We went shopping for food this past Monday. We almost made it through August without a full food run – just a small run to our local supermarket for Diet Coke (first time we have bought since before the stay at home – we had been drinking it only a half glass with Saturday night dinner, and then only since the start of May. We also bought some other items which are not sold at the Walmart Neighborhood Market at which we have done our food shopping.
I have been using a ¼ strip of a page of paper on the refrigerator for a shopping list and then when we start to talk about going shopping I have been copying the list into a spreadsheet file. I try to sort by where I think the items are located in the store as I don't want to take out my pen and to cross items we have found off of the list and want to avoid having to double back for missed items also. This trip I did two related things – I brought a pencil stub to write with (if I felt it should not come home, I could toss it out when we left the store) and I also used the back of the shopping list (and the pencil stub) to list generally the items in the food aisles, especially those we buy. I realized my shopping list was pretty close to where the items were located anyway – I did have 2 aisles reversed in the list. Next trip I will try to list what is in which aisle of the non-food items.
Before we went I had started making a master list of items we buy or might buy in the supermarket to make sure that when making future lists I don't forget anything. (List is mostly made by husband saying or my realizing that we just took the last of something or have few enough of the item left to last beyond a week or so or one of us saying something like - “hmmm, wouldn't it be nice to have “Brunswick stew” (or something else) for dinner – do we have what we need to make it?” After I returned home I resorted the master list by which aisles I had found the items to be in. The master list is in 3 columns (so more of it can be seen at time while making up the shopping list – in a 4th column) – food, cold food, and non-food. By looking down the list as I make up our shopping list for the upcoming supermarket trip I can make sure I don't miss anything. Maybe we will continue to shop for more than a day or two at time, like we used to in the old years when I did the food shopping alone while husband was still working outside the house, it does work very well.
We found most of the items we were looking for – I could swear that supermarkets carry Chinese hard noodles – maybe it is just this store that does not. It took him 10 minutes to decide which “I think want different cookies this time” he wanted. He likes nicer than white bread when he has a sandwich, so he bought an Italian loaf baked in the store and wanted to buy rye bread. The rye bread is small compared to the white bread and the what we call – the store bread so he decided to buy 2 loaves. (We bought 4 loaves of white bread, use one and part of one fresh and freeze the rest as the expiration date approaches.) In normal years we maybe buy one loaf of white or store bread and maybe don't have any bread in the house for long periods of time. He could not decide between the “hard” and the “soft” rye breads from the same company – I told him to buy one of each and then decide which he liked better for next time, we did.
I figured while we were shopping we should buy some ant traps – generally need them on and off. We could not find the bug spray section. I asked an employee – he pointed at a rack hanging from the end of an aisle. None there – I mentioned this and he sent me to Aisle 16 – made sense to me that was dog food and stuff for the house – only another rack hanging from the end cap – guess there is not much of a calling for bug killer stuff in the supermarket? When/if we go to a regular Walmart I will check there and buy same.
And now – the big disorganization happens. In the trips we have taken to this Walmart for groceries – about 3 or 4 times since the stay at home started – there have been no lines at checkout other than at self checkout. This time it seemed there were big lines at all of the registers – and the lines ran up the aisles and people were close together. Husband picked a line. I was concerned that it was a small number of items or less checkout and went up to check. I then saw that where we normally check out seemed now to be empty. I went and checked and it was – problem – not going to take out cell phone with gloves I have on and he won't check – so I had to run back to him and then back to stand at register while he figured out how to get there. (Umm, go to back of store and up the big aisle that comes forward – this took a lot of thinking? And he walked there so slowly.)
The system he has developed for food shopping is he wear gloves and pushes the cart. I wear gloves and select the items and put them in the cart. (To his mind this keeps the cart and food unvirused.) So I have to take the items out of the cart and put them on the belt for the cashier. (Before the pandemic we only did self-checkout, now we always go to a cashier.) I put the heavier cold items first and then the lighter cold items, followed by the heavier not cold items and finally the lighter not cold items. We want the cold items bagged together so we can deal with them first when we get home before they warm up – both for wiping off with alcohol on paper towel piece and then figuring where to fit the items in the freezers (one is part of refrigerator and the other is a small dorm refrigerator sized one in our basement). Fitting them in is not easy. An example – we have been buying what I call frozen box dinners – these are the precooked, heat up, commercial company frozen meals in the freezer cases. I told him we had room for 7 of them (based on what we had used and the room I had for stacking them). He picked out 6 of them – okay, that's better as more room for something else, right? He then decides to buy a box of frozen fried chicken (which I reminded him he did not like last time and that there was much less in the box than it looks like it will have) – it almost the size of 2 of the boxed dinners. I explained to him that we could buy that – but one of the box dinners has to go back due to space limitations. He found a bag of fried chicken strips instead.
I started putting the items on the belt to be rung up. It is again a huge order as we are buying for a month and hopefully beyond. He is standing there watching me – remember, only I can touch the food. I finally suggest he go to the other end and watch how the cashier is bagging the items. He comes back. The cashier is not bagging them – they do not have any bags!! He starts to panic. I unpack as quickly as I can and then start reloading the food she has rung up into the cart, thinking all the time what to do. Oddly I had looked at the two reusable shopping bags we had gotten back at the end of February when the state was going to no disposable plastic bags and thought about about bringing them, but did not. We had brought one disposable bag as he sprays the cart with Lysol before we start using it and I like to hide in the van as it is in such demand this days. I figured we must have other bags in the van and told him we would be okay. When I asked the cashier if this was something permanent – they had run out of bags at 2 pm. (This was 5-6 pm.) Not sure if it was a question of people doing extra food shopping as heavy rain was to come for the rest of the week (which is why we were shopping Monday), it was the last day of the month or what, but good to know it was not a change in policy.
In the car I had about 4 disposable plastic shopping bags, a paper shopping bag (bigger than a supermarket bag from some other store), and clean plastic garbage bags – I am guessing leftover from craft shows we have done and used them to carry woven items or such. I put the breads in the paper shopping bag – just fit all of them (including a pack each of hot dog and hamburger rolls). I put cold items into the 4 plastic bags which took most, but not all of them. I then used one garbage bag for the rest of the cold items and a couple of garbage bags for the non-cold food.
When we got home we dealt with the cold food in the shopping bags first and then I used the empty shopping bags to bring in the rest of the cold food. After the cold food was put away, I started on the non-cold food, again using the shopping bags to bring them in – bread came in last.
After all of this time and work – we came up short a rye bread! We thought we lost it on the way on home after paying for it, but when we checked the receipt – we had never paid for it – either it fell out of the wagon, did not make it up the belt at the register – or a fairy took it out of the cart – and with how things are lately, I am so not sure it was not the last.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It pays to make a shopping list before going shopping all the time – better than a trip back for a forgotten item. Even more so now with the Corona virus about. It helps one deal with a larger order quicker and with much fewer running back for items not remembered as one went through their aisle. Today much more so than even before – one wants to go in, shop, and get out as quickly as possible to spend as little time out near people as possible.
A good Labor Day holiday to those in the U.S.
Showing posts with label ants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ants. Show all posts
Thursday, September 3, 2020
COVID 19 #21 - FOOD SHOPPING DURING THE TIME OF CORONA
Thursday, June 20, 2019
GOODBYE 2009
In between trying to get rid of ants in the kitchen and the refrigerator needing monitoring to stay in the small temperature range we need to get it to stay in, I had some time in our office to catchup on paperwork a bit - still 2 piles, but the “to do” one is getting shorter.
One job I have not have had a chance to do is store files from 2018 that I need/want to keep. Before doing this I have to clear out the oldest box saved files - in this case it was 2009 that had to be dealt with. 2009 was an unusual year for us - it was the year that we had bedbugs.
I climbed up and took stuff off the front of the shelf in the office closet - 3 boxes of computer disks stored up there (installed hardware, to set up the computers, old software that might needed, past years tax software). At the end of 2018 I stored the paid bills in an old manila envelope box (the one the envelopes came in) that I keep for this - that box had to come down also, as were 2 boxes of small manila envelopes. (Did you know that 6"x 9" or less sized envelopes go at the same US Postage rate as regular #10 envelopes and can hold more in the same 1/4" thickness allowed for same than the #10's?) Some empty, flattened boxes that I kept was the last of what was blocking access to the 3 boxes of old financial records on the middle of the top shelf of the closet. There are additional boxes of same (9 in total) on the top of the closet, but the latest and oldest are the two I try to keep in the center stack - as the other stacks require moving the center stack to take out the boxes. First, I took out the 2017 box and added some papers I had found during the past year from same (I have folder “old years files to add to box” that it has been in. ). I then took out the 2009 box.
Going through the old box is a trip down memory lane. I start taking out papers. There are bank statements, paid bills, old insurance policies, etc. in the box for us and for our businesses. I have my paper shredder ready and also have spare garbage bags.
I take the first item out - what is it? In this case a stack of telephone bills. Nothing needed from same. I go pull the first 4 off the top - checking that nothing else is mixed in - and into the shredder they go. Little by little more goes into the shredder. Items such as the phone bills and cable bills which don’t need to be checked if anything should be kept just get fed in and shredded.
In 2009 we got rid of my 1996 car and bought a new one. (Which we hated and got rid of 2 years later.) I pulled out the book (remember when the dealer handed out books with photos and info about the car that you were looking out) and the rest of the papers from the original 1996 purchase of the car that I pulled from the car’s file at the end of 2009 when I pulled files to keep from the year.) I stuck all of them in the book to go through and added same to my “to do” pile. I will keep the car registrations as I keep them forever. (We once received notice that we had not paid 3 parking tickets on one of our cars. We had never received any tickets nor was it in an area we have been to. I requested copies of the tickets and it was a different car and a different license plate. Some of the letters and numbers matched and some did not - but looked the same. I had to prove what the license plate on the car was - at the time the ticket was issued - having a different plate on the car when I was fighting this did not count. I did not keep the registrations - in this area this is a small square of heavy paper that is changed every 2 years when it is renewed. Each was tossed out after the new one was put in the car or our wallets. It was a big problem to resolve, so I now keep the car registrations - forever. I will go through the purchase papers when I get a chance.
I then looked up in my Quickbooks what income taxes we paid during the year (including final estimate and final payment for 2008 and estimate for 2009.) I saw that we had only made one payment in April. I made a note. I then checked what we had paid for our real estate taxes and made a note of them. I then opened our corporation in same and checked what and when we had paid for corporation taxes and sales taxes that we had collected and paid. I also checked for a certain payment we have to pay to the state corporation dept every other year with who is who in our corporation.
I then started with the corporation bank statements. I pulled out the statements that should have the checks issued above and pulled those checks out, paper clipped them together and safely set them aside. I will scan front and back of these checks in my computer - again due to something that has happened in the past with clients - and my dad’s business. I then started shredding the corporation bank statements, looking as I did for an unusually large amounts on them. If I had seen any I would checked what it was for.
Next I went through the corporation’s charge card statement. Again I looked for anything that is a large amount and feed the statements into the shredder.
By now I have had to change the bag in the shredder once.
I now am at our personal bank statements, again I will check for any large amounts. A lot more of these than for the corporation as we have accounts at multiple banks and each have IRA accounts. Our main checking account has a lot of checks, as well as deposit slips, so I remove the staple(s) holding them to the statement so I can feed them into the shredder in batch sizes that will not jam the shredder and also send the statement through. As I go through I make sure to pull the checks for our income tax and the four for our real estate taxes. When I come to July I find the check that paid for the bed bug treatment - gee, it was $2000 more than I thought I was!
When the bank statements are finished I go through the several credit cards statements. (All of which were paid in full every month, as is all.) Again, I have to separate the slips from the statements as there are too many to go through the shredder all at once.
Suddenly I realize that I am coming to the end of what is in the box. I have pulled some papers and set them aside to check through - maybe scan into the computer, as I will do with the tax payment checks and receipts for our real estate taxes. Last thing was I took the “2009" removable label from the box.
2009 is done and gone. I have done it in 3 sessions of shredding - too much shredded at once and the shredder will overheat and I will have to wait for it to cool off. I filled 4 kitchen sized bags of shreds. (I put them in out by putting 2 bags each into a larger black bag and setting those two large black bags out. The light colored kitchen bags can sort of be seen through and I did not want anyone noticing that the bags had shredded papers in them and it looks more like regular trash than same.)
On to storing 2018. In my file drawer the files that should be gone through have red edged labels (those that are permanent and should stay are blue edged). In our corporation’s file drawer the annual files are yellow edged labels and permanent are green edged labels. I have a folder in our file drawer that holds items I found or received during the year that belongs in the prior year. So I take anything in it - for 2017 and add it to the 2017 box.
I pull the first annual folder - bank statements from our main bank - I take out 2018 statements and put into the box. I do the same with the rest of the bank statements from 2018. I then come to statements from our medical insurance - all of the 2018 statements are pulled out. I switched medical insurance companies in 2018. I go through the blue edged folder for same and pull the papers to keep - I shred the others. 2 empty folders (the annual and the permanent for that insurance company) to be recycled next time I need a folder - put in a sorter on top of the folder holder stack on the side of my desk with other folders waiting a new use. I do this with all of the annual folders in our file drawer.
I then do the same with the corporation file drawer. Paid bills for the corporation are in folders in the file drawer and are pulled out also and fit into the box.
I then go back and pull the box of paid bills which I mentioned I had put the 2018 bills in. I then add the paid bills.
When I am pretty sure that just about everything is in the box I take out my “this year folder”. I use this folder to throw things in that I don’t know what to do with or do not go with anything and need to be held for short term. I go through it and shred whatever is no longer needed. I put in the box anything I want to keep from last year. One example of what is in this folder - we get a large postcard (sometimes two during the same year) on when and where we are to vote - including our Congressional district, State Senate district, State Assembly district, and County legislator district on it, as well as our “voting district” infos. I keep the card until we receive the next year’s card. Since we have the 2019 card, I shredded the 2018 card as it is no longer needed. (I keep it until the new one comes as 3 years ago we did not get the new card. While the card is not needed to vote, it helps when the idiots, ummm, the people working at the polls cannot figure out that we belong at the table that we say we belong at. (No, really, one year the woman at the table we were to vote at told us we were at the wrong polling place as our address was “not on her list”. We had to show her the card with the info we were to vote there and she had to go and check with one. Not sure if that is better or worse than the year we went to the primary vote and the man and woman at the table for our location and our party were not able to figure out anything to do and the fellow from the other party came and took care of getting us signed in and gave us our ballots. If one did not have to be there at 6 am we would go down and work the polls because they need us - and one does get paid.)
When I was pretty sure all of what had to be kept from 2018 was in the box - I put the lid on and climbed up and put it away. I then put back all the stuff that goes in front of the boxes that I had taken out. Anything I find now that belongs in the box, I will put in that prior year’s folder for next year.
Something I just noticed in writing this piece - I never made a new label “2018" and stuck it on the box. I will have to do so or be terribly confused in the future.
I also have a file drawer both for the files I keep for our reenacting unit and for same for my embroidery chapter. (I am treasurer of both and need to keep files). I have a metal file drawer divider so the embroidery files are in front of same and the reenacting ones are behind.
I have not had a chance to go through these files in awhile and move out old years. I started with our reenacting unit. I pulled old paid bills from the paid bills folder, ditto the bank statements and insurance policies. We have some copies of invoices that I sent to organizations that we did events for and they are pulled also if they are 2017 or before. I then sorted what I had pulled out into stacks by year and put the stacks in folders. The unit has several filing cabinets and a drawer in one of them holds the old records - more than 3 years ago - and I move the files there - by year - so I don’t have to take up room in our house for older files. As I pull the older bills I check to make sure that there are not any that I might needs - items we don’t often need to reorder, but if we do, it is helpful to have the last one, so that we know what we ordered last time and from whom. (This past Monday night these files were taken to our reenactment unit’s meeting and put in the file cabinets.)
I did not get to the embroidery chapter’s files yet - those I keep 3 years in the drawer (plus the current year) plus another 7 years in box (another of those manila envelope boxes) in the closet - well labeled.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes just short periods of time are best for getting work done. I could have put all this off, but had a bit of time here and there to shred the papers. I pulled most of the papers to go in the box for 2018 while the computer was backing up for the day.
Getting rid of ants and getting the fridge to stay in temperature range - much harder.
One job I have not have had a chance to do is store files from 2018 that I need/want to keep. Before doing this I have to clear out the oldest box saved files - in this case it was 2009 that had to be dealt with. 2009 was an unusual year for us - it was the year that we had bedbugs.
I climbed up and took stuff off the front of the shelf in the office closet - 3 boxes of computer disks stored up there (installed hardware, to set up the computers, old software that might needed, past years tax software). At the end of 2018 I stored the paid bills in an old manila envelope box (the one the envelopes came in) that I keep for this - that box had to come down also, as were 2 boxes of small manila envelopes. (Did you know that 6"x 9" or less sized envelopes go at the same US Postage rate as regular #10 envelopes and can hold more in the same 1/4" thickness allowed for same than the #10's?) Some empty, flattened boxes that I kept was the last of what was blocking access to the 3 boxes of old financial records on the middle of the top shelf of the closet. There are additional boxes of same (9 in total) on the top of the closet, but the latest and oldest are the two I try to keep in the center stack - as the other stacks require moving the center stack to take out the boxes. First, I took out the 2017 box and added some papers I had found during the past year from same (I have folder “old years files to add to box” that it has been in. ). I then took out the 2009 box.
Going through the old box is a trip down memory lane. I start taking out papers. There are bank statements, paid bills, old insurance policies, etc. in the box for us and for our businesses. I have my paper shredder ready and also have spare garbage bags.
I take the first item out - what is it? In this case a stack of telephone bills. Nothing needed from same. I go pull the first 4 off the top - checking that nothing else is mixed in - and into the shredder they go. Little by little more goes into the shredder. Items such as the phone bills and cable bills which don’t need to be checked if anything should be kept just get fed in and shredded.
In 2009 we got rid of my 1996 car and bought a new one. (Which we hated and got rid of 2 years later.) I pulled out the book (remember when the dealer handed out books with photos and info about the car that you were looking out) and the rest of the papers from the original 1996 purchase of the car that I pulled from the car’s file at the end of 2009 when I pulled files to keep from the year.) I stuck all of them in the book to go through and added same to my “to do” pile. I will keep the car registrations as I keep them forever. (We once received notice that we had not paid 3 parking tickets on one of our cars. We had never received any tickets nor was it in an area we have been to. I requested copies of the tickets and it was a different car and a different license plate. Some of the letters and numbers matched and some did not - but looked the same. I had to prove what the license plate on the car was - at the time the ticket was issued - having a different plate on the car when I was fighting this did not count. I did not keep the registrations - in this area this is a small square of heavy paper that is changed every 2 years when it is renewed. Each was tossed out after the new one was put in the car or our wallets. It was a big problem to resolve, so I now keep the car registrations - forever. I will go through the purchase papers when I get a chance.
I then looked up in my Quickbooks what income taxes we paid during the year (including final estimate and final payment for 2008 and estimate for 2009.) I saw that we had only made one payment in April. I made a note. I then checked what we had paid for our real estate taxes and made a note of them. I then opened our corporation in same and checked what and when we had paid for corporation taxes and sales taxes that we had collected and paid. I also checked for a certain payment we have to pay to the state corporation dept every other year with who is who in our corporation.
I then started with the corporation bank statements. I pulled out the statements that should have the checks issued above and pulled those checks out, paper clipped them together and safely set them aside. I will scan front and back of these checks in my computer - again due to something that has happened in the past with clients - and my dad’s business. I then started shredding the corporation bank statements, looking as I did for an unusually large amounts on them. If I had seen any I would checked what it was for.
Next I went through the corporation’s charge card statement. Again I looked for anything that is a large amount and feed the statements into the shredder.
By now I have had to change the bag in the shredder once.
I now am at our personal bank statements, again I will check for any large amounts. A lot more of these than for the corporation as we have accounts at multiple banks and each have IRA accounts. Our main checking account has a lot of checks, as well as deposit slips, so I remove the staple(s) holding them to the statement so I can feed them into the shredder in batch sizes that will not jam the shredder and also send the statement through. As I go through I make sure to pull the checks for our income tax and the four for our real estate taxes. When I come to July I find the check that paid for the bed bug treatment - gee, it was $2000 more than I thought I was!
When the bank statements are finished I go through the several credit cards statements. (All of which were paid in full every month, as is all.) Again, I have to separate the slips from the statements as there are too many to go through the shredder all at once.
Suddenly I realize that I am coming to the end of what is in the box. I have pulled some papers and set them aside to check through - maybe scan into the computer, as I will do with the tax payment checks and receipts for our real estate taxes. Last thing was I took the “2009" removable label from the box.
2009 is done and gone. I have done it in 3 sessions of shredding - too much shredded at once and the shredder will overheat and I will have to wait for it to cool off. I filled 4 kitchen sized bags of shreds. (I put them in out by putting 2 bags each into a larger black bag and setting those two large black bags out. The light colored kitchen bags can sort of be seen through and I did not want anyone noticing that the bags had shredded papers in them and it looks more like regular trash than same.)
On to storing 2018. In my file drawer the files that should be gone through have red edged labels (those that are permanent and should stay are blue edged). In our corporation’s file drawer the annual files are yellow edged labels and permanent are green edged labels. I have a folder in our file drawer that holds items I found or received during the year that belongs in the prior year. So I take anything in it - for 2017 and add it to the 2017 box.
I pull the first annual folder - bank statements from our main bank - I take out 2018 statements and put into the box. I do the same with the rest of the bank statements from 2018. I then come to statements from our medical insurance - all of the 2018 statements are pulled out. I switched medical insurance companies in 2018. I go through the blue edged folder for same and pull the papers to keep - I shred the others. 2 empty folders (the annual and the permanent for that insurance company) to be recycled next time I need a folder - put in a sorter on top of the folder holder stack on the side of my desk with other folders waiting a new use. I do this with all of the annual folders in our file drawer.
I then do the same with the corporation file drawer. Paid bills for the corporation are in folders in the file drawer and are pulled out also and fit into the box.
I then go back and pull the box of paid bills which I mentioned I had put the 2018 bills in. I then add the paid bills.
When I am pretty sure that just about everything is in the box I take out my “this year folder”. I use this folder to throw things in that I don’t know what to do with or do not go with anything and need to be held for short term. I go through it and shred whatever is no longer needed. I put in the box anything I want to keep from last year. One example of what is in this folder - we get a large postcard (sometimes two during the same year) on when and where we are to vote - including our Congressional district, State Senate district, State Assembly district, and County legislator district on it, as well as our “voting district” infos. I keep the card until we receive the next year’s card. Since we have the 2019 card, I shredded the 2018 card as it is no longer needed. (I keep it until the new one comes as 3 years ago we did not get the new card. While the card is not needed to vote, it helps when the idiots, ummm, the people working at the polls cannot figure out that we belong at the table that we say we belong at. (No, really, one year the woman at the table we were to vote at told us we were at the wrong polling place as our address was “not on her list”. We had to show her the card with the info we were to vote there and she had to go and check with one. Not sure if that is better or worse than the year we went to the primary vote and the man and woman at the table for our location and our party were not able to figure out anything to do and the fellow from the other party came and took care of getting us signed in and gave us our ballots. If one did not have to be there at 6 am we would go down and work the polls because they need us - and one does get paid.)
When I was pretty sure all of what had to be kept from 2018 was in the box - I put the lid on and climbed up and put it away. I then put back all the stuff that goes in front of the boxes that I had taken out. Anything I find now that belongs in the box, I will put in that prior year’s folder for next year.
Something I just noticed in writing this piece - I never made a new label “2018" and stuck it on the box. I will have to do so or be terribly confused in the future.
I also have a file drawer both for the files I keep for our reenacting unit and for same for my embroidery chapter. (I am treasurer of both and need to keep files). I have a metal file drawer divider so the embroidery files are in front of same and the reenacting ones are behind.
I have not had a chance to go through these files in awhile and move out old years. I started with our reenacting unit. I pulled old paid bills from the paid bills folder, ditto the bank statements and insurance policies. We have some copies of invoices that I sent to organizations that we did events for and they are pulled also if they are 2017 or before. I then sorted what I had pulled out into stacks by year and put the stacks in folders. The unit has several filing cabinets and a drawer in one of them holds the old records - more than 3 years ago - and I move the files there - by year - so I don’t have to take up room in our house for older files. As I pull the older bills I check to make sure that there are not any that I might needs - items we don’t often need to reorder, but if we do, it is helpful to have the last one, so that we know what we ordered last time and from whom. (This past Monday night these files were taken to our reenactment unit’s meeting and put in the file cabinets.)
I did not get to the embroidery chapter’s files yet - those I keep 3 years in the drawer (plus the current year) plus another 7 years in box (another of those manila envelope boxes) in the closet - well labeled.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes just short periods of time are best for getting work done. I could have put all this off, but had a bit of time here and there to shred the papers. I pulled most of the papers to go in the box for 2018 while the computer was backing up for the day.
Getting rid of ants and getting the fridge to stay in temperature range - much harder.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
A WEEKEND IN THE 18 CENTURY, A LUNCHEON, AND OTHER TIME CONSUMERS
Another week already?
Friday we spent the afternoon with our reenactment unit setting up for a relatively large scale event. It is one that we started last year. We invite other units to join us. We have the use of the restoration village I have spoken about before. We set up near the building that we interpret at Christmas time a “British army camp - with officers in the building. In the same general area the “American civilians” (us) are located. At another restored house that happens to be behind this house on top of a rise, is the “American army”. To visitors this other house is a quite a distance away on the road, but for our convenience it can be reached by walking through the woods between the two, while not being seen from where we are. While we are not setting up at the other house, it still takes quite awhile to set up.
Saturday and Sunday was the event - so the entire day - both days - was taken up with the event. Saturday night we got home and I threw the cups we used during the day (period looking cups are used and we each have/bring our own - ditto dishes, and tablewear, but we had not brought anything other than cups with us Saturday as we were not staying for dinner at night) into the sink and went upstairs to change in modern clothes. When I got back downstairs the kitchen sink and the counter on either side of it was covered in ants! I managed to get rid of the ones I saw and washed the cups - as husband’s cup was also covered. After we had dinner we found more ants. I had just put the kitchen back together from a prior attack of ants! So, again, I checked and washed off each item around the sink - such as the dishrack - and stored them on the one small section of counter that is on the other side of the kitchen. Husband went looking online for what is food safe to get rid of ants. He found out that one can spray a 3/1 vinegar/water mixtures, let it dry for 30 minutes, blot puddles, and let the rest air dry. Seems to be working so far. I have moved items back to the counter top, but still am not using the space. When I wash dishes I wash and rinse an item, dry it and put it away immediately and then on to the next piece. It is exhausting. Oh, and I am using paper towels for washing instead of a sponge or steel wool pad, as I can toss them out after each session of washing. Sunday not only did we have the event - everything had to be packed afterwards.
I was looking forward to tomorrow, Thursday, when I had nothing to do and could breathe - ha ha!
Monday afternoon, husband decided that we had to get gas for our car, as we had not done so on Sunday as we normally would, and also had to check the oil in the car. So we drove out to where we go for both, which took most of the afternoon. When we got home we went through the stuff we brought back from the reenactment and I had put in closed plastic bags and checked it for ants - only found one.
Tuesday we ran some home errands - shopping and such and also bought some deli turkey for me to make light sandwiches to bring today to my embroidery chapter for our annual luncheon meeting. Everyone makes some sort of salad, I can’t eat salad unless I know that I am going home right after, so I bring the sandwiches so I have something to eat. We discuss what we want to do next year (September to June) at our meetings and any regular business. I had planned to run a lot errands as I won’t have a day out alone again until September. I realized on my way back from the meeting today, Wednesday, I had forgotten to bring the soda bottles to put in for recycling - 5 months worth! Oh, well. I did our banking and the banking for the embroidery chapter.
Oh, I also had forgotten that I did have to send a list of members to our region and had planned to do it Thursday (tomorrow) when I would have a chance to breathe - but.... my sister contacted me and needs me to go to my mom on Thursday as she cannot go then. She has been visiting mom just about every day even when the rest of us are going also, so I could not say no. I managed to get the list out by email yesterday.
Monday night after husband fell asleep I heard a chirping - I presumed it was the downstairs smoke detector (upstairs is a 10 year detector) and figured they usually chirp for a couple of days so we would take care of it Tuesday. I heard it again Tuesday morning, but then it stopped. Husband went crazy trying to figure out which device was beeping as they all tested fine. He decided it was a telephone in the office and we bought a new one - but that one still works fine. (New one will be returned.) This morning I heard the chirping again and Robert heard it also. While I was out today he figured out that it was the smoke detector downstairs and replaced the battery.
Oh, and Friday he is planning a trip to Pennsylvania - if it finally does not rain on a Friday this week. (Well, last Friday it did not rain, but we did have the event to set up.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Again, one must take life a day at a time. I know that at some point this craziness will stop and I will be able to catch up - okay, in the back of my head I realize life may remain this crazy for ever, but I sure hope not!
My thoughts and prayers go out to those who continue to get this horrible weather and are in much worse a situation that we are.
Friday we spent the afternoon with our reenactment unit setting up for a relatively large scale event. It is one that we started last year. We invite other units to join us. We have the use of the restoration village I have spoken about before. We set up near the building that we interpret at Christmas time a “British army camp - with officers in the building. In the same general area the “American civilians” (us) are located. At another restored house that happens to be behind this house on top of a rise, is the “American army”. To visitors this other house is a quite a distance away on the road, but for our convenience it can be reached by walking through the woods between the two, while not being seen from where we are. While we are not setting up at the other house, it still takes quite awhile to set up.
Saturday and Sunday was the event - so the entire day - both days - was taken up with the event. Saturday night we got home and I threw the cups we used during the day (period looking cups are used and we each have/bring our own - ditto dishes, and tablewear, but we had not brought anything other than cups with us Saturday as we were not staying for dinner at night) into the sink and went upstairs to change in modern clothes. When I got back downstairs the kitchen sink and the counter on either side of it was covered in ants! I managed to get rid of the ones I saw and washed the cups - as husband’s cup was also covered. After we had dinner we found more ants. I had just put the kitchen back together from a prior attack of ants! So, again, I checked and washed off each item around the sink - such as the dishrack - and stored them on the one small section of counter that is on the other side of the kitchen. Husband went looking online for what is food safe to get rid of ants. He found out that one can spray a 3/1 vinegar/water mixtures, let it dry for 30 minutes, blot puddles, and let the rest air dry. Seems to be working so far. I have moved items back to the counter top, but still am not using the space. When I wash dishes I wash and rinse an item, dry it and put it away immediately and then on to the next piece. It is exhausting. Oh, and I am using paper towels for washing instead of a sponge or steel wool pad, as I can toss them out after each session of washing. Sunday not only did we have the event - everything had to be packed afterwards.
I was looking forward to tomorrow, Thursday, when I had nothing to do and could breathe - ha ha!
Monday afternoon, husband decided that we had to get gas for our car, as we had not done so on Sunday as we normally would, and also had to check the oil in the car. So we drove out to where we go for both, which took most of the afternoon. When we got home we went through the stuff we brought back from the reenactment and I had put in closed plastic bags and checked it for ants - only found one.
Tuesday we ran some home errands - shopping and such and also bought some deli turkey for me to make light sandwiches to bring today to my embroidery chapter for our annual luncheon meeting. Everyone makes some sort of salad, I can’t eat salad unless I know that I am going home right after, so I bring the sandwiches so I have something to eat. We discuss what we want to do next year (September to June) at our meetings and any regular business. I had planned to run a lot errands as I won’t have a day out alone again until September. I realized on my way back from the meeting today, Wednesday, I had forgotten to bring the soda bottles to put in for recycling - 5 months worth! Oh, well. I did our banking and the banking for the embroidery chapter.
Oh, I also had forgotten that I did have to send a list of members to our region and had planned to do it Thursday (tomorrow) when I would have a chance to breathe - but.... my sister contacted me and needs me to go to my mom on Thursday as she cannot go then. She has been visiting mom just about every day even when the rest of us are going also, so I could not say no. I managed to get the list out by email yesterday.
Monday night after husband fell asleep I heard a chirping - I presumed it was the downstairs smoke detector (upstairs is a 10 year detector) and figured they usually chirp for a couple of days so we would take care of it Tuesday. I heard it again Tuesday morning, but then it stopped. Husband went crazy trying to figure out which device was beeping as they all tested fine. He decided it was a telephone in the office and we bought a new one - but that one still works fine. (New one will be returned.) This morning I heard the chirping again and Robert heard it also. While I was out today he figured out that it was the smoke detector downstairs and replaced the battery.
Oh, and Friday he is planning a trip to Pennsylvania - if it finally does not rain on a Friday this week. (Well, last Friday it did not rain, but we did have the event to set up.)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Again, one must take life a day at a time. I know that at some point this craziness will stop and I will be able to catch up - okay, in the back of my head I realize life may remain this crazy for ever, but I sure hope not!
My thoughts and prayers go out to those who continue to get this horrible weather and are in much worse a situation that we are.
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