So here we are, a week into a new year. Hard to believe.
First, something I heard on TV, that is very true. Many of us date things in this format – 01/01/20 for January 1, 2020. Do not use the 20 on it's own for the year. Why, when you have always done this? Well, if you write 01/01/20, the year part of the date can be changed in the future to any year in this year in this decade – such as 01/01/2021 or 01/01/2029 – see what I mean – in theory the date would not run out for 10 years on say a blank check or memo note, etc. So instead date things as 01/01/2020 to avoid problems.
So how has your organizing, cleaning, etc. been going this year? Mine not so much. I managed to come down with a cold last week – not anything major, just enough to make me miserable. Husband is a hypochondriac. So when I get sick he does not want me to touch anything – I even get my 2 liter soda bottle with an X on it so he does not touch it. Biggest problem is cooking and dishes.
We normally eat lunch out so that is easy. But he does not want me to cook dinner with my germ covered hands. When we were younger, had more money and there were more places at which we could afford to eat dinner, we would go out for dinner or bring stuff in. Not really a choice any more other than the weekly dinner at Ikea, at Wendys and at the Asian buffet. One night in a week we can deal with deli turkey (even though we ate same 5 times in 2 weeks while doing the event with our reenactment unit in the last 2 weeks). But night after night? We brought in Chinese food one night - husband looked around for the paper goods – something new for us, we never used to have paper plates, bowls, cups, etc. as we considered it wasteful – last year he bought all of these for use in our RV and we had used them last time I had a “bug”, but when I finally was able to clear out the dining room – it all went out to the RV. He found plastic plates in the basement – intended for craft use – and there is plastic tablewear in the secretary in the living room. But as he unpacked the Chinese soup he was upset about not having a paper bowl for the soup – my suggestion - “there” is a stack of previous soup containers brought in – all washed and ready for use – he was not happy, but it did the trick. He keeps saying that we need to replace the (non-working) dishwasher if just for when I am sick. (I had figured out that it took me the same time to wash the dishes, etc as it did to load the machine and then rewash what did not wash – plus reading about the new machines they seemed too much work with the need to clean filters and other things. (Our original dishwasher came with the house or we never would have had one – though we did replace that one once.) My solution is to put on disposable plastic gloves when I wash the dishes.
We were not sure if we were to have snow today (report changed constantly and TV news did not agree channel to channel) so we made sure that we had lunch for today and dinner when we shopped yesterday. (I used to be organized – read the store circulars, had a shopping list, bought stuff on sale and used the saved coupons – but now with him along – we food shop just about day by day and due to changes in the coupons available and what we can eat and use – coupons that match what we buy are rare. I still have a shopping list, instead of being a paper on the fridge (if we need more – add it or we won't have it) it is in my cell phone – the other day I tried to remove an item as bought it – and the entire list erased itself and since it can only synced automatically – the computer version was pffft also. Luckily husband managed to bring up a list from the day before for me. Some things really are better on paper.
It did not snow enough to matter, went out for lunch and tonight we were having turkey sausages with macaroni (pasta – he is Italian by background all types of pasta are called macaroni). He is cooking as I am sick. Despite my hinting “am I cooking tonight or you?” about an hour before dinner, we did not get downstairs to cook until about 20 minutes before we would normally eat dinner. I was out of tomato “gravy” (sauce to you and me). I had mentioned this when we picked this dinner and he said “no problem”. So we are very late starting to make dinner and he has to make “the gravy” - something he actually taught me how to do from his mom's recipe (which for some reason is simpler and quicker by about 5 and a half hours than the recipe his sister makes which she says is how their mom made it.) He should know what he is doing since he taught me – right?
“What do I start first, the gravy or the water for the macaroni?” he asked. “Heating the pan for the sausages” - my reply. I tell him which (cast iron) pan to take out - “you need the one without the ridges.” He starts to take the one with the ridges – the one that last time I used it, filled our kitchen with smoke and the smoke detector would not go off for hours and I have still had not had a chance to clean it http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2018/07/not-in-pennsylvania.html He took out the correct pan and put it on the stove – turned on the burner for it to heat. Then I had him start the water to boil – I have to tell him which pot for which food. Then we started making the gravy. I make 2 large cans of tomatoes with 2 small cans of tomato sauce. Lately I have been using one large can of petite diced tomatoes and one of puree – gives him the pieces of tomatoes and also a thicker liquid than if I just used the tomatoes. “What do I add to it?” - Sheesh – he taught me – and I point him to the spice cabinet (built by him to fit our apartment kitchen, but fit perfectly here also – noticed that I need to clear it out as there is a lot of stuff that we have not used in decades and will not use again, such as “Mrs. Dash” - I mostly just stick my hand in and pull out what I need – showing him where, made me notice this – new job to do. Macaroni added to the boiling (no salt no oil) water. “What now” -he said exasperated. I told him to take some water on his finger and drop in the pan - “If it dances it is ready”. It did and he added the sausages. Now, it took him longer to add the items to the gravy than it would take me to cook the gravy, so we are even further behind. Next though, was to heat the leftover half can of soup for him to have soup before dinner.
So eventually we had dinner. I got sick – I won't say it was his cooking… Then to wash the dished I put on disposable gloves and washed them – they are air drying now.
My embroidery group met today. I did not go. I thought and thought about where I could sit in the relatively small room we meet in and not infect all of the other members, then realized that the proper thing to do was not to go. So last night I telephoned the group president and told her and that I would email the treasurer's report to her and to the secretary. I wrote it and emailed it. This afternoon I checked my email – I had sent them both the January 2019 minutes instead of the treasurer's report – so now I will email to the chapter members. I have to stop messing up and needing to do things over and over.
I had planned on running errands today that are easier to run without husband, but since I did not go to the meeting – we were together – he actually did not complain about the errands, some of which annoy him. We went to our reenactment unit's bank and I redeposited some cash as I had needed to take out some cash and we needed less than we thought. I also got a copy of the cash check as we have a grant and the cash was for part of the costs of same and we need to submit all copies of all checks, deposits and a lot of other paperwork – with a check sending back the excess of the grant money to the non- profit which gave us the grant and when I got home later I emailed copies of everything I had to the member who got us the grant and is handling the paperwork. Hopefully something done on the first try.
We went to our bank vault – I keep my “offsite data backup” in it. I used to make a data backup once a month and send to work with husband and he would bring home the one I sent with him the month before. When he quit his job, I needed an alternative – our bank vault became the alternate. (I use 2 USB flash drives – one is at the bank, other is here to update the next month.) We got one of the “platform” employees that is good and I figured, okay husband won't be getting upset. But when we went to go into the vault area with the employee – we had to wait as other employees were in there on bank business – that annoyed him.
Not doing laundry tonight (I start on Wednesday nights and continue into Thursday – Friday if needed) due to my cold – I figure to give it another day of recovery before I start. Since the washer and dryer were not being used, husband washed a scarf he finished weaving ( just a minute – I have to double check that he shut off the water to the washer – afraid if the hose breaks it will make a mess in basement, so we keep the water to the hose shut off when not in use. …… He did shut the water off, but did not push in control of the washer to make sure it was off.
So how was your first week of the new year?
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Treat the new year as a new opportunity for a clean slate – but don't go crazy trying to change everything at once – change one small thing and keep at it – then when that is going well – change another and continue and so on.
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