This month has a been a bit too much. I will be glad when it is behind me. Just this week, to give you an idea.
I did get my mom to the doctor yesterday for her checkup yesterday after needing to change the appointment a few times. I told her to make sure to blame me to the doctor and his staff so they would not be upset with her. She has a pacemaker and was past due to have it checked, as well as having her blood, etc. checked. Mom is 89. She still lives alone in our family house and still drives. She hates to ask for help; I keep telling her to call me when she needs to go somewhere she doesn’t want to drive to, but until now she has refused to call me. In this case she had a problem due to construction near the doctor’s office when she went there earlier in the month as she cannot walk distances and would have had to park too far away. Hence why she called for a ride, I could drop her off if there was still a problem, park and come back, etc. All was good, although blood work will, of course, take a day or two. We had lunch together afterwards for about 3 or 4 hours. We had been headed for a kosher deli - I had to park 4 stores away from it - mom was impressed with my parallel parking, something I just take for granted. But as we inched along, we (she) stopped at a pizza place and while stopped looked in and thought how nice it was - should we go there instead? I was not looking forward to a overfilled, overpriced (especially since I knew she would insist on paying) turkey sandwich (least fatty of the meats there). So I jumped at the change - less for her to walk, lighter meal, and much less expensive. We each had a cheese slice and diet soda and sat and talked and talked. (I write like I talk and she talks more and longer than I do.) It was between meal times and the place was empty or I would have not have stayed, taking up the table as long as we did.
We did go to the Long Island Fair last Sunday to do an embroidery demonstration - and to visit friends we only see at the Fair. One woman used to be the Supervisor of the Juvenile section for decades and had to give it up due to eye trouble, was not at the Fair last year at all. (She continued to volunteer after she gave up the Supervisor position.) I was so glad that she had her son drop her off for a visit. She was sitting in the Juvenile section and as soon as volunteers heard she was there, we all stopped by to see her. She is 90. I was so glad to hear that she was basically well - she had vision problems, which is now mostly blindness and now has hearing problems, but she is the same always in all other regards. After the day, which was the last day of the Fair, was pick up of entries - my three dimensional butterfly embroidery shocked me and won second prize. I had seen the lovely and involved pieces that it was competing with when I dropped it off and figured that I would get an honorable mention due to the technique. That is one project that sat for decades finished. Now to pick another one to finsih. While at the Fair I was also able to check in with someone who is a mutual friend of a friend who moved to South Carolina and find out the couple in SC survived Florence with no problems.
I was suppose to go to a client this week. I called her yesterday (while mom was seeing the doctor) to go there Thursday. The client said it was a problem and could I come on Friday. (Glad she did not say today as we were suppose to have horrible rain - yes, there was rain, but not as bad as they said.) I called her today to say that I could come on Friday, but she didn’t really want me there then, either (even though she had suggested it). Apparently they are filming a movie at her location and her cousin who keeps her company is ill - besides, she tells me, she has had no business all month, so there is little for me to do. So, I will be going there in 2 weeks and do the September and October work at the same time.
In my mind this was great. I get another day to catch up on stuff - the bathrooms REALLY need cleaning. But no, when husband hears that I am not going to the client on Friday, he suggests that since he wants to go to Pennsylvania on Saturday for a wool show, we could go down on Friday for the day and stay overnight. So, the bathrooms will wait a little longer.
Today was the day I write the newsletter for my embroidery chapter and send it out by email. I managed to get that done after dinner - normally done in the afternoon, but there was other “fires” to put out then. I send out 3 versions of the newsletter - the basic newsletter is the same, the email with it changes - one to our members, one to prospective members and one to the other newsletter editors in our region and our region director.
This coming Sunday we were suppose to go to a reenactment event with our unit, but the unit is backing out of it as too few members can go and the place is changing what it said about our setup.
Now in addition to writing to all of you, I am doing our laundry. Will go and change loads between writing this and sending it out. Dinner dishes were done before the newsletter. Kitchen sink area is setup with dish towels over the dish rack, the front of the sink, the windowsill behind the sink, and the pots drying on a towel next to the other side of the sink - so husband can come and wash his hair in the sink. The dishpan I use in the sink is out on a counter with items waiting for washing before we go to bed. ( I made instant diet pudding for snack - the items needed for such are most of what is waiting to be washed.) But no - I still have not thrown out the bad eggs.
And next week I am suppose to teach new stitches (my choice) at the embroidery meeting!
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Sometimes it seems that what must be done in terms of larger projects and appointments is coming too often, too much and too fast. Take it one project at a time, that is all one can do. Things will get done.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Friday, September 21, 2018
WHAT SHOULD YOU GET RID OF AND WHAT SHOULD YOU KEEP?
Pardon me - I didn’t post yesterday. As I think I mentioned the most important annual Jewish holiday was yesterday and when it was over last night it slipped my memory what day of the week it was. So here I am, a day late and a post short.
As I was talking about last week, much of what one needs to know about organizing we know. It is finding the time and pushing ourselves to do it that is the problem - at least for me. Basically one has to sort through what one has and get rid of what is not being used and will not be used and then set up what is left in an organized manner so that one can find what one is looking for quickly.
What to get rid of? A good question. Some of it is rather obvious - empty boxes of cereal for example. They are garbage. Almost empty box? Depends on how much is left - if you can eat it all while continuing to work - eat it and toss the box; if it is enough for a meal or two - use it up at meals and toss the empty box. In this case I mean for the cereal box to stand for anything which gets used up, but the empty container is still around. This week and last week I made a chicken stew that my husband loves for dinner. Problem is that the garbage pickup is on Monday and Thursday and I was making the stew on Monday last week and Tuesday this week and both times had to hold it all both times until Wednesday night when I put it out for Thursday pick up. The bones, skin and such have to be thrown out, but if I toss them in the kitchen garbage and they don’t go out right away, it will smell terrible. I can take the kitchen bag out to the can outside, but it really upsets me to put the bag(s) out only about 1/3 full. So, I put the chicken garbage into one of those plastic shopping bags that one gets at groceries stores, put same in the bowl I had used to hold the cooked chicken overnight (cooked the chicken one day, made the stew the next) before taking it off the bones and left it in the fridge. When it was time for the garbage to go out I added the shopping bag of chicken icky stuff to it and out it went. I then washed the bowl the bag had been in. I actually have left over stew from both nights. It can’t be frozen as it has potatoes in it and they never freeze well. I have the stews in two canning jars in the fridge (one from last week and one from this). I will hold them until the end of the next week - if husband has not eaten it by then (he really LOVES this stew) then it will go out that Sunday night in the garbage - it will not be allowed to sit beyond when it will be safe to eat.
Staying with the kitchen, some items are harder to get rid of. Husband will decide that he likes something - say a particular canned soup - and buy a lot of it. Then something will happen and it will not be eaten. Say, he decides it raises his blood sugar too much and he should only have it once in a while. The items sit........and sit.........and sit..........and sit.......and sit. Suddenly they are past their date and one cannot even donate them. It really kills me to throw out 6 full cans of something because it passed its date a year or two before - but out they must go. They are taking up needed room and if they are eaten by accident they may make someone ill. I have to check on some eggs we have in the fridge - wait, I will check right now - an entire dozen dated for June 16, 2018. Now what do I do? Normally I would toss the eggs. But here is a bit of info - when eggs pass their date and are sent back to the producer by the stores they are allowed to be repackaged and sent back out a certain number of times - gross right, but it is true. Eggs can be tested to see if they are still good and I will have to find the instructions on how to check them. Okay, per “The Joy of Cooking” if the eggs float in cold water they are no good. I will test them tomorrow and then throw them out if they float. We go through periods where we eat eggs or use them in cooking and will buy them - and then the period of eating them ends - see husband deciding he likes something and then deciding not to have it any more, above - I think he was making quiches with them and then stopped doing so - and they sit. Usually it only part of a dozen, which is left. In case you are thinking - what about breakfast? We wake up so late that we have lunch for breakfast, dinner for lunch and then a late night snack for supper, so eggs tend to be more of a dinner food here. I am going to test them..... Well, they will going out Sunday night with the garbage for Monday, the 3 I picked at random all floated - but, on the other hand, I was wrong - there are only 10, not a full dozen. We have a quart of milk in the fridge also. I know that is fresh, we bought it for a meeting of our reenactment unit last Monday - husband had volunteered to bring snack - oh that reminds me of something else, we are going to return an unopened package of cookies - we bought 2 different kinds for the meeting and apparently it was a chocolate mint cookie crowd, not a chocolate chip crowd. But no one opened the milk to use in their coffee. So I have to figure out how to use up a the quart - I guess we will be having diet pudding for snack a few times. We were lucky to find the quart - mostly it comes in half gallons and more around here, and the quart cost almost as much as the half gallon.
So - when one sorts through stuff one will find stuff to toss, stuff to check and decide if it should be tossed - now or soon after, stuff to return, and stuff to use up. If only I had some chocolate syrup for the milk, but if I buy same, then I will have a started bottle of chocolate syrup and someday in the future will be deciding if it should be thrown out or not. (Plus we just plain should not have the extra carbohydrates.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
You know that you know what to do. Go through and toss the floating eggs and the long past date things (whether they are actually dated or not) - and the chicken stuff which has been stored until you can toss it. Get rid of the empty boxes or finish up what it is in them and get rid of them. Return items which are in good condition which can be returned. Use up the items that can still be used - before they have to be tossed because they are floating eggs. This applies in the rest of the house as well as in the kitchen - paints and makeup can go past their use time also, for example. The dress you bought for Sally’s wedding a month ago and then bought a different one, that you wore instead - return it if you can or donate it - unless you know that you can wear it for Harry’s wedding next month. And so on.
As I was talking about last week, much of what one needs to know about organizing we know. It is finding the time and pushing ourselves to do it that is the problem - at least for me. Basically one has to sort through what one has and get rid of what is not being used and will not be used and then set up what is left in an organized manner so that one can find what one is looking for quickly.
What to get rid of? A good question. Some of it is rather obvious - empty boxes of cereal for example. They are garbage. Almost empty box? Depends on how much is left - if you can eat it all while continuing to work - eat it and toss the box; if it is enough for a meal or two - use it up at meals and toss the empty box. In this case I mean for the cereal box to stand for anything which gets used up, but the empty container is still around. This week and last week I made a chicken stew that my husband loves for dinner. Problem is that the garbage pickup is on Monday and Thursday and I was making the stew on Monday last week and Tuesday this week and both times had to hold it all both times until Wednesday night when I put it out for Thursday pick up. The bones, skin and such have to be thrown out, but if I toss them in the kitchen garbage and they don’t go out right away, it will smell terrible. I can take the kitchen bag out to the can outside, but it really upsets me to put the bag(s) out only about 1/3 full. So, I put the chicken garbage into one of those plastic shopping bags that one gets at groceries stores, put same in the bowl I had used to hold the cooked chicken overnight (cooked the chicken one day, made the stew the next) before taking it off the bones and left it in the fridge. When it was time for the garbage to go out I added the shopping bag of chicken icky stuff to it and out it went. I then washed the bowl the bag had been in. I actually have left over stew from both nights. It can’t be frozen as it has potatoes in it and they never freeze well. I have the stews in two canning jars in the fridge (one from last week and one from this). I will hold them until the end of the next week - if husband has not eaten it by then (he really LOVES this stew) then it will go out that Sunday night in the garbage - it will not be allowed to sit beyond when it will be safe to eat.
Staying with the kitchen, some items are harder to get rid of. Husband will decide that he likes something - say a particular canned soup - and buy a lot of it. Then something will happen and it will not be eaten. Say, he decides it raises his blood sugar too much and he should only have it once in a while. The items sit........and sit.........and sit..........and sit.......and sit. Suddenly they are past their date and one cannot even donate them. It really kills me to throw out 6 full cans of something because it passed its date a year or two before - but out they must go. They are taking up needed room and if they are eaten by accident they may make someone ill. I have to check on some eggs we have in the fridge - wait, I will check right now - an entire dozen dated for June 16, 2018. Now what do I do? Normally I would toss the eggs. But here is a bit of info - when eggs pass their date and are sent back to the producer by the stores they are allowed to be repackaged and sent back out a certain number of times - gross right, but it is true. Eggs can be tested to see if they are still good and I will have to find the instructions on how to check them. Okay, per “The Joy of Cooking” if the eggs float in cold water they are no good. I will test them tomorrow and then throw them out if they float. We go through periods where we eat eggs or use them in cooking and will buy them - and then the period of eating them ends - see husband deciding he likes something and then deciding not to have it any more, above - I think he was making quiches with them and then stopped doing so - and they sit. Usually it only part of a dozen, which is left. In case you are thinking - what about breakfast? We wake up so late that we have lunch for breakfast, dinner for lunch and then a late night snack for supper, so eggs tend to be more of a dinner food here. I am going to test them..... Well, they will going out Sunday night with the garbage for Monday, the 3 I picked at random all floated - but, on the other hand, I was wrong - there are only 10, not a full dozen. We have a quart of milk in the fridge also. I know that is fresh, we bought it for a meeting of our reenactment unit last Monday - husband had volunteered to bring snack - oh that reminds me of something else, we are going to return an unopened package of cookies - we bought 2 different kinds for the meeting and apparently it was a chocolate mint cookie crowd, not a chocolate chip crowd. But no one opened the milk to use in their coffee. So I have to figure out how to use up a the quart - I guess we will be having diet pudding for snack a few times. We were lucky to find the quart - mostly it comes in half gallons and more around here, and the quart cost almost as much as the half gallon.
So - when one sorts through stuff one will find stuff to toss, stuff to check and decide if it should be tossed - now or soon after, stuff to return, and stuff to use up. If only I had some chocolate syrup for the milk, but if I buy same, then I will have a started bottle of chocolate syrup and someday in the future will be deciding if it should be thrown out or not. (Plus we just plain should not have the extra carbohydrates.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
You know that you know what to do. Go through and toss the floating eggs and the long past date things (whether they are actually dated or not) - and the chicken stuff which has been stored until you can toss it. Get rid of the empty boxes or finish up what it is in them and get rid of them. Return items which are in good condition which can be returned. Use up the items that can still be used - before they have to be tossed because they are floating eggs. This applies in the rest of the house as well as in the kitchen - paints and makeup can go past their use time also, for example. The dress you bought for Sally’s wedding a month ago and then bought a different one, that you wore instead - return it if you can or donate it - unless you know that you can wear it for Harry’s wedding next month. And so on.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
YOU already know what to do
I don’t know about you, but I actually know what needs to be done for to declutter and get organized. You probably also know what to do. You have probably read it in book after book -
1- Go through what you have
2 - Purge anything that you have not used in X years (generally one or two years depending on the book.
3 - Separate items that don’t belong where they are into one of four boxes - keep, put somewhere else, throw out, donate, sometimes, a fifth box - return to the owner.
4- Survey what you have left and figure out how to store it, buying storage containers only after knowing what you need and measuring the space and items to go into storage.
5 - Keep up putting items away every day.
Oh, this reminded me, I am looking to buy plastic storage to organize the freezer compartment of the fridge better. For some reason lately a lot of food items we buy are in bags - they used to be packages in boxes, they lie on top of each other and I forget what I have. I want them to stand up so I can see what I have. Hold on a minute while I measure the freezer section - hmm mmm mmm - sorry, okay, I am back - that’s less than 10.5 inches tall, 14.5 inches deep, and 19 inches across and I plan on 2 containers across - that would be 9.5 inches across each maximum. I put the measurements in my cell phone in the Walmart section of my “to buy” list. I will have to see what is available.
Oh wait - the timer in my cell phone went off - I have to down to the basement and switch loads in the washer and dryer. Be right back....hmm mmm mmm. Okay, back again. I forgot that there was a blanket in the dryer from last week. We sleep with two in winter, one in summer and I had this one on the bed, but put the other one on the bed last week and washed the one that was there as we both had colds over the past month and thought it best to wash to wash the one we had been breathing on. It is now sealed in a plastic bag to keep it clean until it is needed again. It will go in a small storage piece in our bedroom. Back to all of you, cell phone will go off again in 50 minutes to switch loads again.
Okay - while the above is true, I do other things while I am writing my posts, it is also why the common “simple 5 steps” to get uncluttered and organized don’t always work. Oh, I also updated the browser in my other laptop while I have been writing this. It is not that I don’t care about all of you - (I do wish there were more of you, but I am glad to have every one you reading my posts - feel free to tell friends to join us) but we all have to multitask these days. It is not as easy in the real world as it is in organizing books.
Yes, the basic 5 steps are what need to be done, but sometimes they have to be done in small bites - catch as catch can. When my husband was screaming about his sock drawer - too many socks, too little room. He has trouble finding socks which are comfortable and the ones he liked are wearing out quicker and quicker so he is searching for new socks - as the ones he like are, of course, discontinued. Of course he buys MORE socks and then hates them. It is hard to convince him to let me donate them - “I haven’t even worn some of the pairs yet - and what if I can’t find new socks and neeeeeed these? So I went through his dresser drawers - yes, more than just that drawer - over a period of 2 days - on and off when I had a chance.
What did I find, well, his missing “space pen” for one thing. I found that the bottom drawer was filled with more James Bond toys. I managed to add them to the boxes we had bought and put in the spare bedroom (aka the teddys room) closet. Ah, most of an empty drawer to work with. I put some empty shoe boxes in same. I use them for drawer dividers - two boxes make 3 delineated spaces across - box, space, box. I put the socks he does not wear in the bottom drawer. I also went through stuff he keeps on the left side of his top drawer (which is where his underwear and socks are also kept). He has a small jewelry box - mostly junk, the few nice pieces he has are in my jewelry box, empty eyeglass cases (yes, I keep same also) and other small items - under these I found the space pen. Those items were sorted through and mostly stored in the bottom drawer. Why did all of this go to the bottom drawer? Well, he could not get something out of same unless he was sitting down as he would get dizzy, so it is a good place to put things he will rarely, if ever need. I then rearranged the space in the top drawer and sorted the socks he wears into the boxes (the beige set in one box, the ivory set - he calls them white) in another box and the new socks behind them in the same boxes - white socks in with the beige socks and black socks in with the ivory ones - so they are easy to tell apart by color looking in. Underpants are no longer squeezed into a shoe box, but in the space between two shoe boxes, so they have a bit more space. (His underpants like mine are rolled as this seems to make them fit in the space better and easier to grab out - he needs to buy new ones of same soon - he complains all the time.) He also has some ankle height socks which he finds comfortable to sleep in during the winter as they keep his feet warm but don’t “bother him”.
In doing this I did find some items which I knew he no longer needed and would not be attached to - especially the socks he won’t wear - and packed them to be donated. Also in doing this I had pulled out some shoe boxes from the top of my closet - some were empty and set aside for use in situations such as this, others had shoes in them, and I pulled some shoes off my closet door rack, that I don’t wear, to donate also to make room for some of the ones in the boxes - although the door rack is about 1/3 empty after I was done - and I don’t have a lot of shoes. (If I let him know, his extra shoes will end up there, so I won’t mention it.)
All of this - socks, underwear, James Bond toys, shoes, etc. took about 2 hours spread over 2 evenings. I believe in doing things as one can. Oh, I had no boxes for donation, etc. just some shopping bags.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Use the time YOU have available and try using your innate knowledge of what to do. You know to throw out garbage - you just have to figure out what is the garbage in what you have. You know to donate what can be donated - don’t look at it as you are getting rid of something you loved (or hated and regretted), but rather finding the item a new home with someone who needs it.
Think about what you use and how you use it - and how often you do. Something - such as underwear and socks that are worn daily should be able to be reached as easily as possible.
But remember we do things by habit which may not be the best way to do so. What you do not use as often, can be harder to get to. Since I was in junior high school I had a sock drawer and an underwear drawer. In my current dresser these were two small half size drawers, the underwear drawer being the top drawer, the socks, the next one down. The underwear had my underpants that I daily wear one of, my bras - 3 of them rotated through wear and laundry, and half slips - short white, long white, short black, long black - which I very rarely wear - only if the skirt/dress is a bit sheerer than normal. My sock drawer had my every day socks, my panty hose (rarely worn - once a month to work and if there was an event to which I had to wear a dress), my knee high stockings (worn even less), and the socks I wear to keep my feet warm. Husband said to me one day after we had been married for decades “every morning you open the top drawer and take out underpants and close the drawer. Then you open the next drawer down and take out socks and close the drawer. Why don’t you put the items you wear daily in the same drawer and put the other items in the second drawer? Makes sense - why did I not think of this? Well, I had been doing it the same way for so long, it never occurred to me that there was a better way. I now have my everyday socks and underwear in the top drawer - panties are 3 pairs across, 3 pairs up and two sets of same deep (the set in the front is not a full 9 pairs) and the sock balls stand next to them filling the rest of the drawer - no separation between the two necessary. The second drawer holds my bras in front on one side, my sleep socks across the front on the other. A box of stockings - pantyhose and knee highs behind the sleep sock. I have wool socks which I have acquired over the recent freezing cold winters we have had in the back of the drawer. The slips are stacked between the bras and the wool socks. One drawer to open every day instead of two - labor saved.
So think as you declutter and organize about how you can change where items are stored - even in something as common as your dresser - to work better.
My thoughts and prayers to those in the path of Florence.
1- Go through what you have
2 - Purge anything that you have not used in X years (generally one or two years depending on the book.
3 - Separate items that don’t belong where they are into one of four boxes - keep, put somewhere else, throw out, donate, sometimes, a fifth box - return to the owner.
4- Survey what you have left and figure out how to store it, buying storage containers only after knowing what you need and measuring the space and items to go into storage.
5 - Keep up putting items away every day.
Oh, this reminded me, I am looking to buy plastic storage to organize the freezer compartment of the fridge better. For some reason lately a lot of food items we buy are in bags - they used to be packages in boxes, they lie on top of each other and I forget what I have. I want them to stand up so I can see what I have. Hold on a minute while I measure the freezer section - hmm mmm mmm - sorry, okay, I am back - that’s less than 10.5 inches tall, 14.5 inches deep, and 19 inches across and I plan on 2 containers across - that would be 9.5 inches across each maximum. I put the measurements in my cell phone in the Walmart section of my “to buy” list. I will have to see what is available.
Oh wait - the timer in my cell phone went off - I have to down to the basement and switch loads in the washer and dryer. Be right back....hmm mmm mmm. Okay, back again. I forgot that there was a blanket in the dryer from last week. We sleep with two in winter, one in summer and I had this one on the bed, but put the other one on the bed last week and washed the one that was there as we both had colds over the past month and thought it best to wash to wash the one we had been breathing on. It is now sealed in a plastic bag to keep it clean until it is needed again. It will go in a small storage piece in our bedroom. Back to all of you, cell phone will go off again in 50 minutes to switch loads again.
Okay - while the above is true, I do other things while I am writing my posts, it is also why the common “simple 5 steps” to get uncluttered and organized don’t always work. Oh, I also updated the browser in my other laptop while I have been writing this. It is not that I don’t care about all of you - (I do wish there were more of you, but I am glad to have every one you reading my posts - feel free to tell friends to join us) but we all have to multitask these days. It is not as easy in the real world as it is in organizing books.
Yes, the basic 5 steps are what need to be done, but sometimes they have to be done in small bites - catch as catch can. When my husband was screaming about his sock drawer - too many socks, too little room. He has trouble finding socks which are comfortable and the ones he liked are wearing out quicker and quicker so he is searching for new socks - as the ones he like are, of course, discontinued. Of course he buys MORE socks and then hates them. It is hard to convince him to let me donate them - “I haven’t even worn some of the pairs yet - and what if I can’t find new socks and neeeeeed these? So I went through his dresser drawers - yes, more than just that drawer - over a period of 2 days - on and off when I had a chance.
What did I find, well, his missing “space pen” for one thing. I found that the bottom drawer was filled with more James Bond toys. I managed to add them to the boxes we had bought and put in the spare bedroom (aka the teddys room) closet. Ah, most of an empty drawer to work with. I put some empty shoe boxes in same. I use them for drawer dividers - two boxes make 3 delineated spaces across - box, space, box. I put the socks he does not wear in the bottom drawer. I also went through stuff he keeps on the left side of his top drawer (which is where his underwear and socks are also kept). He has a small jewelry box - mostly junk, the few nice pieces he has are in my jewelry box, empty eyeglass cases (yes, I keep same also) and other small items - under these I found the space pen. Those items were sorted through and mostly stored in the bottom drawer. Why did all of this go to the bottom drawer? Well, he could not get something out of same unless he was sitting down as he would get dizzy, so it is a good place to put things he will rarely, if ever need. I then rearranged the space in the top drawer and sorted the socks he wears into the boxes (the beige set in one box, the ivory set - he calls them white) in another box and the new socks behind them in the same boxes - white socks in with the beige socks and black socks in with the ivory ones - so they are easy to tell apart by color looking in. Underpants are no longer squeezed into a shoe box, but in the space between two shoe boxes, so they have a bit more space. (His underpants like mine are rolled as this seems to make them fit in the space better and easier to grab out - he needs to buy new ones of same soon - he complains all the time.) He also has some ankle height socks which he finds comfortable to sleep in during the winter as they keep his feet warm but don’t “bother him”.
In doing this I did find some items which I knew he no longer needed and would not be attached to - especially the socks he won’t wear - and packed them to be donated. Also in doing this I had pulled out some shoe boxes from the top of my closet - some were empty and set aside for use in situations such as this, others had shoes in them, and I pulled some shoes off my closet door rack, that I don’t wear, to donate also to make room for some of the ones in the boxes - although the door rack is about 1/3 empty after I was done - and I don’t have a lot of shoes. (If I let him know, his extra shoes will end up there, so I won’t mention it.)
All of this - socks, underwear, James Bond toys, shoes, etc. took about 2 hours spread over 2 evenings. I believe in doing things as one can. Oh, I had no boxes for donation, etc. just some shopping bags.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Use the time YOU have available and try using your innate knowledge of what to do. You know to throw out garbage - you just have to figure out what is the garbage in what you have. You know to donate what can be donated - don’t look at it as you are getting rid of something you loved (or hated and regretted), but rather finding the item a new home with someone who needs it.
Think about what you use and how you use it - and how often you do. Something - such as underwear and socks that are worn daily should be able to be reached as easily as possible.
But remember we do things by habit which may not be the best way to do so. What you do not use as often, can be harder to get to. Since I was in junior high school I had a sock drawer and an underwear drawer. In my current dresser these were two small half size drawers, the underwear drawer being the top drawer, the socks, the next one down. The underwear had my underpants that I daily wear one of, my bras - 3 of them rotated through wear and laundry, and half slips - short white, long white, short black, long black - which I very rarely wear - only if the skirt/dress is a bit sheerer than normal. My sock drawer had my every day socks, my panty hose (rarely worn - once a month to work and if there was an event to which I had to wear a dress), my knee high stockings (worn even less), and the socks I wear to keep my feet warm. Husband said to me one day after we had been married for decades “every morning you open the top drawer and take out underpants and close the drawer. Then you open the next drawer down and take out socks and close the drawer. Why don’t you put the items you wear daily in the same drawer and put the other items in the second drawer? Makes sense - why did I not think of this? Well, I had been doing it the same way for so long, it never occurred to me that there was a better way. I now have my everyday socks and underwear in the top drawer - panties are 3 pairs across, 3 pairs up and two sets of same deep (the set in the front is not a full 9 pairs) and the sock balls stand next to them filling the rest of the drawer - no separation between the two necessary. The second drawer holds my bras in front on one side, my sleep socks across the front on the other. A box of stockings - pantyhose and knee highs behind the sleep sock. I have wool socks which I have acquired over the recent freezing cold winters we have had in the back of the drawer. The slips are stacked between the bras and the wool socks. One drawer to open every day instead of two - labor saved.
So think as you declutter and organize about how you can change where items are stored - even in something as common as your dresser - to work better.
My thoughts and prayers to those in the path of Florence.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Happy New Year!
Huh? It’s September?
I am again reminding everyone that one does not have to wait for January 1 to start a new year, turn a new page, start organizing. Every day is the start of a new year.
When I was a child my year started in September. School started then - a new school year. The new TV shows came on for the year (later this became the start of the fall season) - a new TV year. And in either September or October, being Jewish, it was the religious new year also - the anniversary of the beginning of the world we were told.. The January 1 new year always seemed lacking in reason to me - what was starting anew - just the newly printed calendars.
It is a bit arbitrary. The new year used to start on March 25 - talk about crazy, Could you imagine March 24, 2018 being followed by March 25, 2019? This change of year changed at various dates in various places based on the religion practiced in the area starting in 1582. In the British countries, including their colonies here in America, the change to January 1 as the start of the new year was made in 1750. (And this led to all sorts of problems as there was also an adjustment to the calendar of 11 days at the time to correct errors in the prior adjustments by leap year days. If you were born on April 10, 1720 O.S. (old style), you would change your birthday to April 21, 1720 for example.)
The Lunar New Year is in February. The Muslim New Year occurs at a different time each year in the common (western) calendar although it falls on the same day of the Muslim calendar. It will vary over the entire year over time. (The common calendar is a solar calendar- it is based on the travel of the earth around the sun and how long it takes. The use of the different number of days in various months and leap year day keep the common calendar set more or less fixed against the seasons of the year. While there are a number of lunar calendars ( based on the length of the months at about 29 days in the time it takes the moon to travel around the earth), some of them will insert a leap year adjustment of some sort - in the Jewish calendar it is an extra month added a number of times over a cycle of years - the Muslim calendar does not add an extra month to adjust for the solar year and so its holidays move through the year over a period of years as there is an 11 day difference in the length of the year.)
Okay, now we are getting religion classes and history lessons. Back then people had less stuff to deal with and could keep it better organized. What is going on?
What I am saying (and I have posted similar in the past) is that the day we consider to be the golden time to start organizing (or doing something else) is a fairly arbitrary day. If today is September 5 - it will be a year until the next September 5, so it is also the start of a new year.
Make sense (I hope)?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
Since every day is the start of a new year, do not put off starting or doing something until January 1. Start NOW! Okay, maybe today is too soon, pick a day soon and start THEN! No more procrastination. No more New Year's resolutions left uncompleted. Pick one thing, just one thing and do it. Then do something else - one thing at time adds up.
Huh? It’s September?
I am again reminding everyone that one does not have to wait for January 1 to start a new year, turn a new page, start organizing. Every day is the start of a new year.
When I was a child my year started in September. School started then - a new school year. The new TV shows came on for the year (later this became the start of the fall season) - a new TV year. And in either September or October, being Jewish, it was the religious new year also - the anniversary of the beginning of the world we were told.. The January 1 new year always seemed lacking in reason to me - what was starting anew - just the newly printed calendars.
It is a bit arbitrary. The new year used to start on March 25 - talk about crazy, Could you imagine March 24, 2018 being followed by March 25, 2019? This change of year changed at various dates in various places based on the religion practiced in the area starting in 1582. In the British countries, including their colonies here in America, the change to January 1 as the start of the new year was made in 1750. (And this led to all sorts of problems as there was also an adjustment to the calendar of 11 days at the time to correct errors in the prior adjustments by leap year days. If you were born on April 10, 1720 O.S. (old style), you would change your birthday to April 21, 1720 for example.)
The Lunar New Year is in February. The Muslim New Year occurs at a different time each year in the common (western) calendar although it falls on the same day of the Muslim calendar. It will vary over the entire year over time. (The common calendar is a solar calendar- it is based on the travel of the earth around the sun and how long it takes. The use of the different number of days in various months and leap year day keep the common calendar set more or less fixed against the seasons of the year. While there are a number of lunar calendars ( based on the length of the months at about 29 days in the time it takes the moon to travel around the earth), some of them will insert a leap year adjustment of some sort - in the Jewish calendar it is an extra month added a number of times over a cycle of years - the Muslim calendar does not add an extra month to adjust for the solar year and so its holidays move through the year over a period of years as there is an 11 day difference in the length of the year.)
Okay, now we are getting religion classes and history lessons. Back then people had less stuff to deal with and could keep it better organized. What is going on?
What I am saying (and I have posted similar in the past) is that the day we consider to be the golden time to start organizing (or doing something else) is a fairly arbitrary day. If today is September 5 - it will be a year until the next September 5, so it is also the start of a new year.
Make sense (I hope)?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
Since every day is the start of a new year, do not put off starting or doing something until January 1. Start NOW! Okay, maybe today is too soon, pick a day soon and start THEN! No more procrastination. No more New Year's resolutions left uncompleted. Pick one thing, just one thing and do it. Then do something else - one thing at time adds up.
Friday, August 31, 2018
BACK AND FORTH - TWICE - ON THE SAME TRIP AND FALLING BEHIND
Late again posting - sorry.
We did go away last Thursday and Friday. When I telephoned Wednesday afternoon to make the reservation the woman I spoke with, was rather odd about the entire thing. The spaces I asked for were not available for two nights - we had decided to stay through Saturday. When I asked if any of the spaces were available just for the one night, Thursday there was still confusion. I finally worked it out and reserved one of the spaces for Thursday night and figured that we would ask what was available for just Friday night when we checked in - just in case something was available that would work for us. I made sense to me that Friday would not be available even though Thursday was as Friday is a weekend night and more people travel.
Our trip down was fine - better time than the usual mess. As we drove down husband suggested, which he acknowledged was crazy, that we drive back again on Tuesday of the following week for the day. We have not been to the farmers market that is on Tuesday most or all of this year and different vendors are there from the Friday market. The idea hit me, I suggested that we drive down Monday and stay until Tuesday. This would relieve the problem of possibly getting stuck in traffic on the way and arriving too late to have enough time at the market. (Mostly we have lunch and walk around, perhaps buying some small items we need or see, good shop at Tuesday market to look for bears for my village and I have not been there since the village went to year round.) Plus, if we use the toilet in the RV it has to be dumped at the RV park. It needs to be 2/3 full minimum, to dump so that there is enough force, so Friday morning we were going to have to fill the tank (having only stayed one night) to dump the tanks. By coming back, there would be double in the tanks when we dumped and it would fill faster. The weather promised to be nice for Monday and Tuesday and I would make the reservation when we checked in.
Remember I said that it had been suppose to rain there on Tuesday? When we arrived in the general area we saw lots of fields (this is farm country) with huge puddles- almost pond size in them. We went around to several touristy we go to in the area and then around 5:30 pm went to the RV park to check in. We paid for our space for the evening and reserved the same space for Monday night. It is a fairly small RV park along a stream. As we were walking out of the office the employee said “Oh, if the space is too wet, just come back and we will give you another one.” Huh!? Apparently they had trouble from the rain on Tuesday. As we drove to our space we were driving along the row of spaces facing the stream. We saw what they meant - the spaces had MUD in them. Our space is in the next row so we were concerned. We drove to the space and it seemed mostly okay. I got out of the RV as we do a few things when we arrive at a space at the start of a stay there. First husband will back in (rare that we get a “drive through space”) and we will find the level spot. I guide him. This time I checked that the actual space was dry - it is gravel and the gravel looked different, very light in color, apparently washed in the flood. I saw mud on the sides of the space, so I walked to the back of the space and it was not muddy there - where we have to walk to hook up the electricity and the TV (and water if we hooked up same), so it seemed okay. He backed in, we found the level spot and marked it with markers he made. Although we have been in the space numerous times, when we arrive there we check the electricity to make sure it is functioning properly and we did so and went off again.
Well, now I understood why there was confusion about reserving a space when I called the afternoon before. Apparently the general area did not just have rain, it had RAIN!!!!!. FLOODING RAIN!!!!! As we went around over the rest of the two days we saw the result of flooding in many places. At the Friday market there was mud on the foundations of buildings and pavement. One building, which had flooded badly once in the past, had obviously been flooded as there was no merchandise on the bottom 3 shelves of the fixtures - tossed out as it was soaked. There is an auction in a room at the end of one building. I have never seen it closed. It was closed and through the wall I could hear fans running trying to dry the room.
If any of you are from the Lancaster, PA area - I hope that you were not hit by the flooding.
Friday night we returned home. I did not unpack much of the RV. I left my clothes, the snacks, the towels, etc. Husband insisted on taking his clothing into the house. After 2 days, I repacked the RV on Sunday night for the drive down on Monday. By then it was much dryer, although some of the space in the RV park needed work on them and were still closed. Understand, we were away for 2 days, 1 night, then drove home for 2 nights, 2 days, and then back again to Pennsylvania for another 2 days, 1 night and then home - and I won’t bore you with the local traffic mess on the way home last Tuesday night. Of this time, we spent the equivalent of over half a day traveling forth and back and forth and back again.
I am behind in everything I was suppose to do the last few weeks. I notice this when I went to change towels Tuesday night. I normally change all the towels on Monday, then change the bathroom towels again on Thursday and the kitchen towels on Wednesday and Friday. The towels are all assorted - I had Monday bathroom towels out downstairs and Thursday ones upstairs. (No, I am not that anal. I put blue hand towels upstairs and green ones downstairs on Monday and another color on Thursday - as I have 2 sets of each color and all my other ones vary in color by pair. This way I can tell by looking if I forgot to change the hand towels.) I went to change husband’s weekly hair towel and 2 of the 3 were in the laundry and I was pulling the third one to wash. My pillowcases are either white (2 sets) or beige (1 set) I have 3 white towels and a beige one on the bed. I forgot to do the laundry last night. I have been keeping up with washing clothing over the past several weeks of colds and travel, but not the rest of the laundry.
So right now clothing is being washed (a day late). I spent last night writing and rewriting the newsletter for my embroidery chapter. I had figured to write it quickly as it usually does not take long. We are starting our meeting year and I had not heard from the chapter president with her president’s message. We are doing a project for most of the year and I had to figure out how to write up what we are doing at the meeting. (I also list information from our national and region, as well as giving list of related exhibitions and events in a travelable area - this takes up most of the newsletter). In addition we are doing a “stitch in public” that we do every year and I wrote a page to encourage someone other than myself and the chapter president (and husband who joins us) would also come with us. I then found out, in reply to an email I had sent, that the chapter president had sent the info - apparently when I downloaded my email - from 3 days - it did not download on most of my email addresses. When I downloaded it again after hearing from her, it all downloaded. Her president’s message included this info for the meeting. So I had to fit in her message, splitting it to the meeting information and get rid of what I had written. Then send out 3 versions of the newsletter (members, prospective members, and other region newsletter editors). So last night was gone - which is why I did not get a chance to write this post then.
I have a piece I am entering at the local three county, county fair - huh? Our local fair, which dates back to 1842, is the legal county fair for 3 counties. It is held at the restoration village I have mentioned before where there is an exact copy of the original fair grounds from photos) and is held in the style of a late 1800s fair, with many of the volunteers dressed in period dress. The heart of the fair are the art, craft, needlework, sewing, baking, canning, fruits, vegetables, flowers and the like which have been entered by people from the three counties.
I used to enter several items each year including an angel cake. Lately it has been one or two items and no more baking - as there have been less entries they cut some categories all around, including angel cake. I have one piece to enter this year - if I finish it. I have about one or maybe two more nights of stitching it, then I need to assemble it and then husband has to have time to frame it for me. I keep Thursday nights (which means 11:30 pm to 2 am Friday) for stitching and other crafts for me. I have not had a chance in at least a month to do so. I planned on tonight finishing the stitching. Obviously I will not as I am writing this post and have other “must to do” items for after this. If I don’t finish it, it will be entered next year. I am not going to panic over not getting it done in time. I am a procrastinator, I know this and try to push myself to finish ahead of time. When husband was still working I would drop off our entries while he was at work. One year on the day the entries had to be in, I called him at work and - in a panic - asked where the craft wire was in the house, I was still finishing a doll I was making of Theodore Roosevelt and he needed eyeglasses. He on the other hand, would have his entries done in July!
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
What must be done gets done. What is nice to do or one wants to get done, may or may not get done - and that is okay. We can only do a certain amount and cannot kick ourselves for not getting everything done.
We did go away last Thursday and Friday. When I telephoned Wednesday afternoon to make the reservation the woman I spoke with, was rather odd about the entire thing. The spaces I asked for were not available for two nights - we had decided to stay through Saturday. When I asked if any of the spaces were available just for the one night, Thursday there was still confusion. I finally worked it out and reserved one of the spaces for Thursday night and figured that we would ask what was available for just Friday night when we checked in - just in case something was available that would work for us. I made sense to me that Friday would not be available even though Thursday was as Friday is a weekend night and more people travel.
Our trip down was fine - better time than the usual mess. As we drove down husband suggested, which he acknowledged was crazy, that we drive back again on Tuesday of the following week for the day. We have not been to the farmers market that is on Tuesday most or all of this year and different vendors are there from the Friday market. The idea hit me, I suggested that we drive down Monday and stay until Tuesday. This would relieve the problem of possibly getting stuck in traffic on the way and arriving too late to have enough time at the market. (Mostly we have lunch and walk around, perhaps buying some small items we need or see, good shop at Tuesday market to look for bears for my village and I have not been there since the village went to year round.) Plus, if we use the toilet in the RV it has to be dumped at the RV park. It needs to be 2/3 full minimum, to dump so that there is enough force, so Friday morning we were going to have to fill the tank (having only stayed one night) to dump the tanks. By coming back, there would be double in the tanks when we dumped and it would fill faster. The weather promised to be nice for Monday and Tuesday and I would make the reservation when we checked in.
Remember I said that it had been suppose to rain there on Tuesday? When we arrived in the general area we saw lots of fields (this is farm country) with huge puddles- almost pond size in them. We went around to several touristy we go to in the area and then around 5:30 pm went to the RV park to check in. We paid for our space for the evening and reserved the same space for Monday night. It is a fairly small RV park along a stream. As we were walking out of the office the employee said “Oh, if the space is too wet, just come back and we will give you another one.” Huh!? Apparently they had trouble from the rain on Tuesday. As we drove to our space we were driving along the row of spaces facing the stream. We saw what they meant - the spaces had MUD in them. Our space is in the next row so we were concerned. We drove to the space and it seemed mostly okay. I got out of the RV as we do a few things when we arrive at a space at the start of a stay there. First husband will back in (rare that we get a “drive through space”) and we will find the level spot. I guide him. This time I checked that the actual space was dry - it is gravel and the gravel looked different, very light in color, apparently washed in the flood. I saw mud on the sides of the space, so I walked to the back of the space and it was not muddy there - where we have to walk to hook up the electricity and the TV (and water if we hooked up same), so it seemed okay. He backed in, we found the level spot and marked it with markers he made. Although we have been in the space numerous times, when we arrive there we check the electricity to make sure it is functioning properly and we did so and went off again.
Well, now I understood why there was confusion about reserving a space when I called the afternoon before. Apparently the general area did not just have rain, it had RAIN!!!!!. FLOODING RAIN!!!!! As we went around over the rest of the two days we saw the result of flooding in many places. At the Friday market there was mud on the foundations of buildings and pavement. One building, which had flooded badly once in the past, had obviously been flooded as there was no merchandise on the bottom 3 shelves of the fixtures - tossed out as it was soaked. There is an auction in a room at the end of one building. I have never seen it closed. It was closed and through the wall I could hear fans running trying to dry the room.
If any of you are from the Lancaster, PA area - I hope that you were not hit by the flooding.
Friday night we returned home. I did not unpack much of the RV. I left my clothes, the snacks, the towels, etc. Husband insisted on taking his clothing into the house. After 2 days, I repacked the RV on Sunday night for the drive down on Monday. By then it was much dryer, although some of the space in the RV park needed work on them and were still closed. Understand, we were away for 2 days, 1 night, then drove home for 2 nights, 2 days, and then back again to Pennsylvania for another 2 days, 1 night and then home - and I won’t bore you with the local traffic mess on the way home last Tuesday night. Of this time, we spent the equivalent of over half a day traveling forth and back and forth and back again.
I am behind in everything I was suppose to do the last few weeks. I notice this when I went to change towels Tuesday night. I normally change all the towels on Monday, then change the bathroom towels again on Thursday and the kitchen towels on Wednesday and Friday. The towels are all assorted - I had Monday bathroom towels out downstairs and Thursday ones upstairs. (No, I am not that anal. I put blue hand towels upstairs and green ones downstairs on Monday and another color on Thursday - as I have 2 sets of each color and all my other ones vary in color by pair. This way I can tell by looking if I forgot to change the hand towels.) I went to change husband’s weekly hair towel and 2 of the 3 were in the laundry and I was pulling the third one to wash. My pillowcases are either white (2 sets) or beige (1 set) I have 3 white towels and a beige one on the bed. I forgot to do the laundry last night. I have been keeping up with washing clothing over the past several weeks of colds and travel, but not the rest of the laundry.
So right now clothing is being washed (a day late). I spent last night writing and rewriting the newsletter for my embroidery chapter. I had figured to write it quickly as it usually does not take long. We are starting our meeting year and I had not heard from the chapter president with her president’s message. We are doing a project for most of the year and I had to figure out how to write up what we are doing at the meeting. (I also list information from our national and region, as well as giving list of related exhibitions and events in a travelable area - this takes up most of the newsletter). In addition we are doing a “stitch in public” that we do every year and I wrote a page to encourage someone other than myself and the chapter president (and husband who joins us) would also come with us. I then found out, in reply to an email I had sent, that the chapter president had sent the info - apparently when I downloaded my email - from 3 days - it did not download on most of my email addresses. When I downloaded it again after hearing from her, it all downloaded. Her president’s message included this info for the meeting. So I had to fit in her message, splitting it to the meeting information and get rid of what I had written. Then send out 3 versions of the newsletter (members, prospective members, and other region newsletter editors). So last night was gone - which is why I did not get a chance to write this post then.
I have a piece I am entering at the local three county, county fair - huh? Our local fair, which dates back to 1842, is the legal county fair for 3 counties. It is held at the restoration village I have mentioned before where there is an exact copy of the original fair grounds from photos) and is held in the style of a late 1800s fair, with many of the volunteers dressed in period dress. The heart of the fair are the art, craft, needlework, sewing, baking, canning, fruits, vegetables, flowers and the like which have been entered by people from the three counties.
I used to enter several items each year including an angel cake. Lately it has been one or two items and no more baking - as there have been less entries they cut some categories all around, including angel cake. I have one piece to enter this year - if I finish it. I have about one or maybe two more nights of stitching it, then I need to assemble it and then husband has to have time to frame it for me. I keep Thursday nights (which means 11:30 pm to 2 am Friday) for stitching and other crafts for me. I have not had a chance in at least a month to do so. I planned on tonight finishing the stitching. Obviously I will not as I am writing this post and have other “must to do” items for after this. If I don’t finish it, it will be entered next year. I am not going to panic over not getting it done in time. I am a procrastinator, I know this and try to push myself to finish ahead of time. When husband was still working I would drop off our entries while he was at work. One year on the day the entries had to be in, I called him at work and - in a panic - asked where the craft wire was in the house, I was still finishing a doll I was making of Theodore Roosevelt and he needed eyeglasses. He on the other hand, would have his entries done in July!
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
What must be done gets done. What is nice to do or one wants to get done, may or may not get done - and that is okay. We can only do a certain amount and cannot kick ourselves for not getting everything done.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
LISTS FOR REPETITIVE TASKS
Husband has spent the last week and a half with cold - which we are guessing he caught from me. I had been feeling fine and was doing things he would normally do concerning food - such as when we went to Wendys for lunch I would order, pay and pickup the food instead of him - this intended to keep me from catching back the cold. Well, it worked for a while.
I had planned to be telling you about our being in our little RV and dealing with the problems of organizing it for the trip. We had planned on leaving this past Monday and coming home on Friday as the weather was suppose to be nice there all week. As the trip date came closer, Monday and Tuesday were to have RAIN there. Wednesday would be okay there, but there might be some rain on the drive down. Since one cannot cancel RV park reservations this close to a trip, we waited to make same.
Our idea was that we wake early (for us) today and call and make reservations. During the night I started having cold symptoms again - bad and heavy ones. I had trouble sleeping. When we woke earlier than the alarm, husband was concerned about reaching the RV park to make the reservations as the office opens at 9 am, but it is hard to speak to someone before 11 am usually and we had to be on the road by 9 am to try to avoid the dreaded Belt Parkway and the construction along the entire length. I was trying to breathe. We sadly decided to not go today.
As we thought about this during the day - and I started to feel a bit better (amazing what 2 little aspirins can do in getting rid of a headache) and able to breathe again. We decided that I would call the RV park and make reservations for tomorrow night and Friday night and have a 3 day trip. We tend try not to be in Lancaster, PA on Saturdays - especially in summer - as there are too many tourists. (Yes, I know we are tourists also, but we are polite ones who try to blend in, not act rudely as many of our fellow New Yorkers and those from New Jersey do. We go there not for the novelty of the visit, but because it feels like a second home to us.) I was only able to get a reservation in a space that we know (and know it will be level) for tomorrow night, so we are going for just 2 days - and will hope that along the way there will a space we like for Friday night also. Oddly the 6 spaces that they had available for the 2 nights in the section we like, were all ones we have had problems with in the past - maybe others know that they are not level? (For those who have never stayed in an RV or trailer, if the RV or trailer is not level one feels off - walking uphill and down, the cabinet doors either swing shut or swing open, most of the refrigerators for same need to be level to work, etc. Most units have automatic levelers; ours does not. So we will go and see what happens as to how long we will stay.
Yesterday I packed the RV. As I have mentioned before, we keep basic items in it so we don’t need to remember or pack them - toothpaste, soap, dish soap, shampoo, an electric razor for husband, cleaning supplies, office supplies (pens, pencils, paper, stamps, clear tape, stapler...), dishes, pots, tableware, blankets & bedding (bed is still made up from last time as we only used it two nights then - covered the pillows on the bed with the blankets), towels - hand & dish, flashlights, sun hats, rain gear and the like. It is much easier to buy extras of these items than to have to remember to bring them each time - and then remember to put them away when we get home. We filled the water tanks on Monday - this gives us 25 gallons of water for drinking, cleaning, flushing, etc. Yesterday I packed clothing for us for 4 days (we always bring an extra days clothing on a short trip, 2 days worth on a longer one) into the shelves in the RV “closet” (a small cabinet). I packed snacks for us into plastic boxes which snap lock closed and put them into one of the “kitchen cabinets” - two thin shelves one about a foot long and the other about 18 inches long which have doors that snap closed. When we first got the RV we would fill both of these cabinets. Now I use only one for food as we have learned that we do not need as much as thought we did. (Heck, there are supermarkets and farmers’ markets everywhere there - including 24 hour Walmarts.) The other cabinet gets used to hold items such as plastic shopping bags, sweaters, whatever. The refrigerator gets soda - a big bottle to use at night and some cans in case we have lunch at a farmer’s market - which is common - or such, we will not have to buy something to drink.
Shoes were brought in and stored - I bring or wear sneakers and bring leather shoes in case of rain. We keep slippers in the RV. I have a pair of slip on sneakers that I keep in it - in colder weather I might be wearing shoe boots and if I need to run outside, it is easier to slip on these sneakers. We also each keep shower slippers in the RV.
I put the batteries in the thermometer for the fridge - better to find out I need new batteries then, rather than find out when we are leaving. I also put the toll reader into place in the front window. I bring in the store coupons from our car.
How do I keep track of all of this - what needs to be put in the RV when. I have a list of course. I have it memorized in my computer in a spreadsheet. I have a “Do Ahead” section - put water in the tanks, fill bottles of water to bring in the fridge, fill our travel medication boxes and such. I also have a “Check Ahead” section - this is for items which get used up on trips - paper plates, cups, bathroom cups, napkins (well, okay generally these don’t run out as we end up picking up some at different places as we travel) is there enough paper towels, toilet paper and tissues; soaps and related items; did the towels go back in after laundering after the last trip; and such.
I then have categories of what to pack -
What clothing items we need; what snack/food items we need/want.
Items to take from our car and bring - sunglasses, glasses.
Electronics - you know, tablets, laptops, extra or old cell phones as backups (we would not forget our current ones of course), camera if it is touring trip.
Household items - laundry bags (we bring our clothes into the RV in 2 laundry bags to unpack them. One is stored away until the end of the trip and is used to take unworn clothing back into the house. The other is used as a - well - laundry bag and then the dirty clothing goes back into house in it and tossed down the stairs to the basement.
I have some coupons which were picked up on earlier trips or came in the mail related to where we are going and I keep them in an envelope that I bring (it’s on the list of course). Also for our regular main trips (well they used to be regular and main) I have an envelope for each that labeled on the outside on a edge with the name and approximate date of the trip. For example - Labor Day trip- September, Fourth of July trip, etc. I keep them in date order with the next trip in the front of the stack in the same 3 section holder on the wall next to my desk as I keep our unpaid bills (the travel coupon holder is mixed in the same section as these envelopes. If say we pick up coupons for the Kutztown festival in advance - they are put in the envelope for same and will be there when we need them. I also have backpack
Things to do - magazines, my embroidery, etc. Generally they are not touched while we are away, but I always bring them. Husband gives me whatever he wants of same.
Finally, our “last minute bag”. This contains items we might need at home until the moment we leave. I have 3 plastic boxes in the bag. One has OTC medications - if we our stomachs feel bad at home, we take the pill out of the box. If ditto while on a trip, well, ditto. I don’t like to buy these items special for the RV as we use them so rarely, that even the one bottle is not used up by any stretch of when the expiration date is or beyond that seems safe. One has a bit more of same and our thermometer - one can get ill even on a trip and again, we did not want to buy 2 of them. The last box has items we will need on the trip - prescription medications for example - and will taken out of the bag the first night of our trip and stored in the cubby that has our personal items needed for the evening and the morning. We add other items as we use them for the final time at home before the trip. Much of what is in the bag will stay in the bag for the trip and it is stored where it can be more or less easily accessed.
The list also has a section for what we need to on our return to make sure that everything that needs to be is out of the RV and back into the house - and there are always items that we bought on the trip in addition to what we brought. I have a pattern for taking everything out of the RV - but don’t worry I am not going into that now. The list for our return reminds me of what needs to come out and that we need to shut off the refrigerator, air conditioning, inside light, and the RV battery - and put a towel into the refrigerator in case there is any leaking from the small freezer section. (There is a quick version of what absolutely has to come out/be done in case it is raining.
So, everything but the last minute bag, this laptop, and the rain jackets we might have needed for the trip is packed in our RV. Tomorrow we will bring these items, turn on the RV batteries, start the refrigerator in the RV, back out of our driveway and be on our way.
Oh, that sounds so easy. To back out into 2 lanes of traffic on our side of the road involves me standing in the road with a walkie talkie and telling him when he can pull out - talk about needing planning and organization!
I also have a short list, kept on a little clipboard that we use to check off each day of the trip that we have done everything we need to do before pulling out. We would not want to forget to unplug the RV from the electricity so the system is not broken or to lock a cabinet or the refrigerator door and have everything in it go flying when we drive. A common thing that we husband forgets is after we disconnect from the camp’s sources he needs to open the curtain at the back of the RV so he can see out same - good thing it is on my list and I turn around see that it is open and if not send him to open it. Even odd things are on my list. We have an outside light next to the side door. (Same as the light next to your front/back door at home.) We don’t turn it on. One day after driving around much of the day I realized it was on - it must have gotten turned on by accident the night before - I turned it off of course and I added it to the check off list. This short list has several columns so that on a trip up to 4 days can be marked off on the same form.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you do something that has many steps or many parts as a repeated thing, make up a list on your computer for what you need to do. Print it out each time you are doing to do the task and actually cross the items off the list. If needed I list the items that are going to be done at the last minute on the side as I see them - and circle them on the list. If I find that there is something that I need to add - I list it on the back of the page and add it when we return home.
I had planned to be telling you about our being in our little RV and dealing with the problems of organizing it for the trip. We had planned on leaving this past Monday and coming home on Friday as the weather was suppose to be nice there all week. As the trip date came closer, Monday and Tuesday were to have RAIN there. Wednesday would be okay there, but there might be some rain on the drive down. Since one cannot cancel RV park reservations this close to a trip, we waited to make same.
Our idea was that we wake early (for us) today and call and make reservations. During the night I started having cold symptoms again - bad and heavy ones. I had trouble sleeping. When we woke earlier than the alarm, husband was concerned about reaching the RV park to make the reservations as the office opens at 9 am, but it is hard to speak to someone before 11 am usually and we had to be on the road by 9 am to try to avoid the dreaded Belt Parkway and the construction along the entire length. I was trying to breathe. We sadly decided to not go today.
As we thought about this during the day - and I started to feel a bit better (amazing what 2 little aspirins can do in getting rid of a headache) and able to breathe again. We decided that I would call the RV park and make reservations for tomorrow night and Friday night and have a 3 day trip. We tend try not to be in Lancaster, PA on Saturdays - especially in summer - as there are too many tourists. (Yes, I know we are tourists also, but we are polite ones who try to blend in, not act rudely as many of our fellow New Yorkers and those from New Jersey do. We go there not for the novelty of the visit, but because it feels like a second home to us.) I was only able to get a reservation in a space that we know (and know it will be level) for tomorrow night, so we are going for just 2 days - and will hope that along the way there will a space we like for Friday night also. Oddly the 6 spaces that they had available for the 2 nights in the section we like, were all ones we have had problems with in the past - maybe others know that they are not level? (For those who have never stayed in an RV or trailer, if the RV or trailer is not level one feels off - walking uphill and down, the cabinet doors either swing shut or swing open, most of the refrigerators for same need to be level to work, etc. Most units have automatic levelers; ours does not. So we will go and see what happens as to how long we will stay.
Yesterday I packed the RV. As I have mentioned before, we keep basic items in it so we don’t need to remember or pack them - toothpaste, soap, dish soap, shampoo, an electric razor for husband, cleaning supplies, office supplies (pens, pencils, paper, stamps, clear tape, stapler...), dishes, pots, tableware, blankets & bedding (bed is still made up from last time as we only used it two nights then - covered the pillows on the bed with the blankets), towels - hand & dish, flashlights, sun hats, rain gear and the like. It is much easier to buy extras of these items than to have to remember to bring them each time - and then remember to put them away when we get home. We filled the water tanks on Monday - this gives us 25 gallons of water for drinking, cleaning, flushing, etc. Yesterday I packed clothing for us for 4 days (we always bring an extra days clothing on a short trip, 2 days worth on a longer one) into the shelves in the RV “closet” (a small cabinet). I packed snacks for us into plastic boxes which snap lock closed and put them into one of the “kitchen cabinets” - two thin shelves one about a foot long and the other about 18 inches long which have doors that snap closed. When we first got the RV we would fill both of these cabinets. Now I use only one for food as we have learned that we do not need as much as thought we did. (Heck, there are supermarkets and farmers’ markets everywhere there - including 24 hour Walmarts.) The other cabinet gets used to hold items such as plastic shopping bags, sweaters, whatever. The refrigerator gets soda - a big bottle to use at night and some cans in case we have lunch at a farmer’s market - which is common - or such, we will not have to buy something to drink.
Shoes were brought in and stored - I bring or wear sneakers and bring leather shoes in case of rain. We keep slippers in the RV. I have a pair of slip on sneakers that I keep in it - in colder weather I might be wearing shoe boots and if I need to run outside, it is easier to slip on these sneakers. We also each keep shower slippers in the RV.
I put the batteries in the thermometer for the fridge - better to find out I need new batteries then, rather than find out when we are leaving. I also put the toll reader into place in the front window. I bring in the store coupons from our car.
How do I keep track of all of this - what needs to be put in the RV when. I have a list of course. I have it memorized in my computer in a spreadsheet. I have a “Do Ahead” section - put water in the tanks, fill bottles of water to bring in the fridge, fill our travel medication boxes and such. I also have a “Check Ahead” section - this is for items which get used up on trips - paper plates, cups, bathroom cups, napkins (well, okay generally these don’t run out as we end up picking up some at different places as we travel) is there enough paper towels, toilet paper and tissues; soaps and related items; did the towels go back in after laundering after the last trip; and such.
I then have categories of what to pack -
What clothing items we need; what snack/food items we need/want.
Items to take from our car and bring - sunglasses, glasses.
Electronics - you know, tablets, laptops, extra or old cell phones as backups (we would not forget our current ones of course), camera if it is touring trip.
Household items - laundry bags (we bring our clothes into the RV in 2 laundry bags to unpack them. One is stored away until the end of the trip and is used to take unworn clothing back into the house. The other is used as a - well - laundry bag and then the dirty clothing goes back into house in it and tossed down the stairs to the basement.
I have some coupons which were picked up on earlier trips or came in the mail related to where we are going and I keep them in an envelope that I bring (it’s on the list of course). Also for our regular main trips (well they used to be regular and main) I have an envelope for each that labeled on the outside on a edge with the name and approximate date of the trip. For example - Labor Day trip- September, Fourth of July trip, etc. I keep them in date order with the next trip in the front of the stack in the same 3 section holder on the wall next to my desk as I keep our unpaid bills (the travel coupon holder is mixed in the same section as these envelopes. If say we pick up coupons for the Kutztown festival in advance - they are put in the envelope for same and will be there when we need them. I also have backpack
Things to do - magazines, my embroidery, etc. Generally they are not touched while we are away, but I always bring them. Husband gives me whatever he wants of same.
Finally, our “last minute bag”. This contains items we might need at home until the moment we leave. I have 3 plastic boxes in the bag. One has OTC medications - if we our stomachs feel bad at home, we take the pill out of the box. If ditto while on a trip, well, ditto. I don’t like to buy these items special for the RV as we use them so rarely, that even the one bottle is not used up by any stretch of when the expiration date is or beyond that seems safe. One has a bit more of same and our thermometer - one can get ill even on a trip and again, we did not want to buy 2 of them. The last box has items we will need on the trip - prescription medications for example - and will taken out of the bag the first night of our trip and stored in the cubby that has our personal items needed for the evening and the morning. We add other items as we use them for the final time at home before the trip. Much of what is in the bag will stay in the bag for the trip and it is stored where it can be more or less easily accessed.
The list also has a section for what we need to on our return to make sure that everything that needs to be is out of the RV and back into the house - and there are always items that we bought on the trip in addition to what we brought. I have a pattern for taking everything out of the RV - but don’t worry I am not going into that now. The list for our return reminds me of what needs to come out and that we need to shut off the refrigerator, air conditioning, inside light, and the RV battery - and put a towel into the refrigerator in case there is any leaking from the small freezer section. (There is a quick version of what absolutely has to come out/be done in case it is raining.
So, everything but the last minute bag, this laptop, and the rain jackets we might have needed for the trip is packed in our RV. Tomorrow we will bring these items, turn on the RV batteries, start the refrigerator in the RV, back out of our driveway and be on our way.
Oh, that sounds so easy. To back out into 2 lanes of traffic on our side of the road involves me standing in the road with a walkie talkie and telling him when he can pull out - talk about needing planning and organization!
I also have a short list, kept on a little clipboard that we use to check off each day of the trip that we have done everything we need to do before pulling out. We would not want to forget to unplug the RV from the electricity so the system is not broken or to lock a cabinet or the refrigerator door and have everything in it go flying when we drive. A common thing that we husband forgets is after we disconnect from the camp’s sources he needs to open the curtain at the back of the RV so he can see out same - good thing it is on my list and I turn around see that it is open and if not send him to open it. Even odd things are on my list. We have an outside light next to the side door. (Same as the light next to your front/back door at home.) We don’t turn it on. One day after driving around much of the day I realized it was on - it must have gotten turned on by accident the night before - I turned it off of course and I added it to the check off list. This short list has several columns so that on a trip up to 4 days can be marked off on the same form.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you do something that has many steps or many parts as a repeated thing, make up a list on your computer for what you need to do. Print it out each time you are doing to do the task and actually cross the items off the list. If needed I list the items that are going to be done at the last minute on the side as I see them - and circle them on the list. If I find that there is something that I need to add - I list it on the back of the page and add it when we return home.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
BACK TO HOUSEWORK - PREPARE FOR POSSIBLE TRIP
After 2 weeks husband has decided that the tail end of cold is too much to deal with and I am back to cooking and cleaning on my own as of yesterday. So tonight I am catching up on 3 weeks of laundry backed up. I washed the clothing, he put in the dryer and then in the laundry basket. He then pulled out his clothing and put it away and left mine for me.
I think the final blow was yesterday was “change the bed linens day”. Last week we only changed the pillow cases. Last night I figured I would change the sheets, I would change my pillow cases, he would change his, and I would change the sheets and remake the bed - other than him dealing with his pillowcases. So yesterday morning, I pulled off my pillowcases, folded the blanket and pulled the top sheet off the bed. I would normally have pulled off his bottom pillowcase in the morning. I pull the top pillowcase and the bottom sheet off when we are going to bed at night and remake the bed then. (I used to pull everything off in the morning, but a couple of times he was dizzy and ill during the day and I had to quickly put his side of the bed back, so this is our compromise - he can lie down as the bottom sheet and his top pillowcase are there and then pull the top sheet - lying on the bed - on top of him if he does not feel well. ) So last night I put the last (of 3) set of clean sheets on the bed and put the blanket on. I went to pull 2 pillowcases for my pillow and he would do his pillowcases afterwards .... but there were only 2 clean pillowcases! We each took one.
I went down tonight to start the first load of laundry and did so. I was also going to run our “Packtite”, a device intended to heat suitcases and their contents when one returns home from a trip so that if one has picked up bed bugs they will be killed by the heat. We set it up with a laundry basket with holes in it and I heat anything coming into the house we are concerned about. Normally I run it when it when I do the laundry as it is near the washer and dryer in the basement and the timing for a load of laundry to wash or dry and to check the temperature on the thermometer in the Packtite is about the same. There is a small number of things to heat. I noticed that the thermometer reading for the Packtite was the same as last time I used it . (We have an indoor/outdoor reading thermometer and the dohickey for the outside is in the Packtite so I can see the temperature and make sure it is high enough, long enough, but does not go to high.) No new reading - or a blank reading - for the dohickey means that it needs new batteries. I walked up 2 flights of stairs to the office to get new batteries and then back down the same 2 flights. It still did not work. I texted husband to help me. (Yes, we are lazy enough to text each other in the house - much better than running up and down the stairs to tell each other something, especially in summer when doors are closed to keep air conditioning in the room and the ac units are running and making noise.) We spent over half an hour playing with it, but the dohickey still does not work. My solution? We have the same setup on a thermometer in the kitchen to read the temperature in the refrigerator, I brought that set up downstairs and took the working main thermometer from the basement and stuck it in the refrigerator and read it by opening the door. Tomorrow I will switch the setups back - and we will look for a new thermometer for the basement. (I pause here to run down and switch laundry loads.)
Okay, I am back. Over last weekend I reset the number of days for my Quickbooks to remind me of memorized transactions (mostly bills to pay, some direct deposits to come in) to cover everything through the end of the month (normally it is set for one week). I wrote checks for all the bills and calculated how much we needed to transfer from savings (which is a holding account for money for bills) to pay all the bills to the end of the month. I transferred the money yesterday and today mailed out the bill payments. Well, everything but the cable/Internet bill which will not come until the last minute at the end of the month - and the money for it plus a bit more is now is now in the checking account. Why did I pay it all at once? Husband REALLY wants to go on a trip of more than a day or two. He keeps checking the upcoming weather in the several places we might go and it continues to follow the pattern of a day with no rain - maybe two days if lucky -and then two or three days of pouring rain and thunderstorms. (Although the weather is not as bad as it is in some parts of the country - I hope none of you are in the areas of the wildfires or the flooding.) When we prepare for a trip we pay any bills that need to be paid while we will be away and need to transfer money for same and then mail the payments. This way we do not even have to think of the bills until the cable bill at the end of the month. We can leave with a just a quick stop at the bank for cash for the trip. One less thing that has to be dealt with. Actually the only other problem is the newspaper - if we go at the last minute there will be a paper sitting in the delivery tube while we are away - I guess one paper will look like that day’s paper so it is not bad. Most of our mail goes to our box at the Post Office and we put in a large locking mailbox at the house so that we do not have to stop the mail that does still come to the house. Clothing can be washed and dried and then packed the night before and just tossed on the RV bed when we go. Food, etc can be stuck under the RV bed in a holder that is there. It can all be unpacked when we get where we are going. So if he finds a place to go we can leave the next day.
He has had another project he has been working on and frustrated with, which affects me. He has been trying to convince me to stop using this laptop and buy a new one. I have some problems checking posts on some websites - the laptop runs Windows XP. We have been looking and have found some laptops at the price we can pay - actually more than we can pay, but we can stretch the amount another $100 or so t buy. I am still resistant as there are only one or two websites which are affected and I have software I like which may or may not work with Windows 10 and at least one I know will not work with same. Yes, it can take up to 20 minutes for the laptop to boot and takes awhile for programs to open, but I am used to. The alternative he comes up with is installing Linux on this computer to use when online. He has found and set up about 5 versions of same on USB stick drives and DVDs in the past week or so. The latest version on DVD actually works - but one of the sites I have a problem with only partially opens. I have not have my laptop at least part of each night as a result as he loads the new try. (Notice I made sure to write and post on time this week since I was late last week, but some friends on an embroidery site and some friends on a comics site will not hear from me - and I normally am on the comics site on Monday nights.) I am guessing that I will be giving in and getting the new laptop - but not until after the cutoff for the credit card bill this month, so we won’t have to pay for it until October - the house insurance is in September, plus any travel bills if we go away.
Oh - I did finally vacuum up all the shreds of paper from my big shredding of 2008 last week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One may fall behind due to illness or other reasons. Don’t panic. One can always catch up.
I think the final blow was yesterday was “change the bed linens day”. Last week we only changed the pillow cases. Last night I figured I would change the sheets, I would change my pillow cases, he would change his, and I would change the sheets and remake the bed - other than him dealing with his pillowcases. So yesterday morning, I pulled off my pillowcases, folded the blanket and pulled the top sheet off the bed. I would normally have pulled off his bottom pillowcase in the morning. I pull the top pillowcase and the bottom sheet off when we are going to bed at night and remake the bed then. (I used to pull everything off in the morning, but a couple of times he was dizzy and ill during the day and I had to quickly put his side of the bed back, so this is our compromise - he can lie down as the bottom sheet and his top pillowcase are there and then pull the top sheet - lying on the bed - on top of him if he does not feel well. ) So last night I put the last (of 3) set of clean sheets on the bed and put the blanket on. I went to pull 2 pillowcases for my pillow and he would do his pillowcases afterwards .... but there were only 2 clean pillowcases! We each took one.
I went down tonight to start the first load of laundry and did so. I was also going to run our “Packtite”, a device intended to heat suitcases and their contents when one returns home from a trip so that if one has picked up bed bugs they will be killed by the heat. We set it up with a laundry basket with holes in it and I heat anything coming into the house we are concerned about. Normally I run it when it when I do the laundry as it is near the washer and dryer in the basement and the timing for a load of laundry to wash or dry and to check the temperature on the thermometer in the Packtite is about the same. There is a small number of things to heat. I noticed that the thermometer reading for the Packtite was the same as last time I used it . (We have an indoor/outdoor reading thermometer and the dohickey for the outside is in the Packtite so I can see the temperature and make sure it is high enough, long enough, but does not go to high.) No new reading - or a blank reading - for the dohickey means that it needs new batteries. I walked up 2 flights of stairs to the office to get new batteries and then back down the same 2 flights. It still did not work. I texted husband to help me. (Yes, we are lazy enough to text each other in the house - much better than running up and down the stairs to tell each other something, especially in summer when doors are closed to keep air conditioning in the room and the ac units are running and making noise.) We spent over half an hour playing with it, but the dohickey still does not work. My solution? We have the same setup on a thermometer in the kitchen to read the temperature in the refrigerator, I brought that set up downstairs and took the working main thermometer from the basement and stuck it in the refrigerator and read it by opening the door. Tomorrow I will switch the setups back - and we will look for a new thermometer for the basement. (I pause here to run down and switch laundry loads.)
Okay, I am back. Over last weekend I reset the number of days for my Quickbooks to remind me of memorized transactions (mostly bills to pay, some direct deposits to come in) to cover everything through the end of the month (normally it is set for one week). I wrote checks for all the bills and calculated how much we needed to transfer from savings (which is a holding account for money for bills) to pay all the bills to the end of the month. I transferred the money yesterday and today mailed out the bill payments. Well, everything but the cable/Internet bill which will not come until the last minute at the end of the month - and the money for it plus a bit more is now is now in the checking account. Why did I pay it all at once? Husband REALLY wants to go on a trip of more than a day or two. He keeps checking the upcoming weather in the several places we might go and it continues to follow the pattern of a day with no rain - maybe two days if lucky -and then two or three days of pouring rain and thunderstorms. (Although the weather is not as bad as it is in some parts of the country - I hope none of you are in the areas of the wildfires or the flooding.) When we prepare for a trip we pay any bills that need to be paid while we will be away and need to transfer money for same and then mail the payments. This way we do not even have to think of the bills until the cable bill at the end of the month. We can leave with a just a quick stop at the bank for cash for the trip. One less thing that has to be dealt with. Actually the only other problem is the newspaper - if we go at the last minute there will be a paper sitting in the delivery tube while we are away - I guess one paper will look like that day’s paper so it is not bad. Most of our mail goes to our box at the Post Office and we put in a large locking mailbox at the house so that we do not have to stop the mail that does still come to the house. Clothing can be washed and dried and then packed the night before and just tossed on the RV bed when we go. Food, etc can be stuck under the RV bed in a holder that is there. It can all be unpacked when we get where we are going. So if he finds a place to go we can leave the next day.
He has had another project he has been working on and frustrated with, which affects me. He has been trying to convince me to stop using this laptop and buy a new one. I have some problems checking posts on some websites - the laptop runs Windows XP. We have been looking and have found some laptops at the price we can pay - actually more than we can pay, but we can stretch the amount another $100 or so t buy. I am still resistant as there are only one or two websites which are affected and I have software I like which may or may not work with Windows 10 and at least one I know will not work with same. Yes, it can take up to 20 minutes for the laptop to boot and takes awhile for programs to open, but I am used to. The alternative he comes up with is installing Linux on this computer to use when online. He has found and set up about 5 versions of same on USB stick drives and DVDs in the past week or so. The latest version on DVD actually works - but one of the sites I have a problem with only partially opens. I have not have my laptop at least part of each night as a result as he loads the new try. (Notice I made sure to write and post on time this week since I was late last week, but some friends on an embroidery site and some friends on a comics site will not hear from me - and I normally am on the comics site on Monday nights.) I am guessing that I will be giving in and getting the new laptop - but not until after the cutoff for the credit card bill this month, so we won’t have to pay for it until October - the house insurance is in September, plus any travel bills if we go away.
Oh - I did finally vacuum up all the shreds of paper from my big shredding of 2008 last week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One may fall behind due to illness or other reasons. Don’t panic. One can always catch up.
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