Well at last I feel as if I am catching up a bit. While we went last Saturday to a woodworking show in New Jersey, I managed to have enough time at my computer to help me catch up several things - I even managed to prepare a partnership tax return for a client and it is going out in the mail tomorrow. We finally picked up my replacement eyeglasses and I am getting used to darker frames than I had before - I see them when I look through the glasses - I swear the frames were lighter in color when I picked them out in the store.
I finally had a chance to scan into the computer the papers I copied while we were replacing the scanner and getting it going. I hate doing things twice, but had to copy and then scan the copies as there was no other choice. At least the scanning is finally done.
I change the bedding weekly, but I change the bedding’s “underwear” once a month. The under covers for the pillows get tossed in
the laundry with the regular bedding for the week, but the mattress pad is too large to do so and is a load of laundry on its own. I finally managed to get it washed and dried this past week - it has been sitting in the sorter in the basement. I also did a load of jeans last week I save them up as I don’t have enough in a week to justify another load of laundry. I also had a number of sweatshirts to be washed, so I did two loads of clothes last week. This week’s laundry is humming along right now - the clothing load is washing, timer on my cell phone set to remind me to do down with the downstairs towels so I can do a load of towels next.
I packed up the “soft” Christmas decorations. This is an assortment of stuffed teddy bears, reindeer, a doll, stockings, hangings, and other similar items in Christmas theme which have been out - two of the bears are actually Chanukah ones. They all go in a plastic box together in the basement. I have also started taking the packed boxes of Christmas tree ornaments down to the basement - when I go down to switch laundry loads, another of the four boxes will go down. When I am done with those the box of living room decorations and the box of kitchen, dining room, front hall decorations will follow. I take them down in order as this way the tree ornaments are on the bottom of the stack of boxes as they will come out last next year. I still have my teddy bear Christmas village to pack - when these boxes are all down - it will be time to take it down (okay it is past time, but it is our favorite decoration so it comes out first and goes back last).
The woodworking show was a nice change for something to do for the day. Mostly the same vendors are there year to year, although a lot of the regular vendors have dropped out over the years or combined, and the new vendors tend to not be actually wood work related (leaf screens - not really related, investment company - definitely not related). It is an extremely LOUD room as vendors have not only their power tools going, but vacuums and they all are on microphones. In the early days of husband’s woodworking he would have had a list of things to look for and buy, but he has most of the equipment he needs, he does less woodworking (although he still owes me the replacement bread drawer for the kitchen) and we have no money to spend on it. There is no reason to add to the clutter in the workshop with unneeded additional tools. Okay, there was something which caught his eye. Two vendors (new ones) had similar items - it lets one hookup a tool to one’s computer and it will carve designs into wood automatically on its own. But they are thousands of dollars and there is no place to put them.
After the show we went to a chain craft store as it is on the way to where we go for dinner while in New Jersey as we don’t have a store from this chain near where we live. Did not buy anything, but nice to look - they are suppose to be opening near us sometime this year or next, I am sure that anything nice will not make it here, but it is nice to plan. Husband particularly likes the yarn at the store - much bigger and nicer variety than we have here. This is another place where we could buy a lot of items - but we don’t as we don’t have room for it all.
We warped (set up) the loom again for husband to work - this time he is making a spring colored table runner. We had problems getting it set up - not sure why, we should know what we are doing by now, and he had to take part of it out after he started weaving as is went on an angle. He was annoyed as he considered this a simple project to do and relax while he did it. During the week we finished washing the last few items he wove. The items have to be washed to change the weaving from yarns to fabric. They are hand washed and then laid out flat to dry on a rack in our studio so there are days between the washings to allow them time to dry.
We did have a computer problem yesterday. We suddenly lost access to everything on our home network - we could still print and scan, but if we tried to access the server drive - or each other’s computers - the entire setup to do so was gone! Husband figured out it was somehow related to the installation of the new printer unit and finally managed to get it up and working again.
This is school vacation week around here. It was started in the late 1970's for the school districts to save money on heating costs. When husband worked at an non-profit with a school year schedule and we still stayed in hotels, we would often go away for part of this week as it was easy and cheap to get hotel reservations in nearby states (okay, Pennsylvania) as elsewhere there is school after Monday’s holiday. We are thinking of trying our one day trip to same again this week - third attempt’s the charm?
We have had mostly wonderful weather the past week - when we went to the woodworking show we actually left our jackets in the car and just wore sweatshirts as it was in the low 60Fs. The weather is suppose to continue. I hope that none of you or yours have been caught in the tornados in Texas or the raining and flooding in California this past week.
Well, that was a bit of a ramble this week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Don’t forget to look at all the possible reasons for a problem.
I have posted about replacing the hard drive on my computer late last year. I am still finding software which was not reinstalled - I start to do something and whoops! I also had a problem with a program we reinstalled.
I do not commonly use Word for my word processing. I use another less popular program. I also use an older version of it and do not want to switch to a newer version both due to cost and I am concerned that if I use the updated version it will not have same controls and functions as the verison I am using now. There was an update (actually a few updates) to the program which also have to be reinstalled. The program is, of course, no longer supported by the manufacturer.
One of the problems I have been having - even with an update installed - is that I cannot import the address books - and here I was so careful to back them up at least quarterly up until the hard drive was replaced. Husband came up with the idea of installing the program on the XP virtual drive of my computer (it is on the Windows 7) as XP existed when the program was written and & did not. The program did work fine on & before the change of hard drive.
It worked - the installation program now is no longer partially greyed out. So I went to import the address book data files to the XP installed version. Now being how I am, I have several address books in the program - one for family and friends, one for clients, one for one of the clubs I am in, two for the other one (members and non-member contacts I need), Internal Revenue Service returns for assorted returns - some for several different states, my home state tax department, a general “other states, and lastly an “other” - this last for anything which does not by who it is fit into the other books - such as bills we pay on a regular basis, etc.
I started importing the address book data into the program - the first book comes in and we are excited that it worked - problem solved - and then I go to import a second one - it goes through the entire process, but there is nothing in the address book after it is done. I try again - same thing. I then turned on my work laptop and try to import to it - after all, I have been able to import two books to it in the past. It also would not import the next book.
Husband, always looking to make me happy with my antique software, was going crazy searching the Internet and we were trying all sorts of things. Finally he asked a question which resolved the problem (at least as far as importing to the XP installed version). “Let me see the backup data.”
Ah, we had been assuming this was a program software problem. No. When I went to show him the data, there was none in several of the last set of backups - hence the program had imported the data, it is just that there was one. Why did we not think to look for an alternate reason the information was not importing? Why did we just assume (and you know what happens when one assumes) that it was a software problem? I went to the backups before the one I was importing from and all the data except from two address books imported! The other two books had not had their data properly backed up since 2015! So I imported the data from the last backup from 2015. (I am so glad that I keep the old versions of the backups!) I will have to do a bit of updating - for example the two clubs I have books for have each gotten some new members since the backups were made - but I would have had to do so anyway as the most recent backups were before this also. I at least do not have to sit and enter over 100 addresses again.
We will also try this update on the Windows 7 installed version in case it corrects the import program for same also.
So, if something does not work and what you try to do to fix it does not work, think what else could be wrong - it could be something even more simple than you thought it was.
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Thursday, February 16, 2017
TRYING TO CATCH UP
Well, the storm hit last Thursday. It was not the largest snow storm that has ever hit this areas, but it did drop over 14 inches in some areas. Husband and I went out in the late afternoon to clear our driveway. It was still lightly snowing and at first husband was just going to clear enough for us to be able to back our car out of the driveway. I should explain, we do not back our car out of the driveway as the street is much too busy for us to do so, plus we have trouble seeing up the road when we are pulling out head on as there is a curve in the road and lots of cars (something new the past 6 or so years) that block the view of the curve. So we were going to do this in case of emergency before we cleared the entire driveway. Husband kept going however, and we cleared the entire driveway. We were lucky - one of our neighbors cleared part of our driveway before we went out. Not sure why - it is not something he normally does, but we greatly appreciated it. We were using our new snowblower and the snow was too deep in some places for it to work, so I walked along cutting off a section of snow and knocking it over so husband could use the snow blower on the snow. When we finished we had two problems - the front steps were covered in deep snow which had been blown there and access to our heating oil pipe (for delivery) was also buried in snow. I cleared the steps, while husband cleared a path to the oil pipe. Our first major snowstorm and we managed to clear the driveway in an hour. The additional snow that fell as we were working was very lightly and melted quickly with salt.
I hope that any of you who might have been hit by the terrible weather this past week - the snow and wind in the northeast US, the tornados in the Lousiana/Mississippi area, or the floods and broken dam problem in California (if I left your weather problem out, I apologize, know you are included) are safe.
We were able to go out on Friday, but decided to pick up dinner locally rather than drive to where we normally go as the roads were icy. Managed to catch up on some of the assorted paperwork and housework I am behind on. During the afternoon we went out and bought another bag of melting salt. We had used up the last of one bag and husband did not want to run out - we had 2 full bags, by my estimate enough for at least 6 storms, but he does panic over snow, so we went to 2 Home Depots and a Lowes to buy a spare bag.
Saturday was a normal day - mostly out of the house and dinner (at Ikea cafeteria - great value) and movie out. Ah, normalcy so great to have once in awhile.
Sunday husband decided that rather than drive out to where we normally go, we would go to more local stores of the same chains - big mistake, everyone seemed to have decided to go out! We worked on setting preferences in my computer for the new printer again. I did not put out the garbage Sunday night for Monday morning as we were having an extremely windy day - lots of wind gusts at 50 mph. I
Monday we had a short day as we had a board meeting at night for a group we are on the board of, so we had to finish up the afternoon chores early to get there and then it took up most of the evening. This laptop suddenly had a problem with my Internet software and the rest of the night was used up with husband attempting to uninstall, giving up on same, and reinstalling the software.
Yesterday was .... Valentine’s Day! We had a fairly normal day and then treated ourselves to dinner out - at Ikea again. We have a tight budget. Plus no dressing up. No gifts. I strongly believe that the giving of gifts does not prove love. It is the day to day fixing of computers, making my ancient software and laptop work, helping my husband with his weaving when he needs the equivalent of “an apprentice”, and so on which does.
Today we changed the oil in the snow blower - it is new and hit the time it said to change the oil. We are not used to doing such things, but thought we had thought it all through. We had a disposable pan to drain the oil into. As we started I thought to put down a large piece of cardboard from the box the snow blower came in to prevent oil on the floor. Husband did not put on his disposable gloves - he was using a wrench to remove the plug to let the oil out of the blower - he scraped his finger rather badly. We had to stop and run in and deal with it. We then finished the job. The dirty oil is in the bottle it came in and we will bring it to the local service station who told us they will take it. When we went back into the house husband had bled through his bandage. We cleaned his finger again and put on more antibiotic gel and I bandaged it tighter - he did not need to bend it as he did when we were doing the oil - so far it has not bled through and it has been hours, so I guess he does not need stitches.
How does all this relate to organizing? Well, like everyone else there are weeks everything goes well and lots get done. Other weeks - such as the past few - too many things go awry and little gets done - just the minimum. How bad did we get behind? While we don’t buy Valentine cards for each other - we do buy them for my family and husband’s nieces. When we came home from dinner on Valentine’s Day we suddenly realized - we had never even bought cards for them due to all the confusion. He sent a text to his older niece apologizing to the two of them and I sent an email to my family doing the same. Next year this will not happen - we will be organized enough to buy and send the cards - I put it in my computer organizer to remind me!
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Okay, now you know not to try to reinvent the wheel, but to also think outside the box if something is not working. I wanted to point out that sometimes odd things can improve what your organizing, but there may be a learning curve for you with change.
First - growing up I had full size drawers in my dresser. I had a dresser with my underwear and my socks (stockings, related). When we married my dresser had only 3 full size drawers, the others were half size drawers, so thinking logically, I put my socks in the top half size drawer and my underwear in the drawer below it. I went along this way for years - well over a decade.
One day husband, who has all full size drawers in his chest which matches my dresser and therefore has socks and underwear together, asked me why I have my drawers set up so that every day I have to open one drawer and then a second drawer. I thought about it. I have types of socks I commonly wear - stockings and other types of socks are worn much more rarely. Similarly I have kinds of underwear I need to take out the drawer daily and other kinds of underwear which I need rarely. I thought and thought. I then put the socks and underwear I need daily in the small top drawer and the rest of both categories in the second drawer. It has been some time since this change - sometimes I still forget and open the lower drawer to get what I need, but I mostly have gotten used to the change and it is more convenient.
Second - I don’t know if I have mentioned this but last year husband made me two small replacement drawers for the kitchen. We had mice and they were through the drawers. As a combination of being grossed out at using the drawers, even after they were sanitized and cleaned for cooking related items, and the fact that the drawers might very well date back to when the house was built in the early 1950s and were not nice to begin with, he made me new drawers. Basically this is a matter of making boxes the right size and then we attached the drawer front which had not been exposed to the mice - but were cleaned and sanitized anyway. (There is still the bread box drawer where we found the mice to be remade.) Most of the items in the drawers were thrown out unless they were impossible to replace or expensive (and since they were small drawers not much was the latter). One drawer again holds my dish towels. The other I had to figure out what to use it for. I rearranged some items between my “silverware” drawer, which has all manner of small kitchen handheld items (this is elsewhere in the kitchen and not where the mice were) and some items which had been in this drawer or replaced what had been in this drawer. For the most part I have had no trouble adjusting to the change - except one item - scissors. I have a large pair of utility scissors which were in the silverware drawer. I realized that some items belonged in same and not in the small drawer and moved the scissors to the small drawer. Great idea. I also moved the flashlight from the silverware drawer to there and some other non-food use items - no problem with any of those. So when I need the scissors I open the silverware drawer, swear, close it, and then open the correct drawer. I am doing this less and less though. (By the way, I was looking for a small squarish box to hold items in this drawer and a similar one to hold items in the silverware drawer and found a small lidded plastic box during back to school season in a dollar store and I took it apart - the lid sits upside down in one drawer and the bottom in the other drawer - both perfect sized and $1 for the box!)
So think about where you keep things and why - there may be a simple change which can made a great difference in your day - just remember there might be a learning curve if you have had something someplace for years and change where you keep it.
I hope that any of you who might have been hit by the terrible weather this past week - the snow and wind in the northeast US, the tornados in the Lousiana/Mississippi area, or the floods and broken dam problem in California (if I left your weather problem out, I apologize, know you are included) are safe.
We were able to go out on Friday, but decided to pick up dinner locally rather than drive to where we normally go as the roads were icy. Managed to catch up on some of the assorted paperwork and housework I am behind on. During the afternoon we went out and bought another bag of melting salt. We had used up the last of one bag and husband did not want to run out - we had 2 full bags, by my estimate enough for at least 6 storms, but he does panic over snow, so we went to 2 Home Depots and a Lowes to buy a spare bag.
Saturday was a normal day - mostly out of the house and dinner (at Ikea cafeteria - great value) and movie out. Ah, normalcy so great to have once in awhile.
Sunday husband decided that rather than drive out to where we normally go, we would go to more local stores of the same chains - big mistake, everyone seemed to have decided to go out! We worked on setting preferences in my computer for the new printer again. I did not put out the garbage Sunday night for Monday morning as we were having an extremely windy day - lots of wind gusts at 50 mph. I
Monday we had a short day as we had a board meeting at night for a group we are on the board of, so we had to finish up the afternoon chores early to get there and then it took up most of the evening. This laptop suddenly had a problem with my Internet software and the rest of the night was used up with husband attempting to uninstall, giving up on same, and reinstalling the software.
Yesterday was .... Valentine’s Day! We had a fairly normal day and then treated ourselves to dinner out - at Ikea again. We have a tight budget. Plus no dressing up. No gifts. I strongly believe that the giving of gifts does not prove love. It is the day to day fixing of computers, making my ancient software and laptop work, helping my husband with his weaving when he needs the equivalent of “an apprentice”, and so on which does.
Today we changed the oil in the snow blower - it is new and hit the time it said to change the oil. We are not used to doing such things, but thought we had thought it all through. We had a disposable pan to drain the oil into. As we started I thought to put down a large piece of cardboard from the box the snow blower came in to prevent oil on the floor. Husband did not put on his disposable gloves - he was using a wrench to remove the plug to let the oil out of the blower - he scraped his finger rather badly. We had to stop and run in and deal with it. We then finished the job. The dirty oil is in the bottle it came in and we will bring it to the local service station who told us they will take it. When we went back into the house husband had bled through his bandage. We cleaned his finger again and put on more antibiotic gel and I bandaged it tighter - he did not need to bend it as he did when we were doing the oil - so far it has not bled through and it has been hours, so I guess he does not need stitches.
How does all this relate to organizing? Well, like everyone else there are weeks everything goes well and lots get done. Other weeks - such as the past few - too many things go awry and little gets done - just the minimum. How bad did we get behind? While we don’t buy Valentine cards for each other - we do buy them for my family and husband’s nieces. When we came home from dinner on Valentine’s Day we suddenly realized - we had never even bought cards for them due to all the confusion. He sent a text to his older niece apologizing to the two of them and I sent an email to my family doing the same. Next year this will not happen - we will be organized enough to buy and send the cards - I put it in my computer organizer to remind me!
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Okay, now you know not to try to reinvent the wheel, but to also think outside the box if something is not working. I wanted to point out that sometimes odd things can improve what your organizing, but there may be a learning curve for you with change.
First - growing up I had full size drawers in my dresser. I had a dresser with my underwear and my socks (stockings, related). When we married my dresser had only 3 full size drawers, the others were half size drawers, so thinking logically, I put my socks in the top half size drawer and my underwear in the drawer below it. I went along this way for years - well over a decade.
One day husband, who has all full size drawers in his chest which matches my dresser and therefore has socks and underwear together, asked me why I have my drawers set up so that every day I have to open one drawer and then a second drawer. I thought about it. I have types of socks I commonly wear - stockings and other types of socks are worn much more rarely. Similarly I have kinds of underwear I need to take out the drawer daily and other kinds of underwear which I need rarely. I thought and thought. I then put the socks and underwear I need daily in the small top drawer and the rest of both categories in the second drawer. It has been some time since this change - sometimes I still forget and open the lower drawer to get what I need, but I mostly have gotten used to the change and it is more convenient.
Second - I don’t know if I have mentioned this but last year husband made me two small replacement drawers for the kitchen. We had mice and they were through the drawers. As a combination of being grossed out at using the drawers, even after they were sanitized and cleaned for cooking related items, and the fact that the drawers might very well date back to when the house was built in the early 1950s and were not nice to begin with, he made me new drawers. Basically this is a matter of making boxes the right size and then we attached the drawer front which had not been exposed to the mice - but were cleaned and sanitized anyway. (There is still the bread box drawer where we found the mice to be remade.) Most of the items in the drawers were thrown out unless they were impossible to replace or expensive (and since they were small drawers not much was the latter). One drawer again holds my dish towels. The other I had to figure out what to use it for. I rearranged some items between my “silverware” drawer, which has all manner of small kitchen handheld items (this is elsewhere in the kitchen and not where the mice were) and some items which had been in this drawer or replaced what had been in this drawer. For the most part I have had no trouble adjusting to the change - except one item - scissors. I have a large pair of utility scissors which were in the silverware drawer. I realized that some items belonged in same and not in the small drawer and moved the scissors to the small drawer. Great idea. I also moved the flashlight from the silverware drawer to there and some other non-food use items - no problem with any of those. So when I need the scissors I open the silverware drawer, swear, close it, and then open the correct drawer. I am doing this less and less though. (By the way, I was looking for a small squarish box to hold items in this drawer and a similar one to hold items in the silverware drawer and found a small lidded plastic box during back to school season in a dollar store and I took it apart - the lid sits upside down in one drawer and the bottom in the other drawer - both perfect sized and $1 for the box!)
So think about where you keep things and why - there may be a simple change which can made a great difference in your day - just remember there might be a learning curve if you have had something someplace for years and change where you keep it.
Thursday, February 9, 2017
STILL ANOTHER WEEK OF COMEDY OF ERRORS
Have you ever heard - when it rains - it pours?
Well, last week I told you about the death of our printer all in one and how lucky we were not to have a fire as a result. On Thursday, the day after I posted, we went out and bought the new all in one. We went right away as there was a sale on the unit through last Saturday. We also found out that there was a $50 credit if we traded in our old printer - in addition to saving money, by doing so we avoided having to go to a recycling event when next the township has one or taking the printer unit to the town garbage department as it is electronics and cannot be put out with the regular garbage for pickup. We took it home and set it up. Husband put the software on his computer to see that all worked. It did.
A day or so later we put it on my computer - the main program I use for scanning does not work with it and when I scanned with one of the other programs I have - it did not scan usable and the software seems to be set to legal size as the default - have to reset that and set up presets to use it - so everything I copied in the interim as I could not scan it, is still sitting waiting to be scanned into the computer. But hey, this is all normal with computer stuff - right?
Friday night we had dinner out and then went to Barnes and Nobles as we normally do. As we were about to leave the store as it was closing, I was waiting for husband to join me by the door. I noticed my eyeglasses were dirty and, as I have done for around 55 years that I have worn eyeglasses, I breathed on the lenses and started wiping the lenses with my shirt. I suddenly found that I was I holding the eyeglasses by the frame with one hand and the lens I was wiping with the other hand. Yes, my eyeglass frames broke.
Now, these are not new frames, but I really hate buying new eyeglasses. I hate it so much that a pair of eyeglasses which broke last summer has still not been replaced. Why do I hate replacing my eyeglasses? I like glass in my eyeglasses as opposed to the common plastic lenses. When last I purchased eyeglasses only one location around here still used glass lenses. So I anticipated having to probably change to plastic lenses. (If you wonder why I prefer the “heavy” glass to the plastic - the glass does not scratch - none on this old glasses’ lenses, while a pair I got through our old insurance company about 3 years ago has many scratches on the lenses. In addition the “visual acuity” is better with glass. Also having worn eyeglasses since second grade, I am used to the heavier glass and the plastic feels strange - my first 2 pairs of eyeglasses were not even break resistant as such had not yet been invented.) The pair I broke has progressive lenses and they are not cheap. (The pair I broke last summer had progressive lenses which also switched from clear to sunglasses - even more expensive.) So I was not happy about needing to get new glasses - even more unhappy than I was about getting a new printer unit
Husband stuck this eyeglass frame together, as he did with the one last summer, with that “it’s not a glue, the light makes it work” stuff they sell on TV - we bought it at Walmart. It did fix the frame last summer for a couple of months and then it no longer worked. So we knew we could not depend on it. He told me that we were going the next day (Saturday) for new glasses, I wanted to wait until after the weekend as generally stores are not as busy, but he insisted.
We first went to the last store I bought eyeglasses in - the one that had glass lenses when no one else did anymore. (Okay, I know that one can get glass lenses by ordering online, but I don’t order something as simple as tissues online, so I am not going to order eyeglasses online and hope that they are measured correctly.) This store is part of a chain which was taken over shortly after I bought my last pair by another chain, so it was very different when we went in. For one thing, one can no longer buy a pair of eyeglasses - one has to buy 2 pairs as the pair one buys comes with a second pair free - and there was a $50 off sale on the 2 pairs. When I saw this sign about 2 pairs, I started thinking that maybe I could replace both pairs. I presumed that the free pair had to be single lenses (no progressive, no bifocal) and figured I would ask about paying the difference on the lenses or I would get a spare pair of distance glasses for the car - when the glasses broke it dawned on us that if husband was not driving I would have had to drive home at night with my sunglasses so we decided it would be good for me to have a distance pair in the car - just in case. Temporarily now I have a pair I use for 19th century reenacting in the car - especially since I don’t know how long the fix to the lenses will hold.
We looked around and it was obvious that the frames were priced so that they were at least double the normal price to cover the cost of the second pair of glasses. We managed to find one frame which was in our price range (the second pair would be a real problem) and I approached a staff member to ask about the glass lenses. I got a luck and a reaction as if I had asked if they made eyeglasses for Martians. She checked with another staff person - I think he was a manager - and he said he was not sure if they could get them anymore. I had to fill in all the paperwork for him to check. They could get them - $500!! I thanked them and resigned to getting the plastic lenses left. Husband had thought the price was not a problem - but he thought I would get both pairs of the progressive lens eyeglasses for that - I explained that I was pretty sure the “free” pair would be single vision lens.
We moved on to another chain eyeglass store. We used to go to another store in this chain before glass lenses became a problem and had been extremely happy with the other store - but it was now closed. The frames here were even more money, with the exception of a single rack hidden in their work area (this is a fact, not an exaggeration). We left.
Husband said to me that since I was stuck with plastic lenses we should look in Costco and Walmart on Sunday when we went to both as we normally do. (Only one Walmart around here has an eyeglass department and it is the one we go to on Sunday as it is near the Costco and the Bjs we go to then.) He mentioned that my sister had been very happy with eyeglasses she got from Walmart. I pointed out to him that the Walmart’s eyeglass department is closed when we go there - so off we went to same to look.
The frame prices were much better in Walmart and I we found several frames which are the style I like. Okay, at one point I was suddenly finding lots of frames I liked, but they all seemed a bit wide. I brought one to husband and mentioned this - I was looking at the men’s frames. Typical, I always know when I have hit the men’s shoes department (as opposed to ladies) as I start to find shoes I like. We finally settled on a frame. I went to employee to get a price (we planned to look at the glasses in Costco the next morning before deciding). The young woman employee (staff here was much nicer than in either of the chain eyeglass stores we had been in) started asking me about which coatings I wanted. I explained that I normally buy glass, but no one has them.... She priced them for in glass! The last time I bought eyeglasses I had asked there and was told that they did not sell them so I was happily (for once) surprised. I ordered them. Husband pointed out that they had very low price on their cheapest eyeglasses and I ordered a pair with plastic lenses to keep in the car - 20% discount as I had bought the other pair. I do not have either pair yet, but I am sure they will be fine. Either way you will hear about them.
Today I went to NYC to a client. The ride in to the garage I use normally takes me 45 minutes, the ride home 2 hours - plus a short subway ride each way. In Queens on the way to the garage there was a crazy - or lost - 18 wheeler driver. I was in the right lane and he started making a right turn from the center lane, cutting in front of me. In addition he had made the turn at the wrong point of the intersection so he could not pull into the cross street as the cars on the far side heading out of the street were in his way. I looked up and thought my car was about to destroyed as the side of the trailer was moving towards me. I backed up as far as I could. A man appeared - he may have been with the truck driver, more likely he was from a near by gas station - and had the cars behind me back up so I could back up further. The first car in the cross street who had been waiting to pull out when the light changed had backed up as far as he could and he made a U turn - oh, by the way, I am not sure that the cross street he was turning into was not a one way street the opposite way. Somehow he finally made the turn - missing me by less a foot! Not a great start to the work day.
Coming home every main road had at least one accident on it - no, really, even the ones which were not ones I could use to drive home and even roads in the surrounding states and north of NYC. I generally use secondary roads to come home as it is during rush hour (I go in after rush hour in the morning), but had hoped to come on a main road as I finished an hour early - noooo, the secondary roads as usual. It took me almost 3 hours to get home. I did make one stop though along the way home to walk a bit and stretch my legs and use the - well you know.
Now today was a beautiful day. It was in the 60Fs and almost springlike - record breakingly warm in some locations for the day. We are currently waiting for snow. Once again, originally it was an inch or less, which became 6-10 inches as of yesterday and now there are blizzard warnings, schools announced as of this afternoon and early evening that they will be closed tomorrow - we are now, as of the 11 pm news, expecting 10-12 inches or more. Husband is in a tizzy - he does not like snow as we have to clear the driveway, as well as he is now always afraid of losing our electricity. (We lost it in major hurricanes - Sandy being one of them - a year apart, and a day after we got our electricity back after Sandy - we lost it in the nor’easter that came through. Understand we had a devastingly major tropical storm and just over a week later had a major winter storm.)
If you are in the path of this storm - stay safe. If you were hit by the recent tornados in Louisiana and Mississippi - or any other of this odd horrible weather patterns we are having - I hope you and yours are alright.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK (formerly of the day - makes more sense if I only list one thought a week) -
This week’s thought is the direct opposite of last week’s thought. Last week’s thought was not to try to reinvent the wheel - ie. if a way to do something exists don’t try to come up with a new idea. This week’s thought is to think outside the box. (Yes, I know both are cliches.)
How can I now be suggesting the opposite of last week? Well, sometimes one works and sometimes the other does. If you have looked for an established way to do something and have not found one or are not are happy with what you find - look elsewhere.
Let’s use doing the laundry - yes, the same laundry that last week I did not “reinvent the wheel” to find something to sort it into. I don’t hate doing the laundry (other than sheets as I mentioned in a earlier post), but I don’t love it. I also do not like getting up and out of bed in the morning. So I wash and dry the laundry at night. It generally takes me two nights to do this - I don’t start until husband has gone upstairs to the computer after dinner and the 11 pm news. (Right now I have the load of towels in the washer and the load of regular clothes in the dryer.) I put the dried laundry in the basket and bring it upstairs when we go to bed. When I do the regular clothes load I lay husband’s shirts across the rest of the laundry in the basket. His shirts are the most likely items to wrinkle. When we go up to bed I take the basket up with me. I hang up his shirts before we go to bed to keep them from wrinkling. The next morning after he is up and out of bed and at his computer (he is working when he is at the computer, which is why he is there so much) I take the basket of laundry to bed and sort and fold it. My shirts - generally tee shirts so wrinkling is not really a problem - are tossed to the foot of the bed. The rest of the laundry in the basket is folded (my socks are rolled, his are folded - it is personal preference) and put in stacks around me on the bed. When I get up the laundry is put away except for my shirts. Oh, if there has been a load of jeans - not done weekly - those are also tossed to the foot of the bed. I will hang my shirts and the jeans that night when we go to bed - and generally there is more laundry done the second night and another basket to sort and fold the second morning - this one primarily bed linens and towels.
This is not how one normally does clothes, but it works for me. Although when husband first left his job and was home I did find out that 1 - he does not like having laundry folded and stacked on him while he is asleep and 2 - when he rolls over all the laundry has to be folded again. :-)
If we did not think outside the box - husband would not have his loom in our living room - no place else to set it up and use it.
In our RV we have particularly learned to think outside the box as storage is limited and items must be stored where they fit and where they will not be moving around while the RV is in motion - hence our shoes are stored in a cubby (with a door) over the bed. They only need to be reached (generally) in the morning and at night when we are getting up in or going to bed in, the bed and keeping them here leaves places which are more easily accessed free for other items.
So, if you need to find a way to do something first look to see if there is a common way to do it, then look for alternatives - no matter how the alternative is.
Well, last week I told you about the death of our printer all in one and how lucky we were not to have a fire as a result. On Thursday, the day after I posted, we went out and bought the new all in one. We went right away as there was a sale on the unit through last Saturday. We also found out that there was a $50 credit if we traded in our old printer - in addition to saving money, by doing so we avoided having to go to a recycling event when next the township has one or taking the printer unit to the town garbage department as it is electronics and cannot be put out with the regular garbage for pickup. We took it home and set it up. Husband put the software on his computer to see that all worked. It did.
A day or so later we put it on my computer - the main program I use for scanning does not work with it and when I scanned with one of the other programs I have - it did not scan usable and the software seems to be set to legal size as the default - have to reset that and set up presets to use it - so everything I copied in the interim as I could not scan it, is still sitting waiting to be scanned into the computer. But hey, this is all normal with computer stuff - right?
Friday night we had dinner out and then went to Barnes and Nobles as we normally do. As we were about to leave the store as it was closing, I was waiting for husband to join me by the door. I noticed my eyeglasses were dirty and, as I have done for around 55 years that I have worn eyeglasses, I breathed on the lenses and started wiping the lenses with my shirt. I suddenly found that I was I holding the eyeglasses by the frame with one hand and the lens I was wiping with the other hand. Yes, my eyeglass frames broke.
Now, these are not new frames, but I really hate buying new eyeglasses. I hate it so much that a pair of eyeglasses which broke last summer has still not been replaced. Why do I hate replacing my eyeglasses? I like glass in my eyeglasses as opposed to the common plastic lenses. When last I purchased eyeglasses only one location around here still used glass lenses. So I anticipated having to probably change to plastic lenses. (If you wonder why I prefer the “heavy” glass to the plastic - the glass does not scratch - none on this old glasses’ lenses, while a pair I got through our old insurance company about 3 years ago has many scratches on the lenses. In addition the “visual acuity” is better with glass. Also having worn eyeglasses since second grade, I am used to the heavier glass and the plastic feels strange - my first 2 pairs of eyeglasses were not even break resistant as such had not yet been invented.) The pair I broke has progressive lenses and they are not cheap. (The pair I broke last summer had progressive lenses which also switched from clear to sunglasses - even more expensive.) So I was not happy about needing to get new glasses - even more unhappy than I was about getting a new printer unit
Husband stuck this eyeglass frame together, as he did with the one last summer, with that “it’s not a glue, the light makes it work” stuff they sell on TV - we bought it at Walmart. It did fix the frame last summer for a couple of months and then it no longer worked. So we knew we could not depend on it. He told me that we were going the next day (Saturday) for new glasses, I wanted to wait until after the weekend as generally stores are not as busy, but he insisted.
We first went to the last store I bought eyeglasses in - the one that had glass lenses when no one else did anymore. (Okay, I know that one can get glass lenses by ordering online, but I don’t order something as simple as tissues online, so I am not going to order eyeglasses online and hope that they are measured correctly.) This store is part of a chain which was taken over shortly after I bought my last pair by another chain, so it was very different when we went in. For one thing, one can no longer buy a pair of eyeglasses - one has to buy 2 pairs as the pair one buys comes with a second pair free - and there was a $50 off sale on the 2 pairs. When I saw this sign about 2 pairs, I started thinking that maybe I could replace both pairs. I presumed that the free pair had to be single lenses (no progressive, no bifocal) and figured I would ask about paying the difference on the lenses or I would get a spare pair of distance glasses for the car - when the glasses broke it dawned on us that if husband was not driving I would have had to drive home at night with my sunglasses so we decided it would be good for me to have a distance pair in the car - just in case. Temporarily now I have a pair I use for 19th century reenacting in the car - especially since I don’t know how long the fix to the lenses will hold.
We looked around and it was obvious that the frames were priced so that they were at least double the normal price to cover the cost of the second pair of glasses. We managed to find one frame which was in our price range (the second pair would be a real problem) and I approached a staff member to ask about the glass lenses. I got a luck and a reaction as if I had asked if they made eyeglasses for Martians. She checked with another staff person - I think he was a manager - and he said he was not sure if they could get them anymore. I had to fill in all the paperwork for him to check. They could get them - $500!! I thanked them and resigned to getting the plastic lenses left. Husband had thought the price was not a problem - but he thought I would get both pairs of the progressive lens eyeglasses for that - I explained that I was pretty sure the “free” pair would be single vision lens.
We moved on to another chain eyeglass store. We used to go to another store in this chain before glass lenses became a problem and had been extremely happy with the other store - but it was now closed. The frames here were even more money, with the exception of a single rack hidden in their work area (this is a fact, not an exaggeration). We left.
Husband said to me that since I was stuck with plastic lenses we should look in Costco and Walmart on Sunday when we went to both as we normally do. (Only one Walmart around here has an eyeglass department and it is the one we go to on Sunday as it is near the Costco and the Bjs we go to then.) He mentioned that my sister had been very happy with eyeglasses she got from Walmart. I pointed out to him that the Walmart’s eyeglass department is closed when we go there - so off we went to same to look.
The frame prices were much better in Walmart and I we found several frames which are the style I like. Okay, at one point I was suddenly finding lots of frames I liked, but they all seemed a bit wide. I brought one to husband and mentioned this - I was looking at the men’s frames. Typical, I always know when I have hit the men’s shoes department (as opposed to ladies) as I start to find shoes I like. We finally settled on a frame. I went to employee to get a price (we planned to look at the glasses in Costco the next morning before deciding). The young woman employee (staff here was much nicer than in either of the chain eyeglass stores we had been in) started asking me about which coatings I wanted. I explained that I normally buy glass, but no one has them.... She priced them for in glass! The last time I bought eyeglasses I had asked there and was told that they did not sell them so I was happily (for once) surprised. I ordered them. Husband pointed out that they had very low price on their cheapest eyeglasses and I ordered a pair with plastic lenses to keep in the car - 20% discount as I had bought the other pair. I do not have either pair yet, but I am sure they will be fine. Either way you will hear about them.
Today I went to NYC to a client. The ride in to the garage I use normally takes me 45 minutes, the ride home 2 hours - plus a short subway ride each way. In Queens on the way to the garage there was a crazy - or lost - 18 wheeler driver. I was in the right lane and he started making a right turn from the center lane, cutting in front of me. In addition he had made the turn at the wrong point of the intersection so he could not pull into the cross street as the cars on the far side heading out of the street were in his way. I looked up and thought my car was about to destroyed as the side of the trailer was moving towards me. I backed up as far as I could. A man appeared - he may have been with the truck driver, more likely he was from a near by gas station - and had the cars behind me back up so I could back up further. The first car in the cross street who had been waiting to pull out when the light changed had backed up as far as he could and he made a U turn - oh, by the way, I am not sure that the cross street he was turning into was not a one way street the opposite way. Somehow he finally made the turn - missing me by less a foot! Not a great start to the work day.
Coming home every main road had at least one accident on it - no, really, even the ones which were not ones I could use to drive home and even roads in the surrounding states and north of NYC. I generally use secondary roads to come home as it is during rush hour (I go in after rush hour in the morning), but had hoped to come on a main road as I finished an hour early - noooo, the secondary roads as usual. It took me almost 3 hours to get home. I did make one stop though along the way home to walk a bit and stretch my legs and use the - well you know.
Now today was a beautiful day. It was in the 60Fs and almost springlike - record breakingly warm in some locations for the day. We are currently waiting for snow. Once again, originally it was an inch or less, which became 6-10 inches as of yesterday and now there are blizzard warnings, schools announced as of this afternoon and early evening that they will be closed tomorrow - we are now, as of the 11 pm news, expecting 10-12 inches or more. Husband is in a tizzy - he does not like snow as we have to clear the driveway, as well as he is now always afraid of losing our electricity. (We lost it in major hurricanes - Sandy being one of them - a year apart, and a day after we got our electricity back after Sandy - we lost it in the nor’easter that came through. Understand we had a devastingly major tropical storm and just over a week later had a major winter storm.)
If you are in the path of this storm - stay safe. If you were hit by the recent tornados in Louisiana and Mississippi - or any other of this odd horrible weather patterns we are having - I hope you and yours are alright.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK (formerly of the day - makes more sense if I only list one thought a week) -
This week’s thought is the direct opposite of last week’s thought. Last week’s thought was not to try to reinvent the wheel - ie. if a way to do something exists don’t try to come up with a new idea. This week’s thought is to think outside the box. (Yes, I know both are cliches.)
How can I now be suggesting the opposite of last week? Well, sometimes one works and sometimes the other does. If you have looked for an established way to do something and have not found one or are not are happy with what you find - look elsewhere.
Let’s use doing the laundry - yes, the same laundry that last week I did not “reinvent the wheel” to find something to sort it into. I don’t hate doing the laundry (other than sheets as I mentioned in a earlier post), but I don’t love it. I also do not like getting up and out of bed in the morning. So I wash and dry the laundry at night. It generally takes me two nights to do this - I don’t start until husband has gone upstairs to the computer after dinner and the 11 pm news. (Right now I have the load of towels in the washer and the load of regular clothes in the dryer.) I put the dried laundry in the basket and bring it upstairs when we go to bed. When I do the regular clothes load I lay husband’s shirts across the rest of the laundry in the basket. His shirts are the most likely items to wrinkle. When we go up to bed I take the basket up with me. I hang up his shirts before we go to bed to keep them from wrinkling. The next morning after he is up and out of bed and at his computer (he is working when he is at the computer, which is why he is there so much) I take the basket of laundry to bed and sort and fold it. My shirts - generally tee shirts so wrinkling is not really a problem - are tossed to the foot of the bed. The rest of the laundry in the basket is folded (my socks are rolled, his are folded - it is personal preference) and put in stacks around me on the bed. When I get up the laundry is put away except for my shirts. Oh, if there has been a load of jeans - not done weekly - those are also tossed to the foot of the bed. I will hang my shirts and the jeans that night when we go to bed - and generally there is more laundry done the second night and another basket to sort and fold the second morning - this one primarily bed linens and towels.
This is not how one normally does clothes, but it works for me. Although when husband first left his job and was home I did find out that 1 - he does not like having laundry folded and stacked on him while he is asleep and 2 - when he rolls over all the laundry has to be folded again. :-)
If we did not think outside the box - husband would not have his loom in our living room - no place else to set it up and use it.
In our RV we have particularly learned to think outside the box as storage is limited and items must be stored where they fit and where they will not be moving around while the RV is in motion - hence our shoes are stored in a cubby (with a door) over the bed. They only need to be reached (generally) in the morning and at night when we are getting up in or going to bed in, the bed and keeping them here leaves places which are more easily accessed free for other items.
So, if you need to find a way to do something first look to see if there is a common way to do it, then look for alternatives - no matter how the alternative is.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
WHAT A WEEK - AGAIN!
This was another whirlwind week of not much done.
First - more Christmas followup. I have packed most of my bear figurines from the living room and will soon put out my February bear figurines from the same set. Large Santas and elves stored away on top of the main tree’s box and the basement was put back into order so that all could be used again down there.
Last Saturday night after we came home from the movies husband went upstairs to go online. I was in the kitchen downstairs on this laptop doing the same. Husband came running down the stairs a short while later. He asked me if I was cooking anything as he smelled something burning. I was not and went upstairs with him. At the top of the landing I smelled an electrical burning smell.
When we went into the office I knew it was coming from my side (the nearer to the door side) of the office. I unplugged everything plugged in on my side. We waited and the smell cleared up. I then started plugging things back in, one at a time. When I plugged in the printer the smell came back. Unplugged it - smell went away. We took out the paper tray and the toner cartridge and looked - nothing stuck inside. We left it unplugged to explore what could be the problem. After looking online and contacting the manufacturer we determined that the printer was no longer safe to use. If plugged in the burning smell returns - blowing out of the side vents. We were lucky that we were home when it started and we got the printer unplugged before it or anything else caught fire.
Now, we do/did have another printer set up in the room - it just costs more per copy - so that is not a problem. It is all in one so we also lost the scanner, copier and fax. Well, I also have a copier - it predates the computers but still is used and works well. That left the scanner and the fax lacking. We each have a scanner from before this one. Husband went to set his up - it does not seem to work with Windows 7 (or 10). He managed to get it up and working with an older computer he still has set up which has Windows XP. I have not tried to set up my older scanner yet - it will probably have the same problem and need to be set up to use with my laptop if we don’t replace the all in one now. The fax function - well, we only fax a few times a year - mostly for medical matters so I am not as worried about same.
Husband immediately went out to buy a new unit - we saw what he thought we should get - a duplexing color laser all in one unit, which also duplex scans. Pricey, but it is for my work. Then he read the reviews and it did not rate well - actually none of the units seem to rate well. He was in a hurry - I told him we should wait and take our time. While in an office store over the weekend we saw a similar model - except it has no color. Husband’s printer prints color, but he has not been happy with the color printing, so he was happy at the thought of a different color printer. But, if we get the same unit without the color it is half the price - so that it was what we plan to go with. He took the old unit downstairs yesterday - we get a credit if we trade it in towards the new one. Important - we made sure that there is nothing in any memory that might provide personal information to anyone - I checked with the manufacturer on what needed to be cleared and how to so so. Tomorrow we plan to go and buy the replacement unit (on sale only until this Saturday and it will double in price if not bought by then). I am sure setup and getting to know the new unit will take awhile.
I also had my embroidery group meeting this week - I am on the board so I have to prepare a report for the meeting and it was my turn to bring snack - so yesterday in the (relatively light) snow we went out and spent an hour buying a small cake and a box of small doughnuts for me to bring.
After the meeting I returned our soda bottles accumulated since the last meeting for their deposits and switched my offsite flash drive at the bank vault. I tried to visit a couple of stores we don’t go to. The craft store is now primarily a clothing factory. The “new” supermarket has already gone out of business. I did buy some canned tomatoes on sale.
Right now I should be doing the laundry and running my suitcase heater (stuff I brought to the meeting today and mail that has come in from people) but I had two new things tonight to deal with and if I did what I am suppose to do also - my head would explode - and I had to get my post written for tonight.
I use my old cell phone, a Palm, around the house as a PDA as my newer phone, a Blackberry, does not work for the “to dos” with the software I like. I sync one and then the other with the same program in my computer. The Palm would not sync. I tried various things - including using a spare sync cord I have and trying to sync it with this laptop - but the computer does not “see” the Palm. Too much going on right now. I will work around this and not sync it until I figure out what is going on. I may need to use husband’s old Palm which matches mine if mine is broken. For now - I will not go crazy and get upset - I will use the appointments section of my Blackberry to deal with new items to do and to record what I have done when I am not at my computer until I figure it out.
I paid some bills due out tomorrow and did some follow up to today’s meeting and made dinner. During dinner husband says to me “You know that day trip to Pennsylvania I wanted to take a couple of weeks ago - maybe we can go Friday.” My brain starts whirling - nothing major to do, I will just ignore the Palm problem a little longer. We can buy the printer tomorrow - even if we don’t get it set up, we will have bought it while it was on sale. Uh, oh, there were other bills due out Friday and over the weekend and I need to transfer money to our business account - went upstairs after dinner and paid the bills and wrote a check to the business account - have to deposit it and another check tomorrow. Soda on sale - we have to buy by Saturday when the sale ends - either tomorrow or Saturday it is. So, I got downstairs much later than normal to write to all of you after a week of basically “treading water” to keep from falling behind and basically said to myself - “the laundry and the heating of the stuff can wait”.
I did clean the upstairs bathroom rather extensively last week. I even got down on my hands and knees and cleaned around the edges where the floor meets the walls. We have rather small bathrooms. I have to lie across the (closed) toilet bowl to clean behind it - on an angle to one side and then again on the opposite angle to the other side. To clean between the sink and the tub I have to climb into the tub and lean out - but only slightly or I would hit my head on the sink. Hah! That’s when I bruised my knee - it was during cleaning the bathroom - I knew I would remember where the bruise came from!
TODAY’S THOUGHT ON ORGANIZING -
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. What I mean by this is that if something exists to use to do something or there is a good way to do something - don’t try to come up with something else.
I used to sort my laundry on an old bed sheet on the floor of the basement. After we had mice husband said that it was too disgusting a place to sort the laundry. I kept trying to figure out what to use instead. I brought a tray table over near the washer and was balancing laundry on it for awhile as I tried to figure out what to do.
Then one day it hit me - something exists to sort laundry into - it is called “a laundry sorter”. You know, those frames with 3 bags hanging from them that one sorts laundry into. How could I not have thought of same. I never used one as I do not sort laundry in the typical way. I normally sort the laundry by throwing the clothes (except jeans and other heavier items) into the washer, then a pile of towels, a pile of bed linens, then jeans and the heavier items into another pile. Sometimes for various reasons there is more laundry and more piles.
So now the clothes go into the washer as before. The towels go into the front section of the sorter. The bed linens in the next section. The final section gets jeans, sweatshirts, etc. The items in the last section are not necessarily washed every week. I hold them for a fuller load - I will do a load of jeans or I will do a load of heavier clothing such as sweatshirts as needed.
So the idea is that if there is a way to do something, use it - don’t try to come up with a new way to do it.
First - more Christmas followup. I have packed most of my bear figurines from the living room and will soon put out my February bear figurines from the same set. Large Santas and elves stored away on top of the main tree’s box and the basement was put back into order so that all could be used again down there.
Last Saturday night after we came home from the movies husband went upstairs to go online. I was in the kitchen downstairs on this laptop doing the same. Husband came running down the stairs a short while later. He asked me if I was cooking anything as he smelled something burning. I was not and went upstairs with him. At the top of the landing I smelled an electrical burning smell.
When we went into the office I knew it was coming from my side (the nearer to the door side) of the office. I unplugged everything plugged in on my side. We waited and the smell cleared up. I then started plugging things back in, one at a time. When I plugged in the printer the smell came back. Unplugged it - smell went away. We took out the paper tray and the toner cartridge and looked - nothing stuck inside. We left it unplugged to explore what could be the problem. After looking online and contacting the manufacturer we determined that the printer was no longer safe to use. If plugged in the burning smell returns - blowing out of the side vents. We were lucky that we were home when it started and we got the printer unplugged before it or anything else caught fire.
Now, we do/did have another printer set up in the room - it just costs more per copy - so that is not a problem. It is all in one so we also lost the scanner, copier and fax. Well, I also have a copier - it predates the computers but still is used and works well. That left the scanner and the fax lacking. We each have a scanner from before this one. Husband went to set his up - it does not seem to work with Windows 7 (or 10). He managed to get it up and working with an older computer he still has set up which has Windows XP. I have not tried to set up my older scanner yet - it will probably have the same problem and need to be set up to use with my laptop if we don’t replace the all in one now. The fax function - well, we only fax a few times a year - mostly for medical matters so I am not as worried about same.
Husband immediately went out to buy a new unit - we saw what he thought we should get - a duplexing color laser all in one unit, which also duplex scans. Pricey, but it is for my work. Then he read the reviews and it did not rate well - actually none of the units seem to rate well. He was in a hurry - I told him we should wait and take our time. While in an office store over the weekend we saw a similar model - except it has no color. Husband’s printer prints color, but he has not been happy with the color printing, so he was happy at the thought of a different color printer. But, if we get the same unit without the color it is half the price - so that it was what we plan to go with. He took the old unit downstairs yesterday - we get a credit if we trade it in towards the new one. Important - we made sure that there is nothing in any memory that might provide personal information to anyone - I checked with the manufacturer on what needed to be cleared and how to so so. Tomorrow we plan to go and buy the replacement unit (on sale only until this Saturday and it will double in price if not bought by then). I am sure setup and getting to know the new unit will take awhile.
I also had my embroidery group meeting this week - I am on the board so I have to prepare a report for the meeting and it was my turn to bring snack - so yesterday in the (relatively light) snow we went out and spent an hour buying a small cake and a box of small doughnuts for me to bring.
After the meeting I returned our soda bottles accumulated since the last meeting for their deposits and switched my offsite flash drive at the bank vault. I tried to visit a couple of stores we don’t go to. The craft store is now primarily a clothing factory. The “new” supermarket has already gone out of business. I did buy some canned tomatoes on sale.
Right now I should be doing the laundry and running my suitcase heater (stuff I brought to the meeting today and mail that has come in from people) but I had two new things tonight to deal with and if I did what I am suppose to do also - my head would explode - and I had to get my post written for tonight.
I use my old cell phone, a Palm, around the house as a PDA as my newer phone, a Blackberry, does not work for the “to dos” with the software I like. I sync one and then the other with the same program in my computer. The Palm would not sync. I tried various things - including using a spare sync cord I have and trying to sync it with this laptop - but the computer does not “see” the Palm. Too much going on right now. I will work around this and not sync it until I figure out what is going on. I may need to use husband’s old Palm which matches mine if mine is broken. For now - I will not go crazy and get upset - I will use the appointments section of my Blackberry to deal with new items to do and to record what I have done when I am not at my computer until I figure it out.
I paid some bills due out tomorrow and did some follow up to today’s meeting and made dinner. During dinner husband says to me “You know that day trip to Pennsylvania I wanted to take a couple of weeks ago - maybe we can go Friday.” My brain starts whirling - nothing major to do, I will just ignore the Palm problem a little longer. We can buy the printer tomorrow - even if we don’t get it set up, we will have bought it while it was on sale. Uh, oh, there were other bills due out Friday and over the weekend and I need to transfer money to our business account - went upstairs after dinner and paid the bills and wrote a check to the business account - have to deposit it and another check tomorrow. Soda on sale - we have to buy by Saturday when the sale ends - either tomorrow or Saturday it is. So, I got downstairs much later than normal to write to all of you after a week of basically “treading water” to keep from falling behind and basically said to myself - “the laundry and the heating of the stuff can wait”.
I did clean the upstairs bathroom rather extensively last week. I even got down on my hands and knees and cleaned around the edges where the floor meets the walls. We have rather small bathrooms. I have to lie across the (closed) toilet bowl to clean behind it - on an angle to one side and then again on the opposite angle to the other side. To clean between the sink and the tub I have to climb into the tub and lean out - but only slightly or I would hit my head on the sink. Hah! That’s when I bruised my knee - it was during cleaning the bathroom - I knew I would remember where the bruise came from!
TODAY’S THOUGHT ON ORGANIZING -
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. What I mean by this is that if something exists to use to do something or there is a good way to do something - don’t try to come up with something else.
I used to sort my laundry on an old bed sheet on the floor of the basement. After we had mice husband said that it was too disgusting a place to sort the laundry. I kept trying to figure out what to use instead. I brought a tray table over near the washer and was balancing laundry on it for awhile as I tried to figure out what to do.
Then one day it hit me - something exists to sort laundry into - it is called “a laundry sorter”. You know, those frames with 3 bags hanging from them that one sorts laundry into. How could I not have thought of same. I never used one as I do not sort laundry in the typical way. I normally sort the laundry by throwing the clothes (except jeans and other heavier items) into the washer, then a pile of towels, a pile of bed linens, then jeans and the heavier items into another pile. Sometimes for various reasons there is more laundry and more piles.
So now the clothes go into the washer as before. The towels go into the front section of the sorter. The bed linens in the next section. The final section gets jeans, sweatshirts, etc. The items in the last section are not necessarily washed every week. I hold them for a fuller load - I will do a load of jeans or I will do a load of heavier clothing such as sweatshirts as needed.
So the idea is that if there is a way to do something, use it - don’t try to come up with a new way to do it.
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