COVID 19 #19 UTILITIES STILL OUT FROM ISAIAS, CLEARING OUT KITCHEN PANTRY AND I FOUND MY MISSING BEARS

 First a couple of updates on my last two posts -

In the July 30 post (2 weeks ago) I had mentioned that I was going crazy having lost an assortment of bear figures that I use in my “Teddy Village”.  (Don't think it that crazy that I have this village – it is the only place I can “visit” without a mask right now, and it is cute and fun to do.)  I have put off climbing under the bed in the spare bedroom (aka the Teddies room) both because of the logistics and because I feared not finding the bears there – and since my only thought was that they been tossed out –  I could not take them not being there.  I tend to put things in places that are logical when I put them there, but later do not come to mind when I am looking for them.  Last night on our way to bed I was looking around again as to where the bears might be – and my eye fell on a large, thick white cardboard box (I am guessing that is the inner box that some computer peripheral came in) which I call “the hill”.  It is used for skiing and sledding bears and in the past I would store those bears in it for the rest of the year.  My brain started whirring.  I touched the box – definitely something in it – but hadn't I seen the big skiing bear in the Christmas boxes when I looked there?  I removed the teddy bears riding in a train setup on top of it (not winter – no skiing or sledding) and carefully turned it over, took it to my desk, and opened it.  YES!!  The missing bears.  See – I put them where it made sense – right in the village itself in a safe storage box that I have looked at every day since they were stored!  Today the bears in the box that made sense (and there was room for) and the musician bears for the summer concerts in the part were added to the village and the rest carefully stored in a marked box with the other storage boxes of bears for next time I need to use them.  Oh – and my husband was right about two things (not unusual for him) – I did not throw them out and I would find them.  

In the August 5 post (last week) I was talking about Hurricane Isaias – technically only a tropical storm when it hit this area.  I explained how lucky we had been to get back our electricity that evening.  Around here there are still people (8 days after the store) who still do not have electricity.  Supposedly they are all suppose to have their electricity back by “11:59 pm” tonight, Wednesday.  I am guessing that the tens of thousands still will not have their electricity back.    In addition to electricity people have been without and some still are, without their natural gas.  (Here is in run through underground pipes to areas were it is available and may be used by those using it for heating and/or hot water.  We did not lose same and only use it for hot water.)  Our local cable/Internet provider which also provides a good percent of landline telephone service, as well as our traditional telephone company which also provides all 3 services also do not have all of their customers back online yet.  The stories one hears about people who have special needs and are suppose to have service to be restored quickly – people with medical conditions and are still waiting are especially upsetting.  Also people have live lines down in their yards that as of yesterday (today's news will be out tomorrow of course) which is terribly dangerous.  One man found an electric company employee working on someone else's outage and asked the employee to shut off the live line down in his backyard (dangerous both for someone or an animal touching it and dying or it starting a fire) was told it was a question of flipping a switch, but the employee was not allowed without a work order to do so!  And this company was brought in (and seemed good as they are in a neighboring state) because the last company did such a terrible job during Hurricane Irene and Sandy!   I hope that any of you who were caught in Isaias also, did not lose your utilities for too long a time and did not have the circus we have had here.  

Now, as to actually dealing with clutter and disorder – I think I mentioned that back in March when we went through our pantry closet (actually 3 shelves in our kitchen closet) we found, among other items, a half gallon jar which had been filled with, per the lid) Bisquick.  This is a good item to have as so many items can be baked with it.  Problem was it was dated 2017!  We did not toss it out as back then food was hard to find in supermarkets – but we did not use it either.  In the interim we purchased new (smaller) packages of Bisquick.  My husband suggested yesterday that I should dump it out and put new Bisquick in it and then we can easily use same.  I pulled the jar out tonight and dumped it out, wiped it out and washed it.  While doing so I looked at what else was on that shelf – in the back.  I found out that I had 2 started containers of dried basil – I combined them and they are in the container which was in my spice cabinet.  I found we have more sugar than we thought.  Worcestershire sauce – almost a full bottle (well it is not something we use normally).  Part of a bottle of vinegar.  Interesting items to have and have available for use that we did not realize we had (or had so much of).  I might even get some of the items on the dining room table into the closet where they belong.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is important to remember that we are more resilient than we think we are.  Even those of who think we are weak can deal with and do amazing things when we have to.  Whether as trivial as missing inanimate “friends” or something as major as no utilities, somehow one can get through it.  When one thing after another hits us  - Covid 19, hurricanes, loss of utilities – we can get through it.  We take a deep breath and think about what to do to continue on and deal with the problem.  

I hope none of you were hit hard by Isaias. 

CLEARING OUT THE SPICE CABINET AND MOM'S HOUSE IS NOW CLEARED OUT

Well, mom's house is cleared out according to my sister.  The furniture people did not take much of the furniture as the pieces were “too large”.  Okay, I understand the living room sofa was custom made for the room and is a bit large – it is two or three pieces and goes along two walls, and turns in the corner.  (Let's see, my parents gave me y 6th grade graduation gift -a small portable typewriter – while we were getting the sofa so it is over 50 years old.)  I am not sure, but I would have removed the boards from the dining room table and set them either on it or next to it as with the boards it holds at least a dozen people comfortably and may have looked intimidatingly large with them in – and the boards were in to display stuff for the tag sales.   My dresser was a long one, but the other dresser that was my sister's and her desk were small.  The first fellow took the 3 night stands in the house and the chairs to the kitchen table, but the kitchen table was left and seats 4-5 people so it was not huge.  The dresser in the other small bedroom was smaller than mine, but larger than the small one that my other sister had and my mom's desk in her bedroom was a regular student desk so not large.  Gee, I wonder if they realized (my sister might not have known) that the long server in the dining in front of the window is 3 pieces – two cabinets and the center is a matching section that is empty with fabric on the doors – the radiator was there and this way the heat came through the fabric or the doors could be opened to let more heat into the room – someone might have liked either or both of the actual cabinets- 2 drawers and 2 shelves below – then again they would need to either take half of the large counter top or get new tops for them.  My dad had a lovely old, large desk – also rejected as too large – okay, if it hadn't been I would have taken it, but all I have room for is my old child's desk from when I was in second grade.  (Yes, I am that short – able to use my desk from second grade – still hit my knee on the same spot on the leg of the desk.) 

It bothers me that it does not bother me to have the house emptied and sold.  Will the actual sale make me breakdown wailing?  Has anyone else been through this and not gotten at least a bit upset?

We took my mom to the doctor with the office from h*ll last Friday so he could tell us what we knew from reading the report that was faxed to us instead of to her other doctor.  So all is well with that.  The doctor is very nice – no problem with him, just his office which is not run by him, but by the hospital group he is associate with.  While talking with him I mentioned a little about the problems (4 pm appointment, take in at 5:30,saw doctor at 6 pm) we have had.  Mostly asked if there is way to speak to him by phone as the phone number on the card goes to an office in a different state for making appointments.  He gave us a different number  - but only for questions, not emergencies as only answered during their open hours.  I also managed to, politely, mention that when we came in for the scan the office was closed, lights out, and no one in the building knew about the scan tech being there – he was surprised and said that someone should have been at the reception desk for his office and he would check on this. 

When first married we lived in an apartment.  Husband saw in one of my “ladies magazines”  a project to make a spice cabinet.  He took it and changed it and we made it.  It stands on the floor is about the depth of a cabinet across (used to sit next to the end of the cabinet in the apartment, now next to a small wall about the same depth next to our cabinet (behind the wall is the heat duct for the bathroom above the kitchen).  The original had shelves in the door with holes for test tubes to put spices in.  The one he made us has one shelf on each door with same – and knife blocks below them for our cooking knifes.  We actually put smaller of same in the holes instead of test tubes.  Against the back of the cabinet are thin shelves (cabinet is about 6 inches deep and the shelves are 3 inches deep.  The shelves hold spice bottles and such very well.  The cabinet is just short of 3 feet tall. 

I have the spices arranged so that the ones I use often are in a grabable spot.  But since husband has been cooking for the past 2-3 weeks as I was “covered in germs” - yes, he is that afraid of catching a cold – I had to look into the cabinet to tell him where spices he needed were located.  When I did so my eye fell on a bottle of something called Mrs. Dash.  I have no memory of buying it (well, I don't actually remember buying much of what is in the cabinet) or what the heck we used it for and made a mental note to clear out the cabinet as much as possible  and in my dreams of how much space I would have, dreamed of lining up cans of soup on the shelves where they could easily be seen.

Last weekend (we had reached the point where I was told that I would be “allowed” to start cooking again) and I decided to go through the cabinet.  Mrs. Dash, dill from when I made sour pickles, popcorn flavored saltt, spices that I don't remember using, and a variety of other items – OUT!  I checked a few spices to see what they were used for  - OUT!  Old Bay Seasoning (used on seafood, especially shrimp in the Baltimore, MD area and husband used to use it – not out, he thought maybe we might have shrimp and he would put it on same again or maybe even chicken  - I know it will be too spicy for him, I barely could eat it back then, but I kept it. 

Kept the basics – salt, pepper, lo salt salt.  Ground cinnamon (which I think I have used for some holiday dish I made) and sugar cinnamon (well, it tastes nice on pancakes or French toast) I kept – cinnamon sticks – out.  Nutmeg - used at Thanksgiving – kept.  Cream of tartar – useful for stuff – kept.  Minced onion, minced  garlic and basil -used for tomato “gravy' (sauce).  Bay leaves – used in a beef stew I used to make and plan to make again.  Allspice, ginger, thyme, tarragon, rosemary, marjoram, parsley, oregano – all kept, despite not knowing what we will use them for.  Kept a small jar of sesame seeds – not sure why, just seemed like something to keep.

Also we store in this cabinet wooden toothpicks – used mostly for crafts, but also for food related purposes. 

When I was done I had a half a kitchen garbage bag of bottles – but somehow I hardly picked up room in the cabinet – certainly not enough for the lines of soup cans I had thought I would I store there.  So, what to use the space for?  Well, we take at doctor's “suggestion” a number of OTC vitamins.  The small bottles of them (refilled from larger bottles kept in the kitchen pantry closet) sat on top of the cabinet – along with a candle lamp (looks nice and used in black outs), table salt and pepper shakers, napkin holder with paper napkins, a shop tape measure (meaning not a sewing one), 3 day of the week pill boxes (two his, one mine) and some “dropped there because it is convenient “ paper clips and other similar sized items.  It was actually rather crowded and some things would fall off the top when one walked past.  I put the OTC vitamins in the cabinet on the top shelf.  Now our day of the week boxes on top are no longer sitting between the napkin holder and front of the cabinet – subject to getting knocked off.

So in the end the work did not result in a lot of usable space, but it is better than before and the doors to it do close better than they have in awhile.  As I go along I will think about some of what I kept and if it can go also.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Doing a small task might be what it is needed to get one started  - or started again – on working on clearing out things no longer needed.  If you find something small and think “well, dealing with that won't do much” if you do it, it might get you started on doing more – since the spice cabinet, I cleared off most of the stuff piled on my dresser.   It was primarily reenacting stuff left after our December event- small items put away where they belong and the clothes I wore (that reek of smoke) are in the basement laundry sorter – to be washed and stored away.  We have 3 plastic boxes in which we keep things such as OTC meds, sickness thermometer and such.  These items are kept in these boxes as the boxes fit in the bag we take when we travel in our RV with all of this – and our prescription meds fit in one of the boxes also.  By keeping the OTC and such in these boxes we don't need one set for home and one set for travel.  In the summer the boxes end up on my dresser (the bag they go in goes under our bedroom TV) and in the cold weather, when we are less apt to travel I put them in the upper shelf of plastic storage piece next to my dresser (in hot weather the spare blanket goes in this space).  So now they are where they belong for the winter and the bag is where it belongs.  I found more socks that were on top of the dresser for darning and now they have joined their need to be darned friends. 

So try one small task that you need to do and see where it leads.  (Now sorting through and storing what I brought from the family house – that is another story – what does one do with the proofs of the yearbook of which one was editor?)