WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE - AT LEAST IN THE BASEMENT

 My apologies for missing last week's post.  After years of not missing any posts, seems lately my attention gets taken away and I forget to post or I am otherwise needed in the house and don't get a chance to write and post.  

Lest you think this is a unique situation to this blog, on the final Wednesday of the month I send out a newsletter to my embroidery chapter which includes the meeting notice for the meeting the following Tuesday.  Club used to meet on Wednesday and the newsletter/meeting notice went out a week before.  Location of meeting was changed and with it the day the group meets and I have not yet gotten into the habit of sending out the newsletter a day earlier so it would remain a week before the meeting.  Being the lazy person that I am, I write and post the newsletter  for them at the same time.  (I do send an email a week in advance to the other board members in case they have something to include.)

Today I dealt with all sorts of things online and then suddenly realized that their newsletter had to go out today.  It was put together quickly, but as completely as possible and went out today just before I started making dinner – all 3 versions of the newsletter, which this week were basically the same.  (One version to members, one to region of group to be sent to other newsletter editors in the region plus the head of the region, and one version I send to people (okay, ladies) who have asked about joining our chapter or used to be members and like to keep in touch.) Mostly all 3 versions are the same, but, for example, we normally have our June meeting at a specific members house before we break for the summer and I don't want to send her name, address, and contact information to everyone who has asked about our chapter, so only the member's version will have the info.

We are also dealing with water in the basement whenever it rains since Hurricane Ida earlier this year.  We never had this problem before (or at least never noticed it before) and it is now a recurring problem.  When it rains we check the basement and vacuum up the water with a wet/dry vacuum and then run our dehumidifier  - which would running anyway, but it is set at 35% dampness instead of its normal 70% dampness so it needs to be emptied much more often.  Yes – we had a large rain storm yesterday and will have another one this weekend.  We are hoping this is only a problem with needing new plastic covers over our basement windows (on the outside of the house) and the second window so far, thank goodness, does not seem to have this problem.

Husband has decided that we need to clear out a bookcase which stands in front of the window in question.  It is adjacent to his exercise bicycle and has his stereo, a VHS player, and some other similar electronics on top – so he is figuring out where we will moving these items.  The books on the shelves tend to be ones from when he was in college and of his field of study.  He figures that they can be donated – presuming we find someplace to donate them and go out to do so.  (If we do, I have some items I packed to donate just before the pandemic started and they will go out also.)  Another bookcase near by has books he plans to get rid of also, but thinks he can sell them online so they will remain for now.  

We can then move the bookcase and see what is going on behind it – as well as sort see to each side of where it was – behind a second bookcase and behind metal storage cabinets.  He has given me notice that he plans to work on this over the coming weekend.  Well, at least I know I have to finish up anything I want to do before then – such as pay any bills and write any letters I want to mail out on Sunday night (unless it raining again on Sunday night).  I know that there is some mail in our box at the Post Office and would like to post the outgoing mail from there and take out the mail in the box if we can, one in particular has me wondering what it is – looks like a card, addressed to me, and from someone I have never heard of in Washington state – and we live on the east side of the U.S.  Probably just a piece of fancy junk mail.

How do I know what it is our Post Office box?  No, I am not a psychic.  The USPS has a service which will send an email to one when there is mail at their address – including in their USPS boxes at their Post Office.  They will only send if first class mail and there is a scanned picture of that first class mail.      It does work well for us now when we are not going daily to our box as we did back in normal times.  (Back in normal times almost all of our mail was going to the box as more secure than box at our front door, especially when we went on a trip.)  We do not have to go to the Post Office unless we know there is something there to pick up (we can post outgoing mail at a local USPS collection box instead).

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Too much to do when doing nothing!

P.S,  The problem which I posted about when last I posted – the money from the loom we sold being taken back by the company it was paid through – has been resolved and we have the money back in our bank account.  It will sit there for a month before we touch it again!

Stay dry all!