 that had to be dealt with. 2009 was an unusual year for us - it was the year that we had bedbugs.
I climbed up and took stuff off the front of the shelf in the office closet - 3 boxes of computer disks stored up there (installed hardware, to set up the computers, old software that might needed, past years tax software). At the end of 2018 I stored the paid bills in an old manila envelope box (the one the envelopes came in) that I keep for this - that box had to come down also, as were 2 boxes of small manila envelopes. (Did you know that 6"x 9" or less sized envelopes go at the same US Postage rate as regular #10 envelopes and can hold more in the same 1/4" thickness allowed for same than the #10's?) Some empty, flattened boxes that I kept was the last of what was blocking access to the 3 boxes of old financial records on the middle of the top shelf of the closet. There are additional boxes of same (9 in total) on the top of the closet, but the latest and oldest are the two I try to keep in the center stack - as the other stacks require moving the center stack to take out the boxes. First, I took out the 2017 box and added some papers I had found during the past year from same (I have folder “old years files to add to box” that it has been in. ). I then took out the 2009 box.
Going through the old box is a trip down memory lane. I start taking out papers. There are bank statements, paid bills, old insurance policies, etc. in the box for us and for our businesses. I have my paper shredder ready and also have spare garbage bags.
I take the first item out - what is it? In this case a stack of telephone bills. Nothing needed from same. I go pull the first 4 off the top - checking that nothing else is mixed in - and into the shredder they go. Little by little more goes into the shredder. Items such as the phone bills and cable bills which don’t need to be checked if anything should be kept just get fed in and shredded.
In 2009 we got rid of my 1996 car and bought a new one. (Which we hated and got rid of 2 years later.) I pulled out the book (remember when the dealer handed out books with photos and info about the car that you were looking out) and the rest of the papers from the original 1996 purchase of the car that I pulled from the car’s file at the end of 2009 when I pulled files to keep from the year.) I stuck all of them in the book to go through and added same to my “to do” pile. I will keep the car registrations as I keep them forever. (We once received notice that we had not paid 3 parking tickets on one of our cars. We had never received any tickets nor was it in an area we have been to. I requested copies of the tickets and it was a different car and a different license plate. Some of the letters and numbers matched and some did not - but looked the same. I had to prove what the license plate on the car was - at the time the ticket was issued - having a different plate on the car when I was fighting this did not count. I did not keep the registrations - in this area this is a small square of heavy paper that is changed every 2 years when it is renewed. Each was tossed out after the new one was put in the car or our wallets. It was a big problem to resolve, so I now keep the car registrations - forever. I will go through the purchase papers when I get a chance.
I then looked up in my Quickbooks what income taxes we paid during the year (including final estimate and final payment for 2008 and estimate for 2009.) I saw that we had only made one payment in April. I made a note. I then checked what we had paid for our real estate taxes and made a note of them. I then opened our corporation in same and checked what and when we had paid for corporation taxes and sales taxes that we had collected and paid. I also checked for a certain payment we have to pay to the state corporation dept every other year with who is who in our corporation.
I then started with the corporation bank statements. I pulled out the statements that should have the checks issued above and pulled those checks out, paper clipped them together and safely set them aside. I will scan front and back of these checks in my computer - again due to something that has happened in the past with clients - and my dad’s business. I then started shredding the corporation bank statements, looking as I did for an unusually large amounts on them. If I had seen any I would checked what it was for.
Next I went through the corporation’s charge card statement. Again I looked for anything that is a large amount and feed the statements into the shredder.
By now I have had to change the bag in the shredder once.
I now am at our personal bank statements, again I will check for any large amounts. A lot more of these than for the corporation as we have accounts at multiple banks and each have IRA accounts. Our main checking account has a lot of checks, as well as deposit slips, so I remove the staple(s) holding them to the statement so I can feed them into the shredder in batch sizes that will not jam the shredder and also send the statement through. As I go through I make sure to pull the checks for our income tax and the four for our real estate taxes. When I come to July I find the check that paid for the bed bug treatment - gee, it was $2000 more than I thought I was!
When the bank statements are finished I go through the several credit cards statements. (All of which were paid in full every month, as is all.) Again, I have to separate the slips from the statements as there are too many to go through the shredder all at once.
Suddenly I realize that I am coming to the end of what is in the box. I have pulled some papers and set them aside to check through - maybe scan into the computer, as I will do with the tax payment checks and receipts for our real estate taxes. Last thing was I took the “2009" removable label from the box.
2009 is done and gone. I have done it in 3 sessions of shredding - too much shredded at once and the shredder will overheat and I will have to wait for it to cool off. I filled 4 kitchen sized bags of shreds. (I put them in out by putting 2 bags each into a larger black bag and setting those two large black bags out. The light colored kitchen bags can sort of be seen through and I did not want anyone noticing that the bags had shredded papers in them and it looks more like regular trash than same.)
On to storing 2018. In my file drawer the files that should be gone through have red edged labels (those that are permanent and should stay are blue edged). In our corporation’s file drawer the annual files are yellow edged labels and permanent are green edged labels. I have a folder in our file drawer that holds items I found or received during the year that belongs in the prior year. So I take anything in it - for 2017 and add it to the 2017 box.
I pull the first annual folder - bank statements from our main bank - I take out 2018 statements and put into the box. I do the same with the rest of the bank statements from 2018. I then come to statements from our medical insurance - all of the 2018 statements are pulled out. I switched medical insurance companies in 2018. I go through the blue edged folder for same and pull the papers to keep - I shred the others. 2 empty folders (the annual and the permanent for that insurance company) to be recycled next time I need a folder - put in a sorter on top of the folder holder stack on the side of my desk with other folders waiting a new use. I do this with all of the annual folders in our file drawer.
I then do the same with the corporation file drawer. Paid bills for the corporation are in folders in the file drawer and are pulled out also and fit into the box.
I then go back and pull the box of paid bills which I mentioned I had put the 2018 bills in. I then add the paid bills.
When I am pretty sure that just about everything is in the box I take out my “this year folder”. I use this folder to throw things in that I don’t know what to do with or do not go with anything and need to be held for short term. I go through it and shred whatever is no longer needed. I put in the box anything I want to keep from last year. One example of what is in this folder - we get a large postcard (sometimes two during the same year) on when and where we are to vote - including our Congressional district, State Senate district, State Assembly district, and County legislator district on it, as well as our “voting district” infos. I keep the card until we receive the next year’s card. Since we have the 2019 card, I shredded the 2018 card as it is no longer needed. (I keep it until the new one comes as 3 years ago we did not get the new card. While the card is not needed to vote, it helps when the idiots, ummm, the people working at the polls cannot figure out that we belong at the table that we say we belong at. (No, really, one year the woman at the table we were to vote at told us we were at the wrong polling place as our address was “not on her list”. We had to show her the card with the info we were to vote there and she had to go and check with one. Not sure if that is better or worse than the year we went to the primary vote and the man and woman at the table for our location and our party were not able to figure out anything to do and the fellow from the other party came and took care of getting us signed in and gave us our ballots. If one did not have to be there at 6 am we would go down and work the polls because they need us - and one does get paid.)
When I was pretty sure all of what had to be kept from 2018 was in the box - I put the lid on and climbed up and put it away. I then put back all the stuff that goes in front of the boxes that I had taken out. Anything I find now that belongs in the box, I will put in that prior year’s folder for next year.
Something I just noticed in writing this piece - I never made a new label “2018" and stuck it on the box. I will have to do so or be terribly confused in the future.
I also have a file drawer both for the files I keep for our reenacting unit and for same for my embroidery chapter. (I am treasurer of both and need to keep files). I have a metal file drawer divider so the embroidery files are in front of same and the reenacting ones are behind.
I have not had a chance to go through these files in awhile and move out old years. I started with our reenacting unit. I pulled old paid bills from the paid bills folder, ditto the bank statements and insurance policies. We have some copies of invoices that I sent to organizations that we did events for and they are pulled also if they are 2017 or before. I then sorted what I had pulled out into stacks by year and put the stacks in folders. The unit has several filing cabinets and a drawer in one of them holds the old records - more than 3 years ago - and I move the files there - by year - so I don’t have to take up room in our house for older files. As I pull the older bills I check to make sure that there are not any that I might needs - items we don’t often need to reorder, but if we do, it is helpful to have the last one, so that we know what we ordered last time and from whom. (This past Monday night these files were taken to our reenactment unit’s meeting and put in the file cabinets.)
I did not get to the embroidery chapter’s files yet - those I keep 3 years in the drawer (plus the current year) plus another 7 years in box (another of those manila envelope boxes) in the closet - well labeled.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes just short periods of time are best for getting work done. I could have put all this off, but had a bit of time here and there to shred the papers. I pulled most of the papers to go in the box for 2018 while the computer was backing up for the day.
Getting rid of ants and getting the fridge to stay in temperature range - much harder.
One job I have not have had a chance to do is store files from 2018 that I need/want to keep. Before doing this I have to clear out the oldest box saved files - in this case it was 2009 that had to be dealt with. 2009 was an unusual year for us - it was the year that we had bedbugs.
I climbed up and took stuff off the front of the shelf in the office closet - 3 boxes of computer disks stored up there (installed hardware, to set up the computers, old software that might needed, past years tax software). At the end of 2018 I stored the paid bills in an old manila envelope box (the one the envelopes came in) that I keep for this - that box had to come down also, as were 2 boxes of small manila envelopes. (Did you know that 6"x 9" or less sized envelopes go at the same US Postage rate as regular #10 envelopes and can hold more in the same 1/4" thickness allowed for same than the #10's?) Some empty, flattened boxes that I kept was the last of what was blocking access to the 3 boxes of old financial records on the middle of the top shelf of the closet. There are additional boxes of same (9 in total) on the top of the closet, but the latest and oldest are the two I try to keep in the center stack - as the other stacks require moving the center stack to take out the boxes. First, I took out the 2017 box and added some papers I had found during the past year from same (I have folder “old years files to add to box” that it has been in. ). I then took out the 2009 box.
Going through the old box is a trip down memory lane. I start taking out papers. There are bank statements, paid bills, old insurance policies, etc. in the box for us and for our businesses. I have my paper shredder ready and also have spare garbage bags.
I take the first item out - what is it? In this case a stack of telephone bills. Nothing needed from same. I go pull the first 4 off the top - checking that nothing else is mixed in - and into the shredder they go. Little by little more goes into the shredder. Items such as the phone bills and cable bills which don’t need to be checked if anything should be kept just get fed in and shredded.
In 2009 we got rid of my 1996 car and bought a new one. (Which we hated and got rid of 2 years later.) I pulled out the book (remember when the dealer handed out books with photos and info about the car that you were looking out) and the rest of the papers from the original 1996 purchase of the car that I pulled from the car’s file at the end of 2009 when I pulled files to keep from the year.) I stuck all of them in the book to go through and added same to my “to do” pile. I will keep the car registrations as I keep them forever. (We once received notice that we had not paid 3 parking tickets on one of our cars. We had never received any tickets nor was it in an area we have been to. I requested copies of the tickets and it was a different car and a different license plate. Some of the letters and numbers matched and some did not - but looked the same. I had to prove what the license plate on the car was - at the time the ticket was issued - having a different plate on the car when I was fighting this did not count. I did not keep the registrations - in this area this is a small square of heavy paper that is changed every 2 years when it is renewed. Each was tossed out after the new one was put in the car or our wallets. It was a big problem to resolve, so I now keep the car registrations - forever. I will go through the purchase papers when I get a chance.
I then looked up in my Quickbooks what income taxes we paid during the year (including final estimate and final payment for 2008 and estimate for 2009.) I saw that we had only made one payment in April. I made a note. I then checked what we had paid for our real estate taxes and made a note of them. I then opened our corporation in same and checked what and when we had paid for corporation taxes and sales taxes that we had collected and paid. I also checked for a certain payment we have to pay to the state corporation dept every other year with who is who in our corporation.
I then started with the corporation bank statements. I pulled out the statements that should have the checks issued above and pulled those checks out, paper clipped them together and safely set them aside. I will scan front and back of these checks in my computer - again due to something that has happened in the past with clients - and my dad’s business. I then started shredding the corporation bank statements, looking as I did for an unusually large amounts on them. If I had seen any I would checked what it was for.
Next I went through the corporation’s charge card statement. Again I looked for anything that is a large amount and feed the statements into the shredder.
By now I have had to change the bag in the shredder once.
I now am at our personal bank statements, again I will check for any large amounts. A lot more of these than for the corporation as we have accounts at multiple banks and each have IRA accounts. Our main checking account has a lot of checks, as well as deposit slips, so I remove the staple(s) holding them to the statement so I can feed them into the shredder in batch sizes that will not jam the shredder and also send the statement through. As I go through I make sure to pull the checks for our income tax and the four for our real estate taxes. When I come to July I find the check that paid for the bed bug treatment - gee, it was $2000 more than I thought I was!
When the bank statements are finished I go through the several credit cards statements. (All of which were paid in full every month, as is all.) Again, I have to separate the slips from the statements as there are too many to go through the shredder all at once.
Suddenly I realize that I am coming to the end of what is in the box. I have pulled some papers and set them aside to check through - maybe scan into the computer, as I will do with the tax payment checks and receipts for our real estate taxes. Last thing was I took the “2009" removable label from the box.
2009 is done and gone. I have done it in 3 sessions of shredding - too much shredded at once and the shredder will overheat and I will have to wait for it to cool off. I filled 4 kitchen sized bags of shreds. (I put them in out by putting 2 bags each into a larger black bag and setting those two large black bags out. The light colored kitchen bags can sort of be seen through and I did not want anyone noticing that the bags had shredded papers in them and it looks more like regular trash than same.)
On to storing 2018. In my file drawer the files that should be gone through have red edged labels (those that are permanent and should stay are blue edged). In our corporation’s file drawer the annual files are yellow edged labels and permanent are green edged labels. I have a folder in our file drawer that holds items I found or received during the year that belongs in the prior year. So I take anything in it - for 2017 and add it to the 2017 box.
I pull the first annual folder - bank statements from our main bank - I take out 2018 statements and put into the box. I do the same with the rest of the bank statements from 2018. I then come to statements from our medical insurance - all of the 2018 statements are pulled out. I switched medical insurance companies in 2018. I go through the blue edged folder for same and pull the papers to keep - I shred the others. 2 empty folders (the annual and the permanent for that insurance company) to be recycled next time I need a folder - put in a sorter on top of the folder holder stack on the side of my desk with other folders waiting a new use. I do this with all of the annual folders in our file drawer.
I then do the same with the corporation file drawer. Paid bills for the corporation are in folders in the file drawer and are pulled out also and fit into the box.
I then go back and pull the box of paid bills which I mentioned I had put the 2018 bills in. I then add the paid bills.
When I am pretty sure that just about everything is in the box I take out my “this year folder”. I use this folder to throw things in that I don’t know what to do with or do not go with anything and need to be held for short term. I go through it and shred whatever is no longer needed. I put in the box anything I want to keep from last year. One example of what is in this folder - we get a large postcard (sometimes two during the same year) on when and where we are to vote - including our Congressional district, State Senate district, State Assembly district, and County legislator district on it, as well as our “voting district” infos. I keep the card until we receive the next year’s card. Since we have the 2019 card, I shredded the 2018 card as it is no longer needed. (I keep it until the new one comes as 3 years ago we did not get the new card. While the card is not needed to vote, it helps when the idiots, ummm, the people working at the polls cannot figure out that we belong at the table that we say we belong at. (No, really, one year the woman at the table we were to vote at told us we were at the wrong polling place as our address was “not on her list”. We had to show her the card with the info we were to vote there and she had to go and check with one. Not sure if that is better or worse than the year we went to the primary vote and the man and woman at the table for our location and our party were not able to figure out anything to do and the fellow from the other party came and took care of getting us signed in and gave us our ballots. If one did not have to be there at 6 am we would go down and work the polls because they need us - and one does get paid.)
When I was pretty sure all of what had to be kept from 2018 was in the box - I put the lid on and climbed up and put it away. I then put back all the stuff that goes in front of the boxes that I had taken out. Anything I find now that belongs in the box, I will put in that prior year’s folder for next year.
Something I just noticed in writing this piece - I never made a new label “2018" and stuck it on the box. I will have to do so or be terribly confused in the future.
I also have a file drawer both for the files I keep for our reenacting unit and for same for my embroidery chapter. (I am treasurer of both and need to keep files). I have a metal file drawer divider so the embroidery files are in front of same and the reenacting ones are behind.
I have not had a chance to go through these files in awhile and move out old years. I started with our reenacting unit. I pulled old paid bills from the paid bills folder, ditto the bank statements and insurance policies. We have some copies of invoices that I sent to organizations that we did events for and they are pulled also if they are 2017 or before. I then sorted what I had pulled out into stacks by year and put the stacks in folders. The unit has several filing cabinets and a drawer in one of them holds the old records - more than 3 years ago - and I move the files there - by year - so I don’t have to take up room in our house for older files. As I pull the older bills I check to make sure that there are not any that I might needs - items we don’t often need to reorder, but if we do, it is helpful to have the last one, so that we know what we ordered last time and from whom. (This past Monday night these files were taken to our reenactment unit’s meeting and put in the file cabinets.)
I did not get to the embroidery chapter’s files yet - those I keep 3 years in the drawer (plus the current year) plus another 7 years in box (another of those manila envelope boxes) in the closet - well labeled.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes just short periods of time are best for getting work done. I could have put all this off, but had a bit of time here and there to shred the papers. I pulled most of the papers to go in the box for 2018 while the computer was backing up for the day.
Getting rid of ants and getting the fridge to stay in temperature range - much harder.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
THE SIDE PORCH
I actually got something done this week - last Saturday when we got home I ended up dealing with the porch. We have a small enclosed entryway to our kitchen door which in the most technical sense is our “porch”. It is aluminum with screens on the top half of the walls. It has a shelving unit with cabinet doors on the bottom of it on the wall between the door to the outside (facing the street) and the door to the kitchen. On the back wall there is my husband’s boyhood work bench. This has a shelf under it the top which holds a box for recycling of cans and bottles - just stick my hand out the kitchen door and toss in and I stack the newspapers on top of it for same. There is a small garbage pail between the house wall and the table where I toss the soda bottles for return for deposit. It also has some other storage items. The rest of the porch is filled with stuff. There is a narrow pathway from the door to door.
What is in it which takes up so much more of the space? Well, I tossed the plastic chair which was in the far corner years ago so that’s gone. I admit that much of this mess is mine. I keep empty cardboard boxes to use to put out the recycling. Our township gave out special green plastic square boxes to put the recycling in (cans and bottles) when the program first started. When we bought the house the box came with it. I would dutifully put it out with our cans and bottles weekly and put the newspapers, tied in a stack (sometimes two stacks or more if I had been clearing out papers or it had been raining heavily or snowing the week before) either next to it or in it every week. If we have a lot of snow it is a problem putting it out as where it goes cannot be reached if there is mounds of snow - sometimes I will leave it in our driveway cut, sometimes I hold onto it for the next week. Nice and easy.
I am pretty sure that I mentioned that we live on a main, 4 lane road. The sanitation workers did not neatly place the box back where it belonged on our property, they would drop it in the road. Cars would hit it. Eventually it was in pretty bad shape - even taped back together and it disappeared - my assumption being that the sanitation workers took it. I called the department and they told me to come and pick up a new one. So I drove down - about half an hour each way - to get a new box. In the interim they had made the box larger. The new box did not fit in the work bench. Big problem - it did not fit anywhere usable and we could not figure out what to do with it. Shortly after my sister-in-law was selling her late mother’s house and I had an idea. My in-laws never believed in recycling so they had their box as originally given to them sitting in the garage. I took my large one and exchanged it for their smaller one. Worked well for us and the people in the house would probably have children and need the larger box anyway. Well at some time since this box also was destroyed by being thrown in the street and disappeared I had to come up with a new idea. (In the interim the sanitation department had dropped off the new, even larger, full garbage can sized recycling can which sits tossed behind the garage ever since as it would hold 2 months of our cans and bottles. What really annoyed me about them leaving this can was it was left on the driveway, in front of the house - if only they did that with the boxes when I was using them - at the start of July that year - when people like us are away and it stands there as beacon that the house is empty.)
My solution has been to use cardboard boxes that come into the house to hold the recycling. The box itself is recyclable so they just take it all. To do this I hold onto cardboard boxes as we get them - small ones such as cereal boxes are good when I just have 4 soup cans and so on up to larger size boxes which can take a couple (few?) weeks worth when I have not have not been able to put out the recycling. (Really big ones can be cut in half to use for 2 weeks.) They were all just tossed and a mess.
I have not had a chance to return soda bottles and cans since doing so at the start of December. Weather, things that needed to be done, etc. after my embroidery guild meeting had stopped me from me from doing so. I had 3 large clear garbage bags with same floating about the porch.
There are also several large spray bottles for poison ivy, killing weeds, etc. floating on the floor of the porch. A couple of them are empty - but we were not sure how to dispose of them as they are “hazardous substances” and cannot go in the garbage. (Since clearing the porch out a bit last weekend I have checked and they can only be returned at “STOP” events (stop throwing out poisons). So we have to make a note and get out early enough to get to one - hopefully the July one as the June one is not near us and the July one is.
Using a small plastic bag I was going to throw out I moved these into the far corner of the porch after I cleared out a full large garbage bag that was sitting there, I then put the plastic bags of soda bottles behind the bottles so both are out of the way. The cardboard boxes which were kept were put on top of the same bags. We had a large garbage bag in the middle of the porch to toss, well, garbage into. That was moved further into this corner.
We have a short office paper sized garbage pail in the porch. I put our spare, sealed bag of snow salt in it and then put the started bag on top of it. (The other spare bags are in the snow blower shed outside this porch.)
We have a kitchen sized garbage pail in the porch which holds some of the assorted, brooms and shovels in the porch - I added some more of the lighter weight ones into it. The three snow shovels should go into that same shed until next winter.
Well, the porch is not really cleared out (I did not go through the large shelving unit, but much, if not all, of what is on the open shelf areas is needed and I did fell like going into the doored section - especially since I had not intended to do any of this) but it is so much better. We can easily walk through it.
The garbage bags were put out by the garbage pail that actually holds garbage outside the house - next to the snowblower shed. Garbage pick up would be Monday and it could not go out to the curb before Sunday night. I had 2 large black bags of garbage and a smaller white kitchen can sized one also. I also had two relatively small filled bags with pieces of our driveway in them. (One area of our driveway is falling apart and we can keep picking up the pieces as we are afraid that in winter if we use the snow blower it will send the pieces flying.) So I put those two bags out also. Sunday night when I put all this at the curb I also added the usual kitchen garbage bag.
I am also taking smaller bags of the soda bottles - one put in the car as one bag of bottles is returned to get them rid of them in small amounts. Husband hates the entire process (see the comment about his family not recycling in the body of this post) and I had been saving them up to take monthly. This has become a problem this year and I would not have a chance to do so again until September. I plan to get rid of the bottles a small bag at a time. Once we are caught up the same bag or less will be returned weekly.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes when one never has time to do something, it suddenly becomes “oh carp, we have to do this NOW.” If that happens do what needs to be done. If you can prevent yourself from reaching that point - do it before it reaches that point. Oh, and of course, the snow shovels still have not been put into the snow blower shed.
What is in it which takes up so much more of the space? Well, I tossed the plastic chair which was in the far corner years ago so that’s gone. I admit that much of this mess is mine. I keep empty cardboard boxes to use to put out the recycling. Our township gave out special green plastic square boxes to put the recycling in (cans and bottles) when the program first started. When we bought the house the box came with it. I would dutifully put it out with our cans and bottles weekly and put the newspapers, tied in a stack (sometimes two stacks or more if I had been clearing out papers or it had been raining heavily or snowing the week before) either next to it or in it every week. If we have a lot of snow it is a problem putting it out as where it goes cannot be reached if there is mounds of snow - sometimes I will leave it in our driveway cut, sometimes I hold onto it for the next week. Nice and easy.
I am pretty sure that I mentioned that we live on a main, 4 lane road. The sanitation workers did not neatly place the box back where it belonged on our property, they would drop it in the road. Cars would hit it. Eventually it was in pretty bad shape - even taped back together and it disappeared - my assumption being that the sanitation workers took it. I called the department and they told me to come and pick up a new one. So I drove down - about half an hour each way - to get a new box. In the interim they had made the box larger. The new box did not fit in the work bench. Big problem - it did not fit anywhere usable and we could not figure out what to do with it. Shortly after my sister-in-law was selling her late mother’s house and I had an idea. My in-laws never believed in recycling so they had their box as originally given to them sitting in the garage. I took my large one and exchanged it for their smaller one. Worked well for us and the people in the house would probably have children and need the larger box anyway. Well at some time since this box also was destroyed by being thrown in the street and disappeared I had to come up with a new idea. (In the interim the sanitation department had dropped off the new, even larger, full garbage can sized recycling can which sits tossed behind the garage ever since as it would hold 2 months of our cans and bottles. What really annoyed me about them leaving this can was it was left on the driveway, in front of the house - if only they did that with the boxes when I was using them - at the start of July that year - when people like us are away and it stands there as beacon that the house is empty.)
My solution has been to use cardboard boxes that come into the house to hold the recycling. The box itself is recyclable so they just take it all. To do this I hold onto cardboard boxes as we get them - small ones such as cereal boxes are good when I just have 4 soup cans and so on up to larger size boxes which can take a couple (few?) weeks worth when I have not have not been able to put out the recycling. (Really big ones can be cut in half to use for 2 weeks.) They were all just tossed and a mess.
I have not had a chance to return soda bottles and cans since doing so at the start of December. Weather, things that needed to be done, etc. after my embroidery guild meeting had stopped me from me from doing so. I had 3 large clear garbage bags with same floating about the porch.
There are also several large spray bottles for poison ivy, killing weeds, etc. floating on the floor of the porch. A couple of them are empty - but we were not sure how to dispose of them as they are “hazardous substances” and cannot go in the garbage. (Since clearing the porch out a bit last weekend I have checked and they can only be returned at “STOP” events (stop throwing out poisons). So we have to make a note and get out early enough to get to one - hopefully the July one as the June one is not near us and the July one is.
Using a small plastic bag I was going to throw out I moved these into the far corner of the porch after I cleared out a full large garbage bag that was sitting there, I then put the plastic bags of soda bottles behind the bottles so both are out of the way. The cardboard boxes which were kept were put on top of the same bags. We had a large garbage bag in the middle of the porch to toss, well, garbage into. That was moved further into this corner.
We have a short office paper sized garbage pail in the porch. I put our spare, sealed bag of snow salt in it and then put the started bag on top of it. (The other spare bags are in the snow blower shed outside this porch.)
We have a kitchen sized garbage pail in the porch which holds some of the assorted, brooms and shovels in the porch - I added some more of the lighter weight ones into it. The three snow shovels should go into that same shed until next winter.
Well, the porch is not really cleared out (I did not go through the large shelving unit, but much, if not all, of what is on the open shelf areas is needed and I did fell like going into the doored section - especially since I had not intended to do any of this) but it is so much better. We can easily walk through it.
The garbage bags were put out by the garbage pail that actually holds garbage outside the house - next to the snowblower shed. Garbage pick up would be Monday and it could not go out to the curb before Sunday night. I had 2 large black bags of garbage and a smaller white kitchen can sized one also. I also had two relatively small filled bags with pieces of our driveway in them. (One area of our driveway is falling apart and we can keep picking up the pieces as we are afraid that in winter if we use the snow blower it will send the pieces flying.) So I put those two bags out also. Sunday night when I put all this at the curb I also added the usual kitchen garbage bag.
I am also taking smaller bags of the soda bottles - one put in the car as one bag of bottles is returned to get them rid of them in small amounts. Husband hates the entire process (see the comment about his family not recycling in the body of this post) and I had been saving them up to take monthly. This has become a problem this year and I would not have a chance to do so again until September. I plan to get rid of the bottles a small bag at a time. Once we are caught up the same bag or less will be returned weekly.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes when one never has time to do something, it suddenly becomes “oh carp, we have to do this NOW.” If that happens do what needs to be done. If you can prevent yourself from reaching that point - do it before it reaches that point. Oh, and of course, the snow shovels still have not been put into the snow blower shed.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
A WEEKEND IN THE 18 CENTURY, A LUNCHEON, AND OTHER TIME CONSUMERS
Another week already?
Friday we spent the afternoon with our reenactment unit setting up for a relatively large scale event. It is one that we started last year. We invite other units to join us. We have the use of the restoration village I have spoken about before. We set up near the building that we interpret at Christmas time a “British army camp - with officers in the building. In the same general area the “American civilians” (us) are located. At another restored house that happens to be behind this house on top of a rise, is the “American army”. To visitors this other house is a quite a distance away on the road, but for our convenience it can be reached by walking through the woods between the two, while not being seen from where we are. While we are not setting up at the other house, it still takes quite awhile to set up.
Saturday and Sunday was the event - so the entire day - both days - was taken up with the event. Saturday night we got home and I threw the cups we used during the day (period looking cups are used and we each have/bring our own - ditto dishes, and tablewear, but we had not brought anything other than cups with us Saturday as we were not staying for dinner at night) into the sink and went upstairs to change in modern clothes. When I got back downstairs the kitchen sink and the counter on either side of it was covered in ants! I managed to get rid of the ones I saw and washed the cups - as husband’s cup was also covered. After we had dinner we found more ants. I had just put the kitchen back together from a prior attack of ants! So, again, I checked and washed off each item around the sink - such as the dishrack - and stored them on the one small section of counter that is on the other side of the kitchen. Husband went looking online for what is food safe to get rid of ants. He found out that one can spray a 3/1 vinegar/water mixtures, let it dry for 30 minutes, blot puddles, and let the rest air dry. Seems to be working so far. I have moved items back to the counter top, but still am not using the space. When I wash dishes I wash and rinse an item, dry it and put it away immediately and then on to the next piece. It is exhausting. Oh, and I am using paper towels for washing instead of a sponge or steel wool pad, as I can toss them out after each session of washing. Sunday not only did we have the event - everything had to be packed afterwards.
I was looking forward to tomorrow, Thursday, when I had nothing to do and could breathe - ha ha!
Monday afternoon, husband decided that we had to get gas for our car, as we had not done so on Sunday as we normally would, and also had to check the oil in the car. So we drove out to where we go for both, which took most of the afternoon. When we got home we went through the stuff we brought back from the reenactment and I had put in closed plastic bags and checked it for ants - only found one.
Tuesday we ran some home errands - shopping and such and also bought some deli turkey for me to make light sandwiches to bring today to my embroidery chapter for our annual luncheon meeting. Everyone makes some sort of salad, I can’t eat salad unless I know that I am going home right after, so I bring the sandwiches so I have something to eat. We discuss what we want to do next year (September to June) at our meetings and any regular business. I had planned to run a lot errands as I won’t have a day out alone again until September. I realized on my way back from the meeting today, Wednesday, I had forgotten to bring the soda bottles to put in for recycling - 5 months worth! Oh, well. I did our banking and the banking for the embroidery chapter.
Oh, I also had forgotten that I did have to send a list of members to our region and had planned to do it Thursday (tomorrow) when I would have a chance to breathe - but.... my sister contacted me and needs me to go to my mom on Thursday as she cannot go then. She has been visiting mom just about every day even when the rest of us are going also, so I could not say no. I managed to get the list out by email yesterday.
Monday night after husband fell asleep I heard a chirping - I presumed it was the downstairs smoke detector (upstairs is a 10 year detector) and figured they usually chirp for a couple of days so we would take care of it Tuesday. I heard it again Tuesday morning, but then it stopped. Husband went crazy trying to figure out which device was beeping as they all tested fine. He decided it was a telephone in the office and we bought a new one - but that one still works fine. (New one will be returned.) This morning I heard the chirping again and Robert heard it also. While I was out today he figured out that it was the smoke detector downstairs and replaced the battery.
Oh, and Friday he is planning a trip to Pennsylvania - if it finally does not rain on a Friday this week. (Well, last Friday it did not rain, but we did have the event to set up.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Again, one must take life a day at a time. I know that at some point this craziness will stop and I will be able to catch up - okay, in the back of my head I realize life may remain this crazy for ever, but I sure hope not!
My thoughts and prayers go out to those who continue to get this horrible weather and are in much worse a situation that we are.
Friday we spent the afternoon with our reenactment unit setting up for a relatively large scale event. It is one that we started last year. We invite other units to join us. We have the use of the restoration village I have spoken about before. We set up near the building that we interpret at Christmas time a “British army camp - with officers in the building. In the same general area the “American civilians” (us) are located. At another restored house that happens to be behind this house on top of a rise, is the “American army”. To visitors this other house is a quite a distance away on the road, but for our convenience it can be reached by walking through the woods between the two, while not being seen from where we are. While we are not setting up at the other house, it still takes quite awhile to set up.
Saturday and Sunday was the event - so the entire day - both days - was taken up with the event. Saturday night we got home and I threw the cups we used during the day (period looking cups are used and we each have/bring our own - ditto dishes, and tablewear, but we had not brought anything other than cups with us Saturday as we were not staying for dinner at night) into the sink and went upstairs to change in modern clothes. When I got back downstairs the kitchen sink and the counter on either side of it was covered in ants! I managed to get rid of the ones I saw and washed the cups - as husband’s cup was also covered. After we had dinner we found more ants. I had just put the kitchen back together from a prior attack of ants! So, again, I checked and washed off each item around the sink - such as the dishrack - and stored them on the one small section of counter that is on the other side of the kitchen. Husband went looking online for what is food safe to get rid of ants. He found out that one can spray a 3/1 vinegar/water mixtures, let it dry for 30 minutes, blot puddles, and let the rest air dry. Seems to be working so far. I have moved items back to the counter top, but still am not using the space. When I wash dishes I wash and rinse an item, dry it and put it away immediately and then on to the next piece. It is exhausting. Oh, and I am using paper towels for washing instead of a sponge or steel wool pad, as I can toss them out after each session of washing. Sunday not only did we have the event - everything had to be packed afterwards.
I was looking forward to tomorrow, Thursday, when I had nothing to do and could breathe - ha ha!
Monday afternoon, husband decided that we had to get gas for our car, as we had not done so on Sunday as we normally would, and also had to check the oil in the car. So we drove out to where we go for both, which took most of the afternoon. When we got home we went through the stuff we brought back from the reenactment and I had put in closed plastic bags and checked it for ants - only found one.
Tuesday we ran some home errands - shopping and such and also bought some deli turkey for me to make light sandwiches to bring today to my embroidery chapter for our annual luncheon meeting. Everyone makes some sort of salad, I can’t eat salad unless I know that I am going home right after, so I bring the sandwiches so I have something to eat. We discuss what we want to do next year (September to June) at our meetings and any regular business. I had planned to run a lot errands as I won’t have a day out alone again until September. I realized on my way back from the meeting today, Wednesday, I had forgotten to bring the soda bottles to put in for recycling - 5 months worth! Oh, well. I did our banking and the banking for the embroidery chapter.
Oh, I also had forgotten that I did have to send a list of members to our region and had planned to do it Thursday (tomorrow) when I would have a chance to breathe - but.... my sister contacted me and needs me to go to my mom on Thursday as she cannot go then. She has been visiting mom just about every day even when the rest of us are going also, so I could not say no. I managed to get the list out by email yesterday.
Monday night after husband fell asleep I heard a chirping - I presumed it was the downstairs smoke detector (upstairs is a 10 year detector) and figured they usually chirp for a couple of days so we would take care of it Tuesday. I heard it again Tuesday morning, but then it stopped. Husband went crazy trying to figure out which device was beeping as they all tested fine. He decided it was a telephone in the office and we bought a new one - but that one still works fine. (New one will be returned.) This morning I heard the chirping again and Robert heard it also. While I was out today he figured out that it was the smoke detector downstairs and replaced the battery.
Oh, and Friday he is planning a trip to Pennsylvania - if it finally does not rain on a Friday this week. (Well, last Friday it did not rain, but we did have the event to set up.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Again, one must take life a day at a time. I know that at some point this craziness will stop and I will be able to catch up - okay, in the back of my head I realize life may remain this crazy for ever, but I sure hope not!
My thoughts and prayers go out to those who continue to get this horrible weather and are in much worse a situation that we are.
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