REMEMBERING WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO CHANGE SEASONS - JUST NOT IN TIME

 Changing seasons -

Well fall came in – and rather quickly around here, though we are to have a burst of warm weather to come this week, before it leaves again.

Of course every year for the two big seasonal changes – to cold weather and to warm weather, of course – we plan to be ready to make the change, but never do.  

Our house has a hot air furnace, something neither of us grew up.  We both grew up in houses that had hot water heater – furnace heated water which then ran through thin pipes throughout the house and the  hot water doing so would heat the air in the rooms, finally returning back to the furnace to be heated again and return to heating the air in the room again…  With the furnace we have in our house hot air is blown through vents to the various rooms in the house and then after it cooled it is sucked back down to the furnace to be reheated…  Seems the same, but it is not.  

Both kinds of furnaces need to be cleaned for the heating season.  When husband was still working I would remember to call the company which delivers our fuel oil (same as diesel) to run the furnace to come and do the annual cleaning of the system.  In the most recent years (even before the pandemic) I seem to keep putting it off until when I call they are all booked and we get it cleaned late.  So, it has not yet been cleaned this heating season and by the time it is – April – the heating season will be either mostly or completely over – unless they have a cancellation (or actually enough cancellations) as we are on the wait list.  I put a reminder in my computer calendar to remember to call them in June starting next year (though if they don't service it until April, I will just skip next year's cleaning.  

Husband has some tall sticks (made for this purpose) which he sticks in the ground around our two driveway entrances to mark where they are so he can see where the ramps are when there is snow and it has to be cleared.  Last year – a terrible year for snow with many storms of deep snows – he had forgotten to put them in the ground – before it froze.  They never did go in deep enough to stand up properly.  So for this year I made a notation in my calendar in early September to remind him to put them in the ground.  I have put back the date by 2 weeks 4 times now as the weather is far from cold enough for the stakes not to go into the ground or to have snow (at least no snow of any sizable amount).  

And now the big problem that causes me to post about my lack of preparing for winter.  Our humidifier.  Since the house is heated by hot air the air in the house gets extremely dry which is not good for me (nose bleeds from dry nose) and not good for the house or furniture.  In the past we had a humidifier in our furnace, well at least in it's outgoing vent, to deal with this.  But several years ago we changed oil companies and the new one told us that a humidifier in the furnace system is NOT a good thing as it helps rust it.  I should mention that our furnace is original to our house which was built in 1949 so, depending on when the former owners (there were several of them) had the furnace humidifier put in – it has worked well and not, apparently rusted.  

So now we only have a humidifier in our bedroom as nighttime while sleeping is the major problem – at other times we can just put out some water if we find the air too dry.  This humidifier only runs while we are going to sleep, sleeping, and waking up.  It needs to be refilled from the kitchen sink about once, maybe twice a week.  We had the sink spout setup with a piece on the end of it that allowed us to snap a hose on it to fill the tank of the humidifier.  It is not a huge tank, but it is not small either – I can lift it when full much easier than husband so it tended to be my job to do so.  At the end of last winter the end of the sink spout cracked – so, due to the pandemic – the sink has tape around the spout, which means we can no longer snap the hose on it.  

In addition there comes the problem which I am in the midst of dealing with and caused me to write about it.  Gunk builds up in the tank, the filter and the plastic holder of the filter from minerals in the water.  It is suppose to be cleaned on a regular basis during the heating season as well as at the end of the season.  Not something we do.  Normally I clean it once a year as the heating season starts and I remember it needs to be done.  To clean it a mixture of water and vinegar has to be put in the tank and swirled around – then it sits in same.  Then the tank is rinsed out several times and hopefully both the gunk and the smell of vinegar are gone.  The base also needs to soaked in the same manner (without the swirling).  The filter – a web of very easily breakable thin metal – also needs to be soaked in the same manner.  As I started to write this post I was going to tell you that I know we bought vinegar for this and something else (in another season) which needs to be similarly cleaned – but I have searched my kitchen pantry closet, as well as my work table in our studio which is being used during the pandemic to hold cans, bottles, cleaning supplies, and paper goods in excess of what we normally have so it does not all fit where it should.  I looked through everything several times – I then gave up and just put in water in hopes that it would it at least loosen the “gunk” I can see.

We are looking for a replacement unit that will be easier to deal with and clean since we can not refill it from the bathroom sink until we can replace the sink spout.  Of course this process of finding a new humidifier has just started – a bit late in the season.  Husband is looking online on his computer (upstairs in our office) and came down to ask what model our unit is – perhaps he can at least find a new filter for it.  I mentioned to him that I am just soaking it all in plain water and have put vinegar on the list to buy tomorrow (shopping run – especially for Thanksgiving items).  He reminded me (that is the polite to say what he did) that we had bought a half gallon of it.  OH!  That means it is on the floor of the pantry closet – did not think to look there as looking for a quart or so bottle!  There is was.  So I paused mid writing this post to redo the soaking of all the parts in a proper mixture of 1 gallon water to 1 cup of vinegar.  Hopefully this will get rid of the gunk – though I doubt it.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Try to remember to get needed seasonal things done on time.  Holiday decorating we remember to do, but this sort of grunge stuff we don't want to do and forget it has to be done until the last minute.

Most thing such as this I have a reminder in my computer calendar – set to repeat for 5 or 10 years at time – so I don't forget, but as everyone else I tend to use the “snooze” on the reminder – and not for minutes or hours.

THIS DOCTOR'S OFFICE IS NEVER ORGANIZED

 Sorry to post late again.  Yesterday was a short day as we had to get ready to take my 93 yo mom to a doctor today.  

Before the pandemic my husband and I had been “the schleppers”.  Since both of my sisters and their husbands work full time and we are mostly retired and both self-employed, we can better spend time, normally, to take mom to assorted doctors and similar.

During the pandemic it has been tried as hard as possible for mom not to leave her assisted living residence to decrease her contacts with people and her chances of getting Covid.  (Her residence has done what we think is an excellent job of keeping the residents safe and well from the pandemic.)

Since my husband and I are also “seniors” and both have medical conditions which further make us high risk for Covid, my middle sister, who handles most of things involving my mom, had to take over as schlepper also for some medical emergencies which arose.  

But schlepping mom in addition to sister's needing to deal with her husband's medical conditions and her own, meant that she used up all of her allowed time off from work.  So we had to step up and take mom today to one of her doctors.  

We don't mind taking mom – my husband says he even enjoys it somewhat as it is something different for us to do – but we REALLY don't like take her to one doctor's office.  Doctor is a good doctor – that my brother-in-law is alive is proof of that as brother-in-law has heart trouble and very nice - but his office is in a building which houses doctors who are part of a network.  It is dealing with the network that drives husband and me crazy.  

Our first dealings with this doctor and this setup was a nightmare – in organization and it this continues to be true.  We took mom there after she had been in the hospital and had to go for followup (he had not seen her in the hospital).  The followup was the day after she had been to the hospital and my sister had made the arrangements.  We arrived for her appointment and the appointment had been made with a different doctor.  After a telephone conversation with my sister – it was to be Dr. Q or no one.  With my sister, my husband and I all complaining the office staff setup an appointment with Dr. Q for mom – some hours later in the day.  We had lunch.  We ended up spending the time between in Barnes and Nobles – husband walked around looking at what he wanted to and I pushed mom in her wheelchair aisle by aisle through the store.  When we saw the doctor basically he said nothing needed to be done – and mom should be retested at a (fixed) future date.  

When I try to make appointments for mom they cannot be made with the doctors' office, but need to be made though the hospital system's setup – for a doctor appointment in New York State I have to telephone to Florida!

No appointment up to now has gone well and all involved sitting in the waiting room for this group of doctors for hours.  Nothing is done at the appointments – each time they take mom's information again and try to weigh her (she can barely stand – how can she stand on a scale and not hold on – I have learned to get the wellness office at her residence give me in writing her last weight taken there, as well as copy of her meds).

Mom had a problem two weeks ago and was taken to a local hospital as an outpatient – and was referred back to her doctor.  Since, my sister could not take her – it was up to us.  I told mom about the appointment during our weekly telephone call last week and again by telephone, reminded her the yesterday.   We over allowed time to get to her and get her to the doctor as we never know what the traffic will be driving out there (about 45 minutes away from us) or how long it will take us to get her ready and out to our car.  

Everything went fine picking her up and getting her into the car (not an easy thing to do).  Drive to the doctor went fine – but all this is the easy part.  When we arrived at the building his office is in (again, a building offices of doctors all associated with this hospital group – a one story building) there was havoc in the parking lot.  The lot was completely filled and they were parking one's car for one so they could move it as needed.  This has happened before, but never saw so busy as today.  Husband dropped mom, in her wheelchair, and me off at the door to doctor's office – we had figured on this problem and he had planned to stay in the car if he could not park, though he likes to come in with us as he worked in a medical related field and talks “doctor”, as well as it is good to have two people listening (mom's hearing is not good).

When I mom and I entered the waiting room of doctor's office I was shocked at how empty it was.  I had to sign her in on a tablet (theirs) based system – I remembered to bring my soft tip stylus to use on the tablet as I don't show up on it when I use my finger, let alone I did not want to touch a touch pad that other people have touching.  One problem is always asks for one to put their hand on it for sign in – not sure why and while my hand does not, of course, work for this – neither did mom's when she tried it our first trip there.  I made sure to wipe my hand down well with hand sanitizer after wards – is this the best idea, for everyone to touching their hands to these pads during the pandemic?  Husband came in rather quickly – he had been lucky a car pulled out and he pulled in.  

We were shocked when we were actually called into to see the nurse practitioner a bit early.  I had taken an appointment with her as the doctor did not have any open appointments until December.  Hmm, maybe things were not as bad as they had been?  

Nurse who took us in started taking doing a test on mom.  She talked with us about why we were there and then left room.  Yeah, there had to be a problem.  The nurse practitioner we had the appointment with was not associated with mom's doctor and did not work in the same medical field as we were there for!  As I was getting ready to scream and yell – “not easy to take mom out, not good for her to be out at all...” they said that they were making arrangements for a correct person to see her.  So we did get to deal with the exam today.  Told that what she came there about – she was okay, changed a medication to help with the problem – BUT – she has an entirely different problem!!!

So we now have 3 more appointments for mom – two for testing (3 tests – 2 given together) and one to see the doctor – himself.  

Not the most organize place to go and I am not sure if they had not made the mistake they would have done the EKG at all – and her medical tests at her residence's doctor have not shown any of the problems they say exist!

On the other hand – it was good to see her.  

Tomorrow it is suppose to rain, first day it does not, we have to put our car back together as it normally is and I have to move things I keep in the front for mom to sit in the front passenger seat as that is hard enough for her to get into, the back seat would be impossible.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes things go well, sometimes we have to deal with stupidity and there is nothing we can do about it.  As husband once said to me when I was upset when he was in medical office with similar problems - “stop getting them upset – they are going to be giving me shots!!”

SOMETIMES IT TAKES AN EMERGENCY...

 Sometimes it take an emergency to push us to do some clutter removal.  I have probably mentioned that we have been having water in our basement after the various big storms we have had since Hurricane Ida came through.  The water appears as wet carpet (indoor/outdoor carpet so the carpet has not been ruined) in front a bookcase in our basement.  The bookcase is in front of a window.  Our hope is that the problem is caused by the fact that the basement windows sit below the grade of the land and there is a window well outside the window.  It used to have a plastic bubble over it, but a few years ago the bubble burst  (okay broke) and we have not been able to replace due to the fact that this is where poison ivy grows.  

Husband decided that we need to move the bookcase and pick up the edge of carpet and see “what the story is”.  The bookcase not only is filled with books – most related to his profession and many of them college textbooks (ie, big and heavy).  On top of the bookcase are some shelves husband built to hold a stereo and small TV (video player for TV on the other bookcase next to this one) as he has an exercise bike there and would listen to music or watch TV while he rode it more regularly than he does now.  

First job therefore was to find an alternate location for the stereo.  He redid part of the top of a long, low bookcase in our bedroom (on his side) and managed to fit the stereo there – without having to get rid of the stuffed bears (his bears, not mine) on top.  We then had to bring up the CDs for the stereo and the rack they are kept in.  He found a spot under the bedroom TV for that – problem is that he cannot read the titles without sitting on the floor and can barely read them there and barely get up from the floor – but they have a new home.  

Next came the BIG JOB.  We had to get the books off the shelves and do “something with them”.  I have mentioned before that I have trouble donating items as all of the locations I used to go to have all been closed over several years (actually over a decade since they started closing).  The last one closed in late 2018 as I had items to bring there in October 2018, but had to come home as husband was unwell, and when I could back out in December 2018 to donate them – Goodwill had closed the location!  Husband went looking online and Goodwill has opened a collection center where the store used to be – so we could bring the books there as they accept books.  

First he sorted through the books – a good number of them he feels he can sell online (as if that idea has ever worked for us) and he moved them to a nearby table.  The rest of the books had to be packed in some way to take and donate – and the packages of books had to be light enough for us to lift.  I myself would gone with stacking them and tying the stacks, but he decided to use kitchen garbage bags – which could only be about half filled due to the weight of the books, being a problem both in ripping the bags and our being able to lift them.  We packed the books over the past weekend.  After they were all packed we started carrying the bags up from the basement.  They were put in our dining room.  After all were upstairs and we took a brief rest to recover, came the next part.  I would carry a bag of books to the front door and he would be outside to carry the books to our van (parked on our driveway in front of the house).  That gave us a van filled with books.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I added the 2 bags of stuff I had from before and we set out to donate it all.  When we got to the Goodwill location there was actually parking near their location.  When I have been there in the past the parking lot was always full (it is in a strip mall with stores and restaurants), but apparently between their store being closed and the pandemic it was far from full.  There was even a shopping cart nearby that we could use.  (Supermarket at other end of parking lot.)  Problem was the drop off center was closed!!!

Apparently they have not updated their open times on their website.  They are closed Tuesdays and Thursdays (and of course Sundays) now.  So we turned around and drove the van home.  We then ran the errand he planned to today (Wednesday) buying new eyeglasses as his vision had changed.  

Today we went back and they now have all of the books and my miscellaneous stuff from 2018.  (The 2018 stuff is some household items and also – we used to babysit his niece when she was young (now in her early 20s) one afternoon a week and had a laundry basket filled with toys for her.  I had gone through the toys back in 2018, kept a couple of them that I liked, and bagged the rest to donate, along with plastic tissue box covers that had not been used in some years and other similar items.  

So it took a flood to convince husband to donate stuff and get rid of it!  He has not opened these books in decades – and certainly not since he quit his job, a little more than 10 years ago (before that the books were partially in his office at work). Now they are gone.  

Today he took apart the shelves he made for the top of the bookcase and we will put it in his wood shop (our garage) for future use.  Next thing to do is take apart the bookcase so we can put it out for trash pickup – will need a call for them to take it.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
What has been taking up room in your home for years/decades only because you have not bothered to deal with getting rid of it?  Don't wait for a flood to deal with it.