I have mentioned that I am in an embroidery club. We meet the first Wednesday of the month except in summer. I reserve for the group the room at a local park in which we meet. This is done in November for the coming year. When I saw that the April meeting would be today – April Fools Day – I wondered what might happen. I never dreamed that we would not be meeting due to a pandemic – or even just an epidemic. I hope that all of you and your families continue to stay safe and well.
We are learning bit by bit about how to deal with the threat of COVID 19 as I am sure most to all of you are also. Every time I touch something to use it – my husband gets upset that we will use up all of whatever it is I go to touch so I have been figuring out how to do more with less and alternatives for consumable items that I normally use without thinking about it.
Luckily we did manage to buy an extra huge package of toilet paper just as the emergency was becoming obvious – husband, as I have said panics easily – so he has not started rationing same.
We have a lot of paper towels - but did not think to buy extra when we could. We have started packages of both full and half sheet paper towels. (And as I always mention to him – a started and a full roll out in our RV – we have spares of most household items there – including at least 2 started and 2 full rolls of TP.) But he did not like that I was using a half sized sheet each meal to wash the dishes – this quickly became one half sheet for the day's dishes. I offered to go back to using a sponge to wash the dishes (we had stopped same last summer when we had ants) but he did not like that either and told me to stay with one half sheet a day. Then looking in the cabinet under my kitchen sink I had an idea. I keep several old kitchen towels there to use for things like wiping up a mess, covering the front of the sink/counter when husband washes his hair in the sink, etc. I took one of them – actually a rag by now – and thought about it. I pulled out a pair of shears and cut it in 6 pieces (smaller would be too small). I now have a small dish rag to wash the dishes , etc – as well as wipe up spills - I change it every day and throw the piece from the day before in the towel laundry bag in the kitchen. They actually work pretty well – they are “bumpy” so they scrub a bit. I cut 2 more pieces off another towel, leaving the rest of it intact – for now.
I normally do laundry on Wednesday night (while writing to you) and sometimes more than one night is needed so Thursday sometimes also. The downstairs laundry bag almost always holds nothing but towels (sometimes a sock wet from the rain or similar might end up in there also). My upstairs laundry bag holds clothes, bedding and towels to be washed. I put a second bag upstairs for just towels. I normally change all the towels on Monday, the hand towels in the 2 bathrooms again on Thursday, so each time they are used for about half a week, and the kitchen towels again on Wednesday and on Friday. Now all towels are changed every other day – so the towel laundry is now done on a day that changes as I do so every 3 changes of towels – hence the need for a special bag for them upstairs.
Last weekend I went online and signed up to have our mail forwarded from our Post Office Box to our house. No more late Sunday night runs there to get the mail – I forgot which hand was for touching mail items and doors and which was never suppose to do either once too often for husband and was annoyed at having to do so – and we wore plastic gloves on both hands. Our only trips there now will be at night to mail out items that have to go out – and they will go in the mail boxes outside the Post Office. I only take in the mail at our house 3 times a week – Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. The mail goes into a sealable plastic bag and I spray Lysol into it – the bag then sits until the matching day of the next week – once our mail starts coming here on the forwarding, it will not sit that long as it will already be 7 -10 days additional time in the mail – and bills cannot wait that long. These procedures are to make husband less terrified – not recommended by anyone.
Bills – I thought we would be okay. We are both on Social Security and most of our income comes from same. Our payments are deposited in our checking account and ready for use. Luckily within the past year I had changed our Social Security to go into our checking account instead of our savings account where it used to go. Well, we ran into two problems with our bills.
First, I realized last week that we had to pay our electric bill – and did not have the money to do so in our checking account. In normal times we would have gone and transferred money from somewhere – perhaps some extra cash that we ended up with in the house after one of our few trips would be deposited back in the bank or we would transfer it from savings – but we are not going out and not going to the bank to do so. I realized that we could pay the electric bill with a credit card – we never do this, but since we pay all of our credit card bills in full in monthly, there is no interest that will do on same.
We use one credit card for rare online, mail, phone order purchases or recurring items that have to be credited to a credit card – it has only has $1000 line of credit due to what it is used for – did not want to tie up that line with an amount equal to the electric bill. So I decided to put the electric bill on one of the cards that we do not normally use at all – I use it once a year to keep it active for, generally, an under $5 purchase. I was concerned that using it pay of a couple of hundred dollars of electric bill all of a sudden might get rejected. So I figured that I would call the credit company in advance and let them know. I started calling Monday early afternoon. I would be told by their computer that they have an unusually large number of calls and to please be patient. I understood this and was prepared to be patient. The computer kept trying to get me to use their website instead – I don't do financial things online unless there is ABSOLUTELY no other way to do it. I started to wait. I was then told to call back later and the computer hung up on me. I called again and tried to use the computer – same thing. I tried several times during the afternoon (no where to go anyway) and again in the evening. No luck. I waited until 12:05 (the next day) and then called, figuring how much “later” could one call and also that it was night it in the most US and that hopefully there were different offices to handle customers in other countries – after all on the back of my credit card it said that it was “24 hour number”. It seemed to work. This time I was told to hold – and I did – I was prepared to hold as long as needed. At 1:05 am a message came on telling me the office was now closed and I should call back – yes, - later. Now how can a 24 hour office be closed? I thought about this and applying some logic – perhaps they switched to the next office in the time line and if I called again I could be hold with that office. So I called again. To my shock the call was transferred almost immediately after I spoke to the computer to a LIVE PERSON!! I managed to make the arrangements with her to have no problem with paying my electric bill with their credit card. Now as annoyed as I was, I knew that these are rare circumstances, though I was a bit po'd at the treatment that I had received – but thought that all the credit companies might be like this. Yesterday, I called the electric company and paid the bill with the credit card – by the time the credit card bill comes in – our Social Security will have done so also.
I keep our bills organized with Quickbooks – the repeating bills (even for credit cards that we do not normally use) come up in the QB calendar two weeks before they are normally due – a week to remind me to pay in a week and I pay them and mail them a week before they are do. Normally I am in our Quickbook files almost daily. But since we don't want to go out more often than we need to, I have been paying bills in advance of when they are due if we have the money in the account, so I am not in QB that often. Today I decided to go into the file and take a look. GOOD THING! Our cable/Internet bill has not come and is due next week – and suffers from the same problem as our electric bill! I tried calling our cable company today – they are taking no calls – we are to do everything through the website as the telephone system is overrun also. I need a week delay from them to pay the bill and knew that under the current conditions it would be given. Husband signed into the cable company's website and tried to get to “chat” to talk to someone about this. The chat must have been jammed – it would not even all the way! So, again, knowing that there is someone there 24 hours a day (to help in case Internet or TV goes down – they tell one to pull the electric cord and plug it back – as if we have not that already) I waited until after dinner. I then signed into their website again. In the interim while I cooked dinner husband had played around and found a COVID 19 part of the site with a chat. I had to wait about 10 minutes but a very nice fellow came on the chat – I explained that we needed an extension to pay until April 15 and he told me that there is automatic 60 day extensions on all payments – matter resolved.
In the middle of sitting and making these long extended time phone calls and website connections, yesterday was my mom's 91st birthday. Of course we cannot visit her. My sister who is younger than me and lives near the assisted living residence mom is in, went and left a cake and flowers for mom on a car the residence has outside for items to be left to be given to one's family in the residence. I tried telephoning my mom – I called her 7 times, She is barely and rarely allowed out of her room these days due to COVID 19. I even tried yelling a message when her answering machine picked up – she does not check for messages, but I hoped she would hear me and pick up (and I had proof that I tried to call her). How could she not be in her room? I later contacted my sister and she told me mom had a bad stomach and did not feel well and went to bed early.
When I did not reach mom the first time I called her yesterday I called a client and friend as I had sent her email about the need to file her 2016 tax return or she would lose her refund (no one says the deadline before same goes is lost has changed) – so I also spent time on the phone with her.
So instead of getting lots things done for work and in the house - I am spending time on the phone and online dealing with problems! But I do get to go outside to the front of the house and take in mail tomorrow and then I get to open last week's bag of mail – yippee!
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – This too shall pass as all things do. The important thing is for all to stay well – stay home if you can and be careful if you have to go out. I only have a few followers on this group – I can't afford to lose any you!
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