Well another week has gone by already - hard to believe. We, again, did not go away last Friday as it was not only to rain, but there was a chance of snow also. That is 6 one day trips planned (to more or less the same place) since the start of the year- and one trip taken.
As an accountant I have been busy doing income taxes - well, not so busy - I used to do many more returns than I do now - but somehow it takes the same time - I am sure you all know the concept of the work expands to fit the time. I have 3 returns sitting here each missing one piece of info to finish. I have extensions and estimates to prepare for one client who is not ready to file yet - an annual practice as he is away the first part of the year. I have another client who owes me info for 3 - yes 3 - years of tax returns and promised to send it. I would hate for them to lose their refunds.
Today we went out food shopping - sometimes one just has to do a big food shopping instead of just fill in. So there was a lot of food to put away when we got home - luckily none of it for the fridge or freezer. Well, I had planned to get butter free with the order and buy eggs, but the coupon for the butter was from another market - oops - and they did not have any extra large eggs. So we were able to stop at the service station and have our mechanic install two air filters he ordered for us. So when we got home, of course I just left the food out in the kitchen and went upstairs to pay bills and check for tax info. This left shopping bags and and a box of food around our tiny kitchen. It needed to be put away before I cooked.
Of course I got downstairs late to prepare dinner and had to do it around the groceries as I did not have a chance to put anything away. I had bought a box of Bisquick which I planned to use to make biscuits tonight to have with dinner - chicken, cream of mushroom soup, and vegetables over the biscuits. I have make biscuits like this many times, although not for this reason. The recipes I use is no longer on their boxes, so after coming downstairs late - I had to go find my backs of prior Bisquick boxes collection - in a folder of loose recipes on the shelf with the cookbooks. I knew where it was, but I had to climb over stuff to get to it and find which box back had the correct recipe. So now I am running late, have bags and large box taking up most of the space in my kitchen, have used more time looking for the recipe and I am about to start cooking.
Chicken defrosted in the microwave. We each have a different soup - but it is the second night we are having same so I can dump it into pots as both were split in half last night. So into the pots they go. I look at the recipe for the biscuits. Hmmm. They can be made as dumplings. I didn’t know that. Well, that is basically what we are using them for. I’ll make this recipe instead. And so started a nightmare. The dish I was cooking was simple - chicken breast cut in bite sized pieces and browned in the skillet. Cream of mushroom soup with 1/4 cup of milk for sauce. We wanted vegetables - husband carrots and me peas and carrots - so frozen vegetables had to be boiled - not a problem, it goes quickly. I made it into major cooking and a major mess.
I put up a medium pot - a couple of quarts - of water to boil as the recipe said to drop the mixed biscuit batter onto the boiling stew. Uh oh, says cook 10 minutes with no cover and then 10 minutes covered but that should be okay as we would have the soup before we needed it anyway. I mixed up half the recipe as it was just for two. I dropped the batter into the boiling water by the spoonful - per the recipes. I actually got the right number of dumplings - per the recipe. I then stepped away to cut up the now defrosted chicken.
I hear a noise at the stove and look over - the water is boiling over even though I turned it down to medium. I run over to see as it is the burner that has a bad thermostat and it sometimes goes to high when one is cooking at a lower temperature. No, the water is boiling over and the dumplings are, well, messy. I grab a large pot and slowly and carefully pour it all into the larger pot - after all - the problem must be that the pot is too small for the water and the dumplings. No, that is not the problem and the water is soon boiling over again. I finally get the stove to a low enough temperature for the water to be simmering and not boiling over.
I made the rest of the dinner. Husband comes down for dinner and I am still cooking as in addition to be late starting and working around the groceries it is taking much longer - and more pots - than I expected. The entire sight when he comes down is sort of like the end of “Woman of the Year”. For those who do not know this movie Katherine Hepburn does not know how to cook. She is coming back to her husband played by Spencer Tracy who she left a couple of days into the marriage and now she knows she made a mistake and has returned. She is a writer for a newspaper and is the Woman of the Year of the title and does not know how to cook or keep house. She attempts to make coffee (in an drip pot as was used then) and make waffles. When he comes into the kitchen he sees her struggling and sits down to read the newspaper. When it gets to the point that the coffee is shooting out the top of the coffee pot and the waffle has an air bubble in it that is about to burst and she starts crying he finally goes and shuts everything off. Well that is what the entire kitchen looked like tonight. (If you have not seen this movie - this one scene alone makes it worth while and is one of the funniest scenes ever filmed.)
My husband is surprised that he does not smell biscuits baking when he comes down and sees what is going on. Dumplings? Well, I figured we were using the biscuits as same anyway and I found the recipe on the box... He was disappointed. I tell him that if it is awful I will start over and make the biscuits - after the decades we have been together he takes this sort of thing passably well. (I suggested to him that he look at it as if we are newlyweds and I am still learning to cook and making a mistake - it would make us feel young again - he did not appreciate the idea. So in the end I had 3 dumplings and some small pieces instead of 5 and at least they were cooked through and we could eat them.
But - the problem was the mess. The stove was covered with goo that was the Bisquick and water that boiled over. The stove needed to be cleaned as a result of this. (Well, it needed to be cleaned anyway.) Luckily I managed to pick up most of the goo with paper towels and a large spoon and toss it out. I took the burner out that it had cooked on as it needed cleaning too and then I saw that It had oozed under the burner pan and I had to clean underneath also. “Oh well, there goes my night” I thought - not even sure I would get to write a post tonight.
I washed the dishes and other pots then dumped the large pot from the dumplings out in the toilet bowl - the stuff was too liquid for the garbage and too solid for the sink drain. I then set the pot to soak in the sink next to the dish pan I use to wash the dishes and started on actually cleaning the stove - having just sopped up the goo from it. I dropped the decorative rings around the burners and the burner pans (not their foil liners - they were tossed out) into the dishpan which still had hot soapy water in it to soak. I cleaned the stove - with lots of spray cleaner and paper towels.
When that was done I turned to the burner pans and rings. I had to go at them with steel wool and got them mostly clean. They are currently air drying in the dish washer (remember it doesn’t work and I use it as drying rack). The skillet from dinner still needs to be cleaned - it is cast iron and needs to go on the stove afterwards to heat to get water out of it so it doesn’t rust, so I figured that I would let the stove parts dry a bit first while I started the second load of laundry (I managed to get the first load started before starting to wash the dishes) and wrote this post.
Well, the stove needed cleaning anyway and now that is a job that can be checked off the list. I had spare foil pan liners for it and climbed up in the closet and got them out - ready to go into the burner pans when they go back.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Put stuff away as soon as you get it home.
The entire mess tonight would have been easier if I had put away the groceries when we got home. I would have at least the space to work. I still would have ended up making a mess and having excess stuff plus the stove to clean, but I would not have had to drape a towel over the groceries so that if water dripped on them they would not get wet - as they would not have been next to the sink.
I have since put away all the groceries.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Thursday, March 23, 2017
WORKING IN THE DARK
We were suppose to go to Pennsylvania for the day on Tuesday, but when we woke up - it was raining. No point in going to a mostly outside farmer’s market - driving 3+ hours each way and paying over $20 in tolls, just for half the vendors not to be there because of rain, so we did not go. I had planned on going to a client Tuesday and put it off due to the planned trip.
So husband changed the plan to go on Friday. I sat down yesterday (Tuesday) and instead of doing things I should, I paid our bills and figured out how much we have transfer to our checking account to cover the bills - and making sure we had enough to do so. We went to the bank today and dealt with it all as I will be in NYC tomorrow and husband does not like to deal with our finances - he is always afraid he will do something wrong and checks will start bouncing. Normally we go to the bank on Fridays, but we hope to be away.
I needed to catch up on work that I am behind on for the two clubs of which I am treasurer as well as work on client’s income taxes. I planned to finish doing so today when we came home from running errands. I turned on my computer to check email. I was just finishing a rather long, complicated email and BANG!! The lights went off with the sound of an explosion. We know what this means - the transformer blew again. I called the electric company and was told that they know that 32 customers are out and the crew is on the way.
I unplugged my computer and related items - don’t want the electricity to come back on and spike and damage something. Now, what to do?
I pulled up the shade and pulled back the curtains. I sorted through some blank paper (sorted it by size) that I keep on the top of the folder holding shelves on my desk - I needed to do this for a while. Then I went through the papers from one of the clubs mentioned above. I had to do followup work on the annual renewals - pulled out the blank membership forms and put them in my “take to the meeting folder”, pulled out assorted papers from last year in the same file and put them together to file away. Still no electricity.
I went to the you know and on the way I noticed that there was a lot of light coming through the window into “the teddies room”. Hmmmm. I wanted to go through the suitcases on the bottom of the closet in there and donate most of them as we no longer use them. I moved the teddies and Cabbage Patch Kids still sitting in line to see Santa. So I could open the closet door. I found out that there was more in the bottom of the closet than I thought - an entire carton I did not get to after we had the bed bugs - I was wondering the other day what happened to my teddy bear magnets. Carton was put aside to go through another time. Tubes with posters in them were set aside for husband to look at - they must be his.
I took out the assorted suitcases. My idea is to come down to the larger suitcase on wheels (which husband likes to use), my shoulder carry suitcase, a backpack on wheels, and some of the smaller completely soft bags and 2 hangup bags. (The latter as they are hard to find.) When we travel now we travel in our RV and we bring the clothes into it in laundry bags, store the clothes in the closet, and then use a bag for the dirty laundry and the second one to carry the leftover clean clothes back into the house. We want the suitcases for emergencies or other oddities. We also have some small bags that we use when we go to quilt, woodworking shows, etc. to carry lunch and/or purchases, as well as some small bags we have received as donation gifts that are really nice, good bags and we use at various times. I had planned on putting all of the other bags in the rolling bag. Not big enough. I put all of the other luggage in it. I put all of the small bags into the rolling backpack. Okay, down to 2 bags. Better than it was.
The idea of this cleaning was to not only get rid of unneeded luggage (and get a tax deduction on it next year), but also to make room in the bottom of the closet for plastic boxes. Husband has a collection of articles about James Bond which are stacked and taking up room on book shelves. We will store the articles in plastic boxes - they will stop get dusty - and have more room for books. The boxes we bought to use for this fit perfectly where I planned to use them. The plastic tubes with posters will probably have to go back in the closet - they should fit behind the 2 suitcases. I will have to go through the carton and see what it is in it and what to do with it.
Oh, I also found 3 teddy bear ceramic craft items to paint. I knew there were more of them, but did not remember what or where. I still like 2 of them and will keep them and paint them. I need to think about the third one and decide if I like it - if not it will also be donated.
At some point as I was finishing up I realized that the lights were on downstairs and we had our electricity back. Only an hour and a half.
I finished the catchup work I needed to do. I plugged in my good laptop to charge and pulled out everything I need to go to work tomorrow. We picked up Chinese takeout for dinner.
On Wednesday nights I do laundry and write my blog post. I had planned to take a shower tonight, but fate again ensued. In the middle of writing this post - no really, between the second and third paragraphs to be exact. My husband came downstairs as he did not feel well. Nothing major, but he could not find the over the counter medication he needed. I looked. Unfortunately what happens is we buy OTC medications and then by the time we need them again - in some cases by the time we need them at all - it has expired. I don’t mean - “darn it was up last month”, I mean it expired years ago. I tend to toss them if I see them. Some items I will replace right away. Ones we rarely use I don’t. This apparently tossed when it expired and was not replaced. Husband was in a panic. Our Walmarts here are not 24 hour stores, except for the Neighborhood Market one (basically a supermarket only). So I left the washer running, shut down my laptop and off we went to the Neighborhood Market - 10minutes away. Of course nothing matched what he bought last time and it took awhile to figure out what to get. And as long as we were there and out of sugar free vanilla pudding, I ran and grabbed 2 boxes to have them. Then home again to finish this post.
Decision time - write post or take shower? Well, you are reading this aren’t you? I will wash myself well before going to bed. My client’s loss in my freshness is your gain in having this post to read.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Go with the flow. When all seems to be going wrong, take a deep breath and think, just go with what needs to be done. Anything which can wait - can wait. I could have panicked today, but did not. When I could not do what I planned to do - use the computer - I found something which has been waiting to be done for months and I could do. So now something which has been sitting is accomplished and most of what I was going to do is also done. I could have told husband I couldn’t go with him to get the medicine, but I knew it was important and that he would have a problem if he went alone (and I would be worrying about him) so that was done and I will deal with no shower.
One can go crazy when one is sidetracked or deal with it and see what can be done as a result of the sidetracking or what can be eliminated or delayed to deal with it.
So husband changed the plan to go on Friday. I sat down yesterday (Tuesday) and instead of doing things I should, I paid our bills and figured out how much we have transfer to our checking account to cover the bills - and making sure we had enough to do so. We went to the bank today and dealt with it all as I will be in NYC tomorrow and husband does not like to deal with our finances - he is always afraid he will do something wrong and checks will start bouncing. Normally we go to the bank on Fridays, but we hope to be away.
I needed to catch up on work that I am behind on for the two clubs of which I am treasurer as well as work on client’s income taxes. I planned to finish doing so today when we came home from running errands. I turned on my computer to check email. I was just finishing a rather long, complicated email and BANG!! The lights went off with the sound of an explosion. We know what this means - the transformer blew again. I called the electric company and was told that they know that 32 customers are out and the crew is on the way.
I unplugged my computer and related items - don’t want the electricity to come back on and spike and damage something. Now, what to do?
I pulled up the shade and pulled back the curtains. I sorted through some blank paper (sorted it by size) that I keep on the top of the folder holding shelves on my desk - I needed to do this for a while. Then I went through the papers from one of the clubs mentioned above. I had to do followup work on the annual renewals - pulled out the blank membership forms and put them in my “take to the meeting folder”, pulled out assorted papers from last year in the same file and put them together to file away. Still no electricity.
I went to the you know and on the way I noticed that there was a lot of light coming through the window into “the teddies room”. Hmmmm. I wanted to go through the suitcases on the bottom of the closet in there and donate most of them as we no longer use them. I moved the teddies and Cabbage Patch Kids still sitting in line to see Santa. So I could open the closet door. I found out that there was more in the bottom of the closet than I thought - an entire carton I did not get to after we had the bed bugs - I was wondering the other day what happened to my teddy bear magnets. Carton was put aside to go through another time. Tubes with posters in them were set aside for husband to look at - they must be his.
I took out the assorted suitcases. My idea is to come down to the larger suitcase on wheels (which husband likes to use), my shoulder carry suitcase, a backpack on wheels, and some of the smaller completely soft bags and 2 hangup bags. (The latter as they are hard to find.) When we travel now we travel in our RV and we bring the clothes into it in laundry bags, store the clothes in the closet, and then use a bag for the dirty laundry and the second one to carry the leftover clean clothes back into the house. We want the suitcases for emergencies or other oddities. We also have some small bags that we use when we go to quilt, woodworking shows, etc. to carry lunch and/or purchases, as well as some small bags we have received as donation gifts that are really nice, good bags and we use at various times. I had planned on putting all of the other bags in the rolling bag. Not big enough. I put all of the other luggage in it. I put all of the small bags into the rolling backpack. Okay, down to 2 bags. Better than it was.
The idea of this cleaning was to not only get rid of unneeded luggage (and get a tax deduction on it next year), but also to make room in the bottom of the closet for plastic boxes. Husband has a collection of articles about James Bond which are stacked and taking up room on book shelves. We will store the articles in plastic boxes - they will stop get dusty - and have more room for books. The boxes we bought to use for this fit perfectly where I planned to use them. The plastic tubes with posters will probably have to go back in the closet - they should fit behind the 2 suitcases. I will have to go through the carton and see what it is in it and what to do with it.
Oh, I also found 3 teddy bear ceramic craft items to paint. I knew there were more of them, but did not remember what or where. I still like 2 of them and will keep them and paint them. I need to think about the third one and decide if I like it - if not it will also be donated.
At some point as I was finishing up I realized that the lights were on downstairs and we had our electricity back. Only an hour and a half.
I finished the catchup work I needed to do. I plugged in my good laptop to charge and pulled out everything I need to go to work tomorrow. We picked up Chinese takeout for dinner.
On Wednesday nights I do laundry and write my blog post. I had planned to take a shower tonight, but fate again ensued. In the middle of writing this post - no really, between the second and third paragraphs to be exact. My husband came downstairs as he did not feel well. Nothing major, but he could not find the over the counter medication he needed. I looked. Unfortunately what happens is we buy OTC medications and then by the time we need them again - in some cases by the time we need them at all - it has expired. I don’t mean - “darn it was up last month”, I mean it expired years ago. I tend to toss them if I see them. Some items I will replace right away. Ones we rarely use I don’t. This apparently tossed when it expired and was not replaced. Husband was in a panic. Our Walmarts here are not 24 hour stores, except for the Neighborhood Market one (basically a supermarket only). So I left the washer running, shut down my laptop and off we went to the Neighborhood Market - 10minutes away. Of course nothing matched what he bought last time and it took awhile to figure out what to get. And as long as we were there and out of sugar free vanilla pudding, I ran and grabbed 2 boxes to have them. Then home again to finish this post.
Decision time - write post or take shower? Well, you are reading this aren’t you? I will wash myself well before going to bed. My client’s loss in my freshness is your gain in having this post to read.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Go with the flow. When all seems to be going wrong, take a deep breath and think, just go with what needs to be done. Anything which can wait - can wait. I could have panicked today, but did not. When I could not do what I planned to do - use the computer - I found something which has been waiting to be done for months and I could do. So now something which has been sitting is accomplished and most of what I was going to do is also done. I could have told husband I couldn’t go with him to get the medicine, but I knew it was important and that he would have a problem if he went alone (and I would be worrying about him) so that was done and I will deal with no shower.
One can go crazy when one is sidetracked or deal with it and see what can be done as a result of the sidetracking or what can be eliminated or delayed to deal with it.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
SNOW?
We have had mild weather this winter - especially the last month or so. Normal temperature is in the 40 degrees Fahrenheit and we have been that or warmer - some days in the upper 60s or even once in the 70s - something to lull everyone into thinking winter was gone.
We have spent much of the last week preparing for a huge snow storm which was to hit here yesterday (Tuesday). Since the area was hit by 2 major hurricanes - Irene and Sandy - a year apart each of which caused us to lose electricity for about a week, and Sandy was followed by a nor’easter just after we had our electricity restored,which put out our electricity again, my husband has become what he calls weather phobic. Every time we have a storm threatening our area which has a decent chance of putting out our electricity, he gets terrified. Plus when it is a snow storm, we have to clear the snow from our driveway and we are getting old.
So as reports of this storm heading towards us got worse and worse he became more and more afraid of it. The storm was not only to have huge amounts of snow, but also blizzard conditions with winds and gusts up to 60 miles per hour. I kept reassuring him that it would not be as bad as we were being told. At the point this storm was first mentioned one storm was on the west coast and the other somewhere around the Gulf of Mexico and they were expected to meet up near us (in the northeast U.S.) for us to have a huge storm.
Now understand, the day before the storm was to hit us one part was still in the midwest and the other part off of Florida. How it could be predicted where or if the two would meet up, I have no idea. Depending on the weather report we listened to and when we listened to it we were told -
We would get 6-10 inches of snow 12-18 inches of snow 6-18 inches of snow
Storm would start midnight Monday 2 am Tuesday 3 am Tuesday
Storm would end Wednesday morning Tuesday night early Wednesday am (2 am)
Storm would be worse north and west of NYC south and east of NYC
Sometimes the differences would be in the same report. One reporter told us that we would 6 inches of snow, and when he summarized what he had said at the end of his report he said that we would get 12-18 inches.
All of this was making him worse and worse. We went out last weekend and bought emergency supplies - canned soup and such. We went out again on Monday and bought enough cold cuts for 4 days (if we ate lightly) so that if we lost electricity we could put it outside (temperature expected by all reports to be in the lower 30 degrees Fahrenheit) in plastic boxes to keep it cold and safe and have it to eat without cooking.
I paid all the bills and dealt with all the other mail in the house which needed to go out this week and it all went out on Monday. Monday we also plugged in my laptops, our cell phones, and his tablet computers to charge. Also the rechargeable unit of a Coleman electric lantern (we bought it to use in the RV, but bring it in for storms) and he found a device which charges two units and each can recharge a cell phone, so these were all plugged in and charging also. These are all left plugged in until we know that we will not need any of them.
I overrode the turn downs of the temperature on our thermostat so the heat would stay on. This would keep the house warm longer if we did lose electricity and due to same. I did the opposite with the refrigerator. I set the freezer to maximum cold. I set the refrigerator colder, but not to maximum as we have insulin we have to keep in a certain range of temperature.
We brought in the hanging solar lamps to the porch and put the garbage can where it would not blow around or away. We also took away our front door mat and put it in our porch. Last time when I tried to shovel snow off the front steps it was in the way - this made it much easier to push the snow off the sides of the steps.
I also cleared the middle of the living room - everything back against the edges - and around the dining table so that we could walk through either room without needing light and not walk into anything. This is a idea from earlier periods called “putting the room to rest”. The room would have the items needed for something moved to the center of the room for use. When what one was doing was finished - everything would be moved back against the wall. It allowed one to easily use rooms for multiple reasons and also to walk through the room with little or no light - candles were expensive.
As you can see - we have been through this before.
As we got closer the reports got better - then worse - then better.
When we woke up the next day after the storm we found out that we were lucky. The storms met up further west than they thought they would. This was still to the south of where we are - not terribly far away, but enough to give us a good deal of rain and sleet which kept the amount of snow that fell down (and dissolved part of it) and the worst of the storm to the north and west. The storm was just about gone by 1 pm (maybe earlier, I slept in). When we went out to clear what was there it was wet heavy snow as it had so much rain and sleet mixed in, but only maybe 5 or 6 inches at most. Where my mom lives - to the southwest of us and closer to the water - they had mostly rain and sleet. To the north of us - there was more snow - but in this general area east of NYC it was not too bad. To the north of NYC and the west, as well as a good part of New England - they got the brunt of the storm. It dropped up to 30 or so inches in some areas. We were lucky.
We cleared the snow - he used the snow blower and I used a broom to get the snow off the car - we have learned to do this before clearing the snow on the ground around the car - and a shovel to clear what could not be blown, mostly due to location.
So, we have reversed most of our preparations - the lamps are back outside, we have unplugged things, etc. Tonight I will fix the thermostat settings. The rest will be done soon.
I have kept up with basic house chores - the laundry was done (always before a storm so we know we have clothes, etc.). The dishes washed when used - you really don’t want dirty dishes when you have no electricity to deal with them. And so on. I did cheat on the bedding. I normally strip the bed Tuesday morning and remake it Tuesday night before going to sleep - I only changed the pillow cases. The rest can be used another week.
And now we are eating the cold cuts. We don’t normally buy same as they expensive and not the healthiest thing to eat. We buy them when there is a reason we won’t be able to cook or need to carry a lunch with us somewhere. So we had ham sandwiches for lunch. Deli turkey for dinner. Tomorrow we will have turkey sandwiches for lunch and the ham for dinner.
We went out today to the post office. We have a mail box there and wanted to check what had come in. I had to walk in the busy street from where we were parked to where there was a cut through the snow to the cleared sidewalk (about half way between the car and post office. Just about no mail, but we went out and had some are. Temperatures continue in the 30's Fahrenheit and will continue to be so. We had a problem starting on the driveway - the car had frozen to the ground! Once we got started we had no problem.
See, we worried for nothing - well almost nothing.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
No, really - you don’t.
Some decades ago I was opening a new bank account for us. There was a choice of gifts when one did so at the bank where the account was being opened. The employee who was opening the account, as the finish to the process of opening it, took me to a table and told me to pick which item I wanted. I looked at the small airline type bag and the other assorted items with the name of the bank on them and said “Thank you. I appreciate it, but I don’t want anything.” She was shocked. “But it’s free!” I went on to thank her again and explain that there was nothing there we had a use for and therefore I was not going to take anything. For sometime after I was known at the bank branch as “she’s the one who didn’t take a gift”.
I go to trade shows and do not take the free bags, etc. - I don’t need them.
It is okay to consider what the item(s) offered is and whether it is of any value to you. You do not have to take something just because it is free. Free things just pile up in the house and make more clutter. I don’t know how many bags we have gotten because they are free and husband says “but we might need it and - it’s free”. Almost all of them have now been donated to get rid of them.
These applies to food samples also. There are many times I walk around in Costco and do not take any of the free samples. When I do take a sample it is something I like (or might like if I try it) and something which is not something I should not eat due to medical conditions. If I take a sample I take one - not every sample on the tray (yes, people do that). While the food samples will not pile up in my house - they will pile up in me.
One can also make a contribution to a charity without accepting the gift that is being given for make the contribution.
Think about how many free items have piled up in your house.
Next time you are offered something for free - think about what you will do it with it - do you need it? Do you like it? Or are you just taking it because it is FREE?
We have spent much of the last week preparing for a huge snow storm which was to hit here yesterday (Tuesday). Since the area was hit by 2 major hurricanes - Irene and Sandy - a year apart each of which caused us to lose electricity for about a week, and Sandy was followed by a nor’easter just after we had our electricity restored,which put out our electricity again, my husband has become what he calls weather phobic. Every time we have a storm threatening our area which has a decent chance of putting out our electricity, he gets terrified. Plus when it is a snow storm, we have to clear the snow from our driveway and we are getting old.
So as reports of this storm heading towards us got worse and worse he became more and more afraid of it. The storm was not only to have huge amounts of snow, but also blizzard conditions with winds and gusts up to 60 miles per hour. I kept reassuring him that it would not be as bad as we were being told. At the point this storm was first mentioned one storm was on the west coast and the other somewhere around the Gulf of Mexico and they were expected to meet up near us (in the northeast U.S.) for us to have a huge storm.
Now understand, the day before the storm was to hit us one part was still in the midwest and the other part off of Florida. How it could be predicted where or if the two would meet up, I have no idea. Depending on the weather report we listened to and when we listened to it we were told -
We would get 6-10 inches of snow 12-18 inches of snow 6-18 inches of snow
Storm would start midnight Monday 2 am Tuesday 3 am Tuesday
Storm would end Wednesday morning Tuesday night early Wednesday am (2 am)
Storm would be worse north and west of NYC south and east of NYC
Sometimes the differences would be in the same report. One reporter told us that we would 6 inches of snow, and when he summarized what he had said at the end of his report he said that we would get 12-18 inches.
All of this was making him worse and worse. We went out last weekend and bought emergency supplies - canned soup and such. We went out again on Monday and bought enough cold cuts for 4 days (if we ate lightly) so that if we lost electricity we could put it outside (temperature expected by all reports to be in the lower 30 degrees Fahrenheit) in plastic boxes to keep it cold and safe and have it to eat without cooking.
I paid all the bills and dealt with all the other mail in the house which needed to go out this week and it all went out on Monday. Monday we also plugged in my laptops, our cell phones, and his tablet computers to charge. Also the rechargeable unit of a Coleman electric lantern (we bought it to use in the RV, but bring it in for storms) and he found a device which charges two units and each can recharge a cell phone, so these were all plugged in and charging also. These are all left plugged in until we know that we will not need any of them.
I overrode the turn downs of the temperature on our thermostat so the heat would stay on. This would keep the house warm longer if we did lose electricity and due to same. I did the opposite with the refrigerator. I set the freezer to maximum cold. I set the refrigerator colder, but not to maximum as we have insulin we have to keep in a certain range of temperature.
We brought in the hanging solar lamps to the porch and put the garbage can where it would not blow around or away. We also took away our front door mat and put it in our porch. Last time when I tried to shovel snow off the front steps it was in the way - this made it much easier to push the snow off the sides of the steps.
I also cleared the middle of the living room - everything back against the edges - and around the dining table so that we could walk through either room without needing light and not walk into anything. This is a idea from earlier periods called “putting the room to rest”. The room would have the items needed for something moved to the center of the room for use. When what one was doing was finished - everything would be moved back against the wall. It allowed one to easily use rooms for multiple reasons and also to walk through the room with little or no light - candles were expensive.
As you can see - we have been through this before.
As we got closer the reports got better - then worse - then better.
When we woke up the next day after the storm we found out that we were lucky. The storms met up further west than they thought they would. This was still to the south of where we are - not terribly far away, but enough to give us a good deal of rain and sleet which kept the amount of snow that fell down (and dissolved part of it) and the worst of the storm to the north and west. The storm was just about gone by 1 pm (maybe earlier, I slept in). When we went out to clear what was there it was wet heavy snow as it had so much rain and sleet mixed in, but only maybe 5 or 6 inches at most. Where my mom lives - to the southwest of us and closer to the water - they had mostly rain and sleet. To the north of us - there was more snow - but in this general area east of NYC it was not too bad. To the north of NYC and the west, as well as a good part of New England - they got the brunt of the storm. It dropped up to 30 or so inches in some areas. We were lucky.
We cleared the snow - he used the snow blower and I used a broom to get the snow off the car - we have learned to do this before clearing the snow on the ground around the car - and a shovel to clear what could not be blown, mostly due to location.
So, we have reversed most of our preparations - the lamps are back outside, we have unplugged things, etc. Tonight I will fix the thermostat settings. The rest will be done soon.
I have kept up with basic house chores - the laundry was done (always before a storm so we know we have clothes, etc.). The dishes washed when used - you really don’t want dirty dishes when you have no electricity to deal with them. And so on. I did cheat on the bedding. I normally strip the bed Tuesday morning and remake it Tuesday night before going to sleep - I only changed the pillow cases. The rest can be used another week.
And now we are eating the cold cuts. We don’t normally buy same as they expensive and not the healthiest thing to eat. We buy them when there is a reason we won’t be able to cook or need to carry a lunch with us somewhere. So we had ham sandwiches for lunch. Deli turkey for dinner. Tomorrow we will have turkey sandwiches for lunch and the ham for dinner.
We went out today to the post office. We have a mail box there and wanted to check what had come in. I had to walk in the busy street from where we were parked to where there was a cut through the snow to the cleared sidewalk (about half way between the car and post office. Just about no mail, but we went out and had some are. Temperatures continue in the 30's Fahrenheit and will continue to be so. We had a problem starting on the driveway - the car had frozen to the ground! Once we got started we had no problem.
See, we worried for nothing - well almost nothing.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
No, really - you don’t.
Some decades ago I was opening a new bank account for us. There was a choice of gifts when one did so at the bank where the account was being opened. The employee who was opening the account, as the finish to the process of opening it, took me to a table and told me to pick which item I wanted. I looked at the small airline type bag and the other assorted items with the name of the bank on them and said “Thank you. I appreciate it, but I don’t want anything.” She was shocked. “But it’s free!” I went on to thank her again and explain that there was nothing there we had a use for and therefore I was not going to take anything. For sometime after I was known at the bank branch as “she’s the one who didn’t take a gift”.
I go to trade shows and do not take the free bags, etc. - I don’t need them.
It is okay to consider what the item(s) offered is and whether it is of any value to you. You do not have to take something just because it is free. Free things just pile up in the house and make more clutter. I don’t know how many bags we have gotten because they are free and husband says “but we might need it and - it’s free”. Almost all of them have now been donated to get rid of them.
These applies to food samples also. There are many times I walk around in Costco and do not take any of the free samples. When I do take a sample it is something I like (or might like if I try it) and something which is not something I should not eat due to medical conditions. If I take a sample I take one - not every sample on the tray (yes, people do that). While the food samples will not pile up in my house - they will pile up in me.
One can also make a contribution to a charity without accepting the gift that is being given for make the contribution.
Think about how many free items have piled up in your house.
Next time you are offered something for free - think about what you will do it with it - do you need it? Do you like it? Or are you just taking it because it is FREE?
Thursday, March 9, 2017
MARCH SEEMS ALMOST AS BAD AS FEBRUARY SO FAR
Well, another week has gone by. Last Wednesday I was so glad that February was over and hoped for a pleasant March with a chance to catch up on everything - and put away my Christmas Teddy village. It is not to be.
Last Thursday was pretty good. We went to the dentist and he had a wax of husband’s new partial. He fit it in adjusted it and we are to have the finished new partial this coming Friday.
That afternoon we signed husband up for a Medicare part D plan and a supplemental plan as he starts Medicare next month. (For anyone outside the US - this is the Federal government medical plan for those 65 and over.) Confusion - but not too bad. More or less an auspicious start to the month.
Friday we had a fairly normal day. There was suppose to be snow, but nothing. At dinner Friday night husband’s partial broke again along the same line and I called the dentist to see if he could fit us in Saturday morning - he could.
We go to a quilt show annually at the same venue in New Jersey as the woodworking show two weeks ago. We normally go on Thursday - the first day of the show - but due to the dentist appointment we planned to go on Friday. Due to the snow we changed when we would go to Saturday. So, again, we went to the dentist and then drove out of state to the quilt show. (It always amazes me how quiet the quilt show is compared to the woodworking show and all it’s power tools, in the same place. Another difference is that there are more tables and they are big group tables at the quilt show as well as spare smaller tables in the lobby for the quilt show than they have for the woodworking show. More women eat lunch there? Women like to sit with strangers? Women are more likely to stay longer and eat there? Who knows.
Saturday night we were both exhausted. I had 3 hours sleep on Friday night. Our reenactment unit had its annual party Sunday and neither of us felt like going - let alone dressing in period clothes. We compromised and went in modern clothes (acceptable for this). We got home even more exhausted and made a (relatively) early night of it.
Sounds pretty good so far - right?
Monday we got a call to pick up a prescription renewal I called in. Cost was $8 instead of $4.50. We also got a notice from the prescription manager of our insurance company that we could not renew this prescription at the pharmacy unless we called them and told them that we wanted to do so. Huh? We have picked up our prescriptions at this pharmacy since before we were on the insurance plan. I telephoned, of course husband had to get on the phone and tell them I could talk to them, I had to let the employee recite each medication, I had to say we wanted to pick it up locally at retail, and then confirm my response. She told me to call the pharmacy and have them reprocess the prescription and it would be the former price. I did so - they did so - it remained the same price! Could not deal with calling them back right away. So we moved on to our next problem. We drove to our car dealer with the printout from the manufacturer about the problem with our car. Of course they cannot just take the car and check it for the problem. We have to go on Monday and have an oil change at our expense - after just paying to have the car filled with oil. We then have to come back in 1000 miles for a “oil consumption test”. Okay, this sounds highly technical, but we guess it means the oil is drained out and measured and compared to the mileage driven - there should be no oil used no matter the mileage. So we are playing their game.
Now comes the real “fun” part of the week. Since husband is leaving our medical plan for Medicare, we have to take him off of our old plan - and leave me on it. Sounds like something which should be simple and commonly done. I spent over an hour on the phone with an employee of our state health division which deals with the ACA medical insurance. (Understand that we love our ACA plan - despite the complaints in the press, we have had a great price for a reasonable cost.) The woman I spoke with had to figure out what to do - again, I would think that this should be common enough for them to have a protocol for doing this. When we were all done - after I gave her extensive estimates of our 2016 income to use for the calculations - she told me that I no longer qualified for the insurance and I would have to go on Medcaid (again, for those not in the US, this is the Federal medical plan for poor people). I pointed out to her that the household income, which is used to determine this, is the same as it was before. She agreed that it did not make sense and suggested that since I was being asked for proof of income, I send in the paperwork and “I guess it will all work out in the end”.
We were both sick all night thinking about this. I worked for 6 hours copying income forms and since we each have our own business - finding receipts for the business expenses as they come directly off of the income before it is counted as income. Exhausted and ill, we went to sleep.
Husband woke me early the next morning saying he had not been able to sleep and I had to call back. I did. I got another employee who found the same information. She managed to determine the problem. Since my husband would be over 64 his income would not count and only my income did, and mine was low enough for me to get Medicaid. I pointed out that this made no sense as it meant a man could earn millions of dollars and his wife who did not work could go on Medicaid - she checked with her supervisor who agreed this was true - does it make ANY sense to you? She passed me along to a review division to see if they could help me.
The man I spoke to at same told me that I was right and both my and husband’s income would be used to see what I was eligible for. He also told me that the problem was that, even after providing extensive information the day before, NO income was listed for either of us - since we had no income, I was eligible for Medicaid. He suggested we go online and enter the income and it should resolve. I also found out that as of the end of the month I have no insurance as we had a couples policy and one person could not be removed and the other stay - I had to get a single policy. At each point and person, husband had to give me permission to talk to them about my insurance as the account is in his name.
Now, husband had researched this online as I went through these extensive calls and the work I had done the night before. From what he found, he checks the principle (him) is leaving the plan as he has other coverage and the dependent (me) stays on the plan. When we went into our online account to list the income he was checked as not needing insurance. It also said change of circumstances. We followed it through step by step - it even let us put in that our income was the same as 2015 (the last year a record exists for) and then let me pick our insurance again as my new policy. So easy. I really hope this worked and the matter is resolved. I have someone that we have been in touch with in the insurance company’s president’s office and will call her and ask her to check what is going on, on their end.
I then called the pharmacy manager again about the overcharge on the prescription now that it should be resolved. The woman went away for about 10 minutes checking. When she returned her answer was that the pharmacy raised the price. I told her that the pharmacy told me that the insurance company decides the price and they raised it. I could almost hear her shrug. So today we picked up the prescription and paid the additional - we need it and I will try to resolve it next week and get a refund.
Today I had to call our state tax department for a form I need for a corporation tax return. It is the only form not available online as they want us to file all the returns online and when one calls for the form they try to talk one into filing it online. I was on hold for 14 minutes to speak to someone to get the form. I had planned on calling for this form a week ago - but the time kept slipping away with all the “stuff” we had to do.
In addition as an accountant I should be working on clients’ tax returns, but have been caught up in all this. I need to get the returns done timely for the clients, as well as so I get paid.
We are now expecting snow on Friday - the day husband is suppose to get his new partial. It varies from a trace to 4 plus inches depending on who is doing the weather report (and that includes, as always, different reports from different weather people at the same station) and from hour to hour. We plan to run our Friday errands tomorrow (Thursday) as they are banking and post office errands and it is better to do them early and not have needed to, then not be able to do them and have a problem. I may call the dentist tomorrow to see if the partial came in early and we can come in tomorrow instead.
We also have a St Patrick’s Parade on Sunday with our reenactment unit - but we have told them that if it is cold (say below 35F) or snowy, we will not be there.
Now, I know that in the scheme of life these are all relatively small things - no one is ill or injured. The house stands and its systems work. It is just that we go through these periods where the small things go on and on, one after enough and become too much.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY -
In light of what has been going on, I will say that one needs a sense of humor and the idea that “this too will pass”. As upset as I get, I know we have been lucky to find each other and have each other this long. Perhaps I will get a chance to deal with the last of Christmas decorations this weekend if we are stuck in due to snow or bad weather or just because we come home between things we are doing. I have learned that often what seems horrible becomes humorous when it is in the past.
So, remember to keep your sense of humor and sense of scale when things go awry. You may end up with a good story to tell and laugh at.
Off to change a load of laundry now.
Last Thursday was pretty good. We went to the dentist and he had a wax of husband’s new partial. He fit it in adjusted it and we are to have the finished new partial this coming Friday.
That afternoon we signed husband up for a Medicare part D plan and a supplemental plan as he starts Medicare next month. (For anyone outside the US - this is the Federal government medical plan for those 65 and over.) Confusion - but not too bad. More or less an auspicious start to the month.
Friday we had a fairly normal day. There was suppose to be snow, but nothing. At dinner Friday night husband’s partial broke again along the same line and I called the dentist to see if he could fit us in Saturday morning - he could.
We go to a quilt show annually at the same venue in New Jersey as the woodworking show two weeks ago. We normally go on Thursday - the first day of the show - but due to the dentist appointment we planned to go on Friday. Due to the snow we changed when we would go to Saturday. So, again, we went to the dentist and then drove out of state to the quilt show. (It always amazes me how quiet the quilt show is compared to the woodworking show and all it’s power tools, in the same place. Another difference is that there are more tables and they are big group tables at the quilt show as well as spare smaller tables in the lobby for the quilt show than they have for the woodworking show. More women eat lunch there? Women like to sit with strangers? Women are more likely to stay longer and eat there? Who knows.
Saturday night we were both exhausted. I had 3 hours sleep on Friday night. Our reenactment unit had its annual party Sunday and neither of us felt like going - let alone dressing in period clothes. We compromised and went in modern clothes (acceptable for this). We got home even more exhausted and made a (relatively) early night of it.
Sounds pretty good so far - right?
Monday we got a call to pick up a prescription renewal I called in. Cost was $8 instead of $4.50. We also got a notice from the prescription manager of our insurance company that we could not renew this prescription at the pharmacy unless we called them and told them that we wanted to do so. Huh? We have picked up our prescriptions at this pharmacy since before we were on the insurance plan. I telephoned, of course husband had to get on the phone and tell them I could talk to them, I had to let the employee recite each medication, I had to say we wanted to pick it up locally at retail, and then confirm my response. She told me to call the pharmacy and have them reprocess the prescription and it would be the former price. I did so - they did so - it remained the same price! Could not deal with calling them back right away. So we moved on to our next problem. We drove to our car dealer with the printout from the manufacturer about the problem with our car. Of course they cannot just take the car and check it for the problem. We have to go on Monday and have an oil change at our expense - after just paying to have the car filled with oil. We then have to come back in 1000 miles for a “oil consumption test”. Okay, this sounds highly technical, but we guess it means the oil is drained out and measured and compared to the mileage driven - there should be no oil used no matter the mileage. So we are playing their game.
Now comes the real “fun” part of the week. Since husband is leaving our medical plan for Medicare, we have to take him off of our old plan - and leave me on it. Sounds like something which should be simple and commonly done. I spent over an hour on the phone with an employee of our state health division which deals with the ACA medical insurance. (Understand that we love our ACA plan - despite the complaints in the press, we have had a great price for a reasonable cost.) The woman I spoke with had to figure out what to do - again, I would think that this should be common enough for them to have a protocol for doing this. When we were all done - after I gave her extensive estimates of our 2016 income to use for the calculations - she told me that I no longer qualified for the insurance and I would have to go on Medcaid (again, for those not in the US, this is the Federal medical plan for poor people). I pointed out to her that the household income, which is used to determine this, is the same as it was before. She agreed that it did not make sense and suggested that since I was being asked for proof of income, I send in the paperwork and “I guess it will all work out in the end”.
We were both sick all night thinking about this. I worked for 6 hours copying income forms and since we each have our own business - finding receipts for the business expenses as they come directly off of the income before it is counted as income. Exhausted and ill, we went to sleep.
Husband woke me early the next morning saying he had not been able to sleep and I had to call back. I did. I got another employee who found the same information. She managed to determine the problem. Since my husband would be over 64 his income would not count and only my income did, and mine was low enough for me to get Medicaid. I pointed out that this made no sense as it meant a man could earn millions of dollars and his wife who did not work could go on Medicaid - she checked with her supervisor who agreed this was true - does it make ANY sense to you? She passed me along to a review division to see if they could help me.
The man I spoke to at same told me that I was right and both my and husband’s income would be used to see what I was eligible for. He also told me that the problem was that, even after providing extensive information the day before, NO income was listed for either of us - since we had no income, I was eligible for Medicaid. He suggested we go online and enter the income and it should resolve. I also found out that as of the end of the month I have no insurance as we had a couples policy and one person could not be removed and the other stay - I had to get a single policy. At each point and person, husband had to give me permission to talk to them about my insurance as the account is in his name.
Now, husband had researched this online as I went through these extensive calls and the work I had done the night before. From what he found, he checks the principle (him) is leaving the plan as he has other coverage and the dependent (me) stays on the plan. When we went into our online account to list the income he was checked as not needing insurance. It also said change of circumstances. We followed it through step by step - it even let us put in that our income was the same as 2015 (the last year a record exists for) and then let me pick our insurance again as my new policy. So easy. I really hope this worked and the matter is resolved. I have someone that we have been in touch with in the insurance company’s president’s office and will call her and ask her to check what is going on, on their end.
I then called the pharmacy manager again about the overcharge on the prescription now that it should be resolved. The woman went away for about 10 minutes checking. When she returned her answer was that the pharmacy raised the price. I told her that the pharmacy told me that the insurance company decides the price and they raised it. I could almost hear her shrug. So today we picked up the prescription and paid the additional - we need it and I will try to resolve it next week and get a refund.
Today I had to call our state tax department for a form I need for a corporation tax return. It is the only form not available online as they want us to file all the returns online and when one calls for the form they try to talk one into filing it online. I was on hold for 14 minutes to speak to someone to get the form. I had planned on calling for this form a week ago - but the time kept slipping away with all the “stuff” we had to do.
In addition as an accountant I should be working on clients’ tax returns, but have been caught up in all this. I need to get the returns done timely for the clients, as well as so I get paid.
We are now expecting snow on Friday - the day husband is suppose to get his new partial. It varies from a trace to 4 plus inches depending on who is doing the weather report (and that includes, as always, different reports from different weather people at the same station) and from hour to hour. We plan to run our Friday errands tomorrow (Thursday) as they are banking and post office errands and it is better to do them early and not have needed to, then not be able to do them and have a problem. I may call the dentist tomorrow to see if the partial came in early and we can come in tomorrow instead.
We also have a St Patrick’s Parade on Sunday with our reenactment unit - but we have told them that if it is cold (say below 35F) or snowy, we will not be there.
Now, I know that in the scheme of life these are all relatively small things - no one is ill or injured. The house stands and its systems work. It is just that we go through these periods where the small things go on and on, one after enough and become too much.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY -
In light of what has been going on, I will say that one needs a sense of humor and the idea that “this too will pass”. As upset as I get, I know we have been lucky to find each other and have each other this long. Perhaps I will get a chance to deal with the last of Christmas decorations this weekend if we are stuck in due to snow or bad weather or just because we come home between things we are doing. I have learned that often what seems horrible becomes humorous when it is in the past.
So, remember to keep your sense of humor and sense of scale when things go awry. You may end up with a good story to tell and laugh at.
Off to change a load of laundry now.
Thursday, March 2, 2017
JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS CATCHING UP
February may be the shortest month - but this year it seems to be cruelest month as well. Not just for my husband and myself either. At a club meeting today I heard that a friend found out that in her second home, which she rents out, the toilet kept running when no one was around - she had to deal not only with the flood resulting from same but mold and a time limit to get it done as her new tenant was waiting to get in. Another friend found out her significant other has a serious medical condition. Our problems were just annoying - individually they would be an amusing story, but when the small problems keep coming - they add up.
We were eating lunch last Thursday - luckily at home - and husband let out a scream - and mumbled something about his teeth. I thought he broke a tooth or one came out or one moved out of place and he bit it and hurt his other teeth. No, his upper partial plate broke in half - he now had a left side and a right side. He was eating a very dangerous meal - cream cheese and jelly sandwich! He managed to glue the two pieces into his mouth adjacent to each other for a temporary fix. I called our dentist, but he only had morning hours on Thursday. I left a message explaining and asking him to call back - which he did almost immediately.
Now, we were planning, again, to go to Lancaster, PA for the day on Friday. It was our third attempt this year. Luckily the dentist could see us first thing in the morning so the trip to Lancaster started to fade away again. I had an idea. How long could it take for the dentist to repair the partial or take a mold for a new one? We would probably not get out until after 9:30 anyway. So we went ahead and put together everything we needed for the day trip. When we went to the dentist the next morning we put it all in the car. Dentist fixed the partial as a temporary thing - husband says the stuff used to fix it tasted vile. He also took a mold to make a new partial - we are going in tomorrow for a fitting for the new partial. Breathe a sign of relief that this was done.
We finished up in about 45 minutes - 15 minutes behind when we would have gotten out of the house to go on the trip and the dentist is closer to where we are going than our home. Had a nice day finally in PA. Managed the trip home using the detour to the Delaware River Bridge alright.
Monday we were out running errands in the car and we heard an odd noise. Not sure if it was just something in the car knocking around we bagged up everything in the arm rest, the glove compartment, and spare eye and sunglasses. The noise continued than stopped. Tuesday we went out and the noise was there again. Since we were planning a day trip to a quilt show out of state - originally tomorrow, Thursday, now due to the dentist on Friday - if it doesn’t snow - we wanted to make sure the car was okay and stopped at our mechanic. He checked the car and it was almost out of oil - and no, we are not the sort of people who don’t check same. He refilled the oil and put it up in his shop overnight to see if there was a leak. In the meanwhile husband went looking and found out that there is a problem with our year and make of car (as well as others) in which the oil is too hot and is used up. We will have to take the car to the dealer to have it checked for this - luckily covered by the manufacturer - it could result in needing the pistons replaced. Somehow I know this will take more time than we can easily spare the car for.
Today I had my embroidery chapter meeting and what was suppose to be my day out. I drove our van and came home quickly after the meeting to run errands with husband and go out to lunch with him (Ash Wednesday so he was looking forward to a fish sandwich out) as we had just our van to use. We picked up the car when it was ready and drove it a bit to see if we heard the noise - we did not.
I went to pay bills tonight and figure out how much money we need in the checking account for the coming week - and got stuck as I had not matched slips to credit card statements when they came in earlier this week - husband had to take a test online to renew a professional license and the credit card slips and other papers made too much noise, so I set them aside - and forgot about them until I needed to make sure I had enough in the account to pay one of them.
I also had bill for a party room I had to pay for a club we are in (from the club’s money). The venue mailed the bill to the wrong address. A copy was sent and arrived yesterday - picked late in the day. They had not only the wrong date on the bill, but also the wrong day of the week! I left a voice message last night - they had closed for the day - and left both our house and my cell phone numbers. If they called the house husband knew what to ask and how to deal with the problem. No call back - I called them and they have the right day marked on the calendar for the party - not sure where the wrong one came from. Check went out when I came home after my meeting today.
So in the past month - we almost had a fire resulting in needing a new all in one printer, which did not work with all of my software (and I have not finished installing on this laptop), my eyeglasses had to be replaced, husband broke his upper partial, and the car has a major problem. In addition to the loss of time which needed to be devoted to all of this, we have credit card bills triple what we normally have for a month as a result of all this - and the car still needs to be looked at by the dealer.
Now in addition to all of this - I am working on business tax returns for clients and we are coming up against a deadline for husband to pick Medicare part D and Supplemental Medicare policies. I had done all the research and presented it to him - but he questioned everything and I had to research it all again. Finally he believes me the choices I picked are the best ones and now we have to find the time to register him.
February is over. Hopefully March will be better. The realization that much worse could have happened instead goes far.
I did manage to store all of the rest of the Christmas decorations except the teddy bear village which needs to packed away and since it is all that is left - it is time.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
How long has it taken for the stuff in your house to get to where it is? Our stuff has piled up in this house for almost 30 years and a lot of stuff came here from 9 years in our apartment, plus what came from decades living at home with our parents.
Stuff that has taken decades to accumulate is not going to be dealt with in a week. One has to be patient and do what one can. Some items we know when we see them should go - whether to the garbage, for donation, back to who we borrowed it from, or even that it is something which someone we know would appreciate much more than us. If we get as much of this “definite to get rid of stuff” as we can - and try not to add any more of it (if Aunt Susie brought a cake on her plat and left it with the cake, hopefully the cake gets finished and the plate washed - make a point of getting the plate back to Aunt Susie - she will have it to reuse and you won’t have it taking up space. Next time transfer it to a paper plate - or one of your plates after it finished being served, wash her plate and give it back to her when she leaves - no matter how much she protests your doing so.
Take a carton (or more than one) - you probably have one around - and fill it with items to donate. Then set a date - soon - to take it for donation or call for someone come and pick it up at your door. I try to gather items and take them for donation when I have my day out after my meeting (the day I missed today).
Toss out what you can - there are items that as much as it seems a waste to toss them out - no one will take them or want them. One cannot even donate TVs which are not flat screen to the Salvation Army. I know around here if we leave some items out when the garbage will be picked up with a note “free, please take” (and sometimes even without the note) people go around during the night and take things. We got rid of a lawn mower that way. It had gas in it. We would have to drain the gas for the garbage department to take it and did not want to deal with same and it would have to start - which it did not - for it to be donated. We left it out with a note attached and by the next morning it was gone.
Whatever you get out of the house leaves that much less to deal with - especially if you don’t add to what you have. Don’t be upset that it does not all instantly disappear. A little at a time is a step forward. After we had the bedbugs I had to put away 3 dressers worth of fabric pieces which had been removed, heated and bagged (which in itself was a project done 2 bags a night until over 60 bags were done - this included our household fabric items also - clothes, towels, bed linens, etc). This was an overwhelming daunting task. I finally decided that I would put away 10 pieces of fabric a night. I was also making a small swatch card for each piece of fabric - something I always wanted to do and while I had to put the fabric away it seemed a good time. My husband said to me that 10 pieces was nothing - but I pointed out - it would be 10 pieces more put away than was put away before. Some nights I felt like dealing with more than 10 pieces, some nights circumstances did not allow me to do 10 pieces and some nights I could do no pieces out all. Within a month and half the fabric was all away and I had the fabric swatch book I always wanted. By doing it in small amounts it was not tedious and I was able to keep at it.
So, if you can’t deal with the big problem - deal with a small part of it and then do so again.
We were eating lunch last Thursday - luckily at home - and husband let out a scream - and mumbled something about his teeth. I thought he broke a tooth or one came out or one moved out of place and he bit it and hurt his other teeth. No, his upper partial plate broke in half - he now had a left side and a right side. He was eating a very dangerous meal - cream cheese and jelly sandwich! He managed to glue the two pieces into his mouth adjacent to each other for a temporary fix. I called our dentist, but he only had morning hours on Thursday. I left a message explaining and asking him to call back - which he did almost immediately.
Now, we were planning, again, to go to Lancaster, PA for the day on Friday. It was our third attempt this year. Luckily the dentist could see us first thing in the morning so the trip to Lancaster started to fade away again. I had an idea. How long could it take for the dentist to repair the partial or take a mold for a new one? We would probably not get out until after 9:30 anyway. So we went ahead and put together everything we needed for the day trip. When we went to the dentist the next morning we put it all in the car. Dentist fixed the partial as a temporary thing - husband says the stuff used to fix it tasted vile. He also took a mold to make a new partial - we are going in tomorrow for a fitting for the new partial. Breathe a sign of relief that this was done.
We finished up in about 45 minutes - 15 minutes behind when we would have gotten out of the house to go on the trip and the dentist is closer to where we are going than our home. Had a nice day finally in PA. Managed the trip home using the detour to the Delaware River Bridge alright.
Monday we were out running errands in the car and we heard an odd noise. Not sure if it was just something in the car knocking around we bagged up everything in the arm rest, the glove compartment, and spare eye and sunglasses. The noise continued than stopped. Tuesday we went out and the noise was there again. Since we were planning a day trip to a quilt show out of state - originally tomorrow, Thursday, now due to the dentist on Friday - if it doesn’t snow - we wanted to make sure the car was okay and stopped at our mechanic. He checked the car and it was almost out of oil - and no, we are not the sort of people who don’t check same. He refilled the oil and put it up in his shop overnight to see if there was a leak. In the meanwhile husband went looking and found out that there is a problem with our year and make of car (as well as others) in which the oil is too hot and is used up. We will have to take the car to the dealer to have it checked for this - luckily covered by the manufacturer - it could result in needing the pistons replaced. Somehow I know this will take more time than we can easily spare the car for.
Today I had my embroidery chapter meeting and what was suppose to be my day out. I drove our van and came home quickly after the meeting to run errands with husband and go out to lunch with him (Ash Wednesday so he was looking forward to a fish sandwich out) as we had just our van to use. We picked up the car when it was ready and drove it a bit to see if we heard the noise - we did not.
I went to pay bills tonight and figure out how much money we need in the checking account for the coming week - and got stuck as I had not matched slips to credit card statements when they came in earlier this week - husband had to take a test online to renew a professional license and the credit card slips and other papers made too much noise, so I set them aside - and forgot about them until I needed to make sure I had enough in the account to pay one of them.
I also had bill for a party room I had to pay for a club we are in (from the club’s money). The venue mailed the bill to the wrong address. A copy was sent and arrived yesterday - picked late in the day. They had not only the wrong date on the bill, but also the wrong day of the week! I left a voice message last night - they had closed for the day - and left both our house and my cell phone numbers. If they called the house husband knew what to ask and how to deal with the problem. No call back - I called them and they have the right day marked on the calendar for the party - not sure where the wrong one came from. Check went out when I came home after my meeting today.
So in the past month - we almost had a fire resulting in needing a new all in one printer, which did not work with all of my software (and I have not finished installing on this laptop), my eyeglasses had to be replaced, husband broke his upper partial, and the car has a major problem. In addition to the loss of time which needed to be devoted to all of this, we have credit card bills triple what we normally have for a month as a result of all this - and the car still needs to be looked at by the dealer.
Now in addition to all of this - I am working on business tax returns for clients and we are coming up against a deadline for husband to pick Medicare part D and Supplemental Medicare policies. I had done all the research and presented it to him - but he questioned everything and I had to research it all again. Finally he believes me the choices I picked are the best ones and now we have to find the time to register him.
February is over. Hopefully March will be better. The realization that much worse could have happened instead goes far.
I did manage to store all of the rest of the Christmas decorations except the teddy bear village which needs to packed away and since it is all that is left - it is time.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
How long has it taken for the stuff in your house to get to where it is? Our stuff has piled up in this house for almost 30 years and a lot of stuff came here from 9 years in our apartment, plus what came from decades living at home with our parents.
Stuff that has taken decades to accumulate is not going to be dealt with in a week. One has to be patient and do what one can. Some items we know when we see them should go - whether to the garbage, for donation, back to who we borrowed it from, or even that it is something which someone we know would appreciate much more than us. If we get as much of this “definite to get rid of stuff” as we can - and try not to add any more of it (if Aunt Susie brought a cake on her plat and left it with the cake, hopefully the cake gets finished and the plate washed - make a point of getting the plate back to Aunt Susie - she will have it to reuse and you won’t have it taking up space. Next time transfer it to a paper plate - or one of your plates after it finished being served, wash her plate and give it back to her when she leaves - no matter how much she protests your doing so.
Take a carton (or more than one) - you probably have one around - and fill it with items to donate. Then set a date - soon - to take it for donation or call for someone come and pick it up at your door. I try to gather items and take them for donation when I have my day out after my meeting (the day I missed today).
Toss out what you can - there are items that as much as it seems a waste to toss them out - no one will take them or want them. One cannot even donate TVs which are not flat screen to the Salvation Army. I know around here if we leave some items out when the garbage will be picked up with a note “free, please take” (and sometimes even without the note) people go around during the night and take things. We got rid of a lawn mower that way. It had gas in it. We would have to drain the gas for the garbage department to take it and did not want to deal with same and it would have to start - which it did not - for it to be donated. We left it out with a note attached and by the next morning it was gone.
Whatever you get out of the house leaves that much less to deal with - especially if you don’t add to what you have. Don’t be upset that it does not all instantly disappear. A little at a time is a step forward. After we had the bedbugs I had to put away 3 dressers worth of fabric pieces which had been removed, heated and bagged (which in itself was a project done 2 bags a night until over 60 bags were done - this included our household fabric items also - clothes, towels, bed linens, etc). This was an overwhelming daunting task. I finally decided that I would put away 10 pieces of fabric a night. I was also making a small swatch card for each piece of fabric - something I always wanted to do and while I had to put the fabric away it seemed a good time. My husband said to me that 10 pieces was nothing - but I pointed out - it would be 10 pieces more put away than was put away before. Some nights I felt like dealing with more than 10 pieces, some nights circumstances did not allow me to do 10 pieces and some nights I could do no pieces out all. Within a month and half the fabric was all away and I had the fabric swatch book I always wanted. By doing it in small amounts it was not tedious and I was able to keep at it.
So, if you can’t deal with the big problem - deal with a small part of it and then do so again.
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