VACUUM FOLLOWUP AND KEEPING TRACK OF WHAT HAS TO BE DONE

 Saturday night last week husband had an idea.  He took one of our older vacuum cleaners, opened the bottom of it and took out the roller.  He then plugged it in and tried to vacuum with it – it works fine without the roller – no roller, no hair problem.  We did find out, which I am sure we knew and forgot over the years since it was used, that the on/off switch is broken on the old vacuum – it is on if it is plugged in – better than being turned off when plugged in.  

We returned the other vacuum we bought.

Husband figured out how to attach hose and floor shaped piece to a small wet dry vacuum we have.  Between the two – we can vacuum as much as we need to.  We only have 3 rooms (office, studio, and teddy bears' room – aka spare bedroom)which have carpet so the floors mostly do not need the roller brush that is the problem with the hair.

And if he will use the vacuum cleaners – yippee for me.  I mostly do the cleaning in the house (and in the RV).

Speaking of our little RV – we went out today with a print out of the list of what we need to have in it for a trip.  While we pushed our July 4th trip back to last week and then pushed it off until July 4th, 2022, we still want to get it ready for a trip, even if only a day trip.  (Moved it back to next July as easier than calling each time we decide we are not ready to travel plus we know we have a reservation for then as they normally fill months in advance.  We can make reservations for trips between now and then as we go along and decide we are going.)

In normal times we keep a lot of common items in the RV – hand soap, shampoo, dish soap, suntan lotion, toilet paper, paper towels…  In March 2020 when husband was in a panic over the coming pandemic and lack of available items in stores, we took many of these items into the house in case we needed them.  Oddly, when he looked through quickly a few weeks ago the holder piece for the toilet paper holder was missing and we bought a new one as we knew we had NOT taken that into the house.  

I have the list and check it before each trip we take just to be sure.  Much of it is items we pack for specific trips – clothing, jackets, shoes (though we keep slippers in the RV), snacks, chargers for everything we bring, plastic bags of all types and sizes, and so on.  In this case we were just checking what items normally stored in the RV we need to replace.  I made notations on the paper as we ran down it.  We found out we need to buy new toilet liquid (goes into the tank to help dissolve the tp and get rid of odors and help make what goes into it into “liquid”).  I put it on the shopping list.  

So now we know (though I am sure we will miss something) what has to go back in in addition to what we put in for each trip.  

In addition to the check list mentioned above, I also have a small checklist of what we need to make sure that when we leave our RV space each day we have done what we need to do – disconnected and put away the electricity connection and the cable wire which we use to connect the RV to the connections in the site.  I also list the water/toilet connections although we generally don't use the water connections at all (we fill the clean water tanks before leaving home) we do need to “dump” the sink and toilet water tanks before we leave our last morning at the campsite (on longer trips also during the trip once or twice).  I have reminders to check that curtains are open around the RV (closed at night for privacy), decorations we put out have been taken and stored, things inside the RV are shut off and put away in place so they don't move about while driving – don't want a plastic box coming at one's head if one has to stop short for example.  Jackets and sweatshirts back in place on the third seat and seat belt around them to keep them there.  Cabinets have to closed and the closures snapped closed to hold them close while driving and so on.  I have all these items listed on this smaller checklist and I check off each item or note that it was needed to be needed that morning with an “X”.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
If you do something repeatedly – make yourself a check list of what you need to do it.  I use a computer spreadsheet – easy to change if needed and easy to print out when needed.  

BUYING A NEW VACUUM CLEANER

 We have several vacuum cleaners.  

There is an upright one upstairs  - actually standing up in the corner of the bedroom as there is no place to keep it.

There is a small wet/dry vacuum in the office upstairs.  (Why there?  Well a vacuum in the office is convenient as lots of shredded paper ends up on the carpet and it is easy to use for same (on the dry setting of course).  

There is another upright vacuum in the front hall closet on the main floor.  It is held standing up against the wall with velcro attached to the wall.  There is also a hand held vacuum hanging just inside the door to basement from our kitchen.  

The basement has a normal sized wet dry vacuum.

The garage/wood workshop has a BIG wet dry vacuum as it goes into clear pipes around the inside of the garage walls and the various standing power tools connect into it so that when the tool is in use one opens a small door where a short pipe from the tool meets the big one around the wall of the basement – this allows most of the saw dust to be sucked into the pipes and then into the vacuum.  

I have never liked vacuum cleaners since I was little – they make too much noise for me.  I use sweeping tools instead.  I have been very bad however, for a number of years and even more so the past year past during the pandemic, at actually using anything to clean the floors or to dust.  Does using the toe of a fuzzy slipper count as cleaning?

Husband had been getting more upset about how the house looks – he claimed that one could get lost in the dust on the floor.  He decided the problem was needed a better vacuum (at least he did not decide that what “we” needed was a better wife).  He has been reading and studying about the newer vacuums and what to buy.  

So last Friday we drove out to the Walmart over the county line as they had the stick vacuum he has seen on TV and he decided was what we needed.  The Walmart near us carries this vacuum also, but all the cartons looked open (should have been a clue).  

We took it home and he immediately set it up.  First problem – the commercials say it stands alone – it only does so if one removes the motor section and hangs it from a hook lower down on the stick – not a great thing to have to take it apart and put it back every time it is used.  He cleaned our kitchen and part of our studio with it.  Kitchen has vinyl floor, studio has carpet.  He tried to clean the air conditioner in the studio with it – using it without the floor cleaning piece – not as successful.  Despite their advertising it does NOT clean up to the wall and there was about ¾ to 1 inch of a line of dirt around the walls which it did not/could not pick up.  We had to dump out the dirt cup twice while using it (okay, there was at least 6 months of dirt on the floor).  Hair is not suppose to get caught around the roller – it does get caught. We had to cut the hair off the roller of the vacuum with a pair of scissors before repacking it.  Then again also, we both have long hair.  

He then took it upstairs to the bedroom and cleaned the wood floor up there with it.  Similar problems and even more hair caught under it and again the dirt cup had to be dumped twice.  We decided it was not for us.  We packed it and did so.  

He then started looking again.  The same company makes other similar vacuums – he decided we needed the next size up.  It actually stands on its own when assembled (no need to take the motor off), holds more in the dirt cup and so on.  He read the instructions online this time to avoid any surprises.

We bought the larger one.  Today we set it up and tried it.  Similar problems to the first problem and much heavier.  So we repacked it to return it.  

We never did get to the living room, or dining room floors – both wood, or the spare bedroom upstairs- carpet and only one of our studio was vacuumed as the other side is covered in “stuff” mostly as a result of canned goods and such being on my work table there  -  so other items were moved to the floor.

While he is the one looking for a new vacuum I realize it all my fault.  If I had kept up with the sweeping (I use a modern version of a broom that comes with replaceable pads which I will not name, although it works very well as opposed to these vacuums) he would not have decided that we need to get a new vacuum and we would not have gone through all of this.  I do use one of the hand held vacuums to pick up the debris left after sweeping.

Now, to be fair, I have had my eyes on a device which holds a bottle of cleaning liquid and vacuums it up  after shooting it onto the floor to clean it, which is used to wash floors. Problem has been that we don't like scents – especially floral scents – which its cleaning liquids have.  They now have a lemon scent which we can both probably deal with and we will buy same.  It is mostly for my kitchen floor which gets dirty of course, more than getting dusty.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – Always take advertisements “with a grain of salt”.  I know this. Husband knows this and will make fun of people who fall for advertisements.  I knew these vacuums would not be as advertised, but hoped that they would be better than they were – he actually thought that they would be as advertised for some strange reason.  

What do you use to clean your floors?   Well at least the floors are mostly clean right now.

NICE WHEN A WEEK ACTUALLY GOES RIGHT

A better week.  

Day after I wrote last week's post I was surprised to receive the renewal for our van – since it was suppose to take until sometime next week to reach us.  Weather has been terribly hot and we are not going anywhere, so we have not changed the window sticker yet.  (Van parked on our driveway so not a problem that the old sticker is still in the window.)

And – after being told that I could not renew that prescription both by our pharmacy and our medical insurance – we received a call Monday asking why we had not picked up the prescription yet and we only had 2 more days to pick it up before it went back into stock!  We went in to pick it up – I was sure that they were going to charge the full price for it – after all, it was the only insurance saying it would not pay for it yet that stopped it from being filled – and if that was that was the case – I would say to put back into stock for now.  Surprise!  It was charged at the usual co-payment.  Not exactly sure how this happened, but it did.  

When we went food shopping last week we stopped at a Wendys near the supermarket for lunch.  This particular Wendys has never been the best, but it is greatly lacking right now – not sure if change of management or if we just never had lunch there before – we used to go for dinner on some Saturday nights.  

How nice it was to go in the supermarket, make only one trip into it, and do our entire food shopping and not even have a problem fitting all the bags in the cart after we shopped.  We have not shopped for a normal sized shopping order in over 15 months.

And then, also on Thursday, we did something else we have not done in over 15 months – we went out for dinner!   Back in the normal times we would go to an Asian buffet for dinner on Friday nights.  We went on Thursday night as we figured it would be a lot emptier than it would be on Friday night.  Very pleased that they handed us large gloves to use when going to the food bar and masks were required for same.  A number of unused serving trays on the food bars  – but not sure if this is due to it being now or if this was always the case on Thursday nights, though we presume the former.  

Everything we do these days continues to involve being organized.  We have to remember to bring our masks (no longer required by state or local government, but often required by the various businesses we are going to  - plus we feel safer with them on.  I carry at least two plastic sandwich bags in my pocket when we go anywhere – we can open doors (at stores without automatic doors) etc with them on our hands instead of touching the doors with our bare hands.  The Corona virus counts here may be very low and we may be fully vaccinated, but I know of too many people who will not the vaccine and feel safer not touching doors that everyone else is touching.  

When food shopping to prevent needing to continuously up and down the same aisles or need to go back to the store in a day or two as we forgot something – we make sure to shop with a list.  I have a strip of paper on the refrigerator for us to list items we are going to run out of – try to do this in time not to run out.  Unless we are going for less  than 10 or so items I write them into a computer spreadsheet.  On one of our early trips into the supermarket during the pandemic I listed by type items that we might use by aisle number – though it is my numbering system – the first aisle we go to in the store I have as aisle one, the next one as aisle two and so on through the food items.  After food is listed non-food items -  cleaning, vitamins and such.  Next on my list is refrigerated items – which involves walking back to the far end of the store, followed by meat items and lastly frozen items.  As we walk through the store we can pick easily find the items we need to buy.  I try to keep each section of the list to match the order in each aisle.  Putting them in this list also helps as my handwriting is terrible and I can always read what I printed out – while I cannot always figure out what I hand wrote on a list. While we are a bit more comfortable walking around in the store, we don't want to be in it longer than we need to be.  I am packing the cold items in different bags than the non-cold items as I am still wiping everything down with alcohol when we come home and want to make sure that I get to all the cold items quickly.  

When we go out food or other shopping we have to remember to bring bags with us these days.  Just as our area went into the pandemic last March, it became illegal for stores to provide plastic shopping bags and either a county or large city could impose a fee for paper bags or the stores in area which did not do so were allowed to charge up to 10 cents a bag for paper bags.  Our areas does not have the fee so it is up to stores if they are going to charge and whether they charge the entire 10 cents (plus a penny a bag in sales tax) or not.  Most, of course, are charging the full 10 cents.  One dollar store which is location of a chain store will automatically put one's items in a paper bag and charge for it – not ask if one wants a bag, even if one is buying one item.  They got me once with this.  The two times we have back I quickly say that we have our own bag.  What we have been going is carrying some of the old plastic shopping bags with us into stores other than when going into the supermarket for more than a couple of items when we bring double bagged paper bags with us.  If the plastic shopping bags are folded down correctly I can fit 4 of them (maybe even more) in each of my two back pockets leaving my hands free until we are done shopping and I am bagging the items we bought after we ring them up.    So, I have to organize our bags also.  When I first read a book about organizing the author said that one does not keep bags - “Have you ever walked into a store and they did not have bags available?”  I still went on keeping most of the bags we got which were normal sized or larger.  Husband made the same comment to me as the author had printed and I replied “you never know”  Up until this law went into effect I had been using those plastic shopping bags as free garbage bags for our bathroom and bedroom little garbage pails.  I now still use them – but dump them into (upstairs) the office pail and (downstairs) the kitchen pail and put the shopping bag into the little pails to use again unless they are messy.  My stash of bags that I would “never need as the stores always have them” will last us for years at the minimum, since they are being used over and over again.

What have you been doing differently to deal with all of these sorts of things this past year plus?

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Who ever thought that going food shopping for just what one needs in the coming week would become something looked forward to.

ITS THE LITTLE THINGS.... CONTINUED

 Here's another example - 

I had renewed our reenacting unit's insurance - did the paperwork, paid for it and paid dues to a group that unit has to belong to get the insurance.  I was done for the year!

Or was I?  

A couple of weeks ago I realized I had not received the "Certificate of Insurance" which proves we have coverage and what the coverage is.  So, I sent an email to the insurance agent and he emailed back the certificates to me.  We get a certificate for our unit to prove we have the insurance from them and 3 more certificates as 3 different venues require us to have them added to our policy (in case something happens due to us) and we have to send them their certificates (I keep a copy of each).  I mailed out two of these certificates to places where we are actually doing events.  The third place I do not mail their certificate until just before the event or they lose it, so I did not mail that one.  Done with mailing the certificates out until the fall.  Check it off my list - take a breath.

The certificates had the wrong expiration date on them!  The policy expired two months before it started according to the certificates!!   New ones emailed to me with the correct dates on them and a big apology and I received them over the weekend.  I printed out the two which have to go out right away with a cover letter explaining why they were getting a second certificate and I put the envelopes in my outgoing mail basket to go out next Sunday night when we again go out and post outgoing mail.

Well, there is an event this coming weekend and the venue contacted our president - did we get a new certificate for this year?  He contacted my husband.  I explained to husband that it had been mailed to them, but was wrong and corrected one being mailed out with the mail to go out Sunday.  He scanned it into the computer and emailed it to them and we went out late tonight and posted our outgoing mail to date so they would have it sooner (hopefully before the event) - extra trip out and time spent.

 AND - we mailed in the renewal of our van's registration over a month ago and have not received the registration yet - we realized this last weekend. I checked with our bank's computer and the check had not cleared the bank. So Monday I telephoned the DMV, the hold was not as long as I thought it would be.  Now what is strange is a month before we mailed this registration renewal in, we mailed in the renewal of the registration of our RV - which is basically also a van -that came in 2 weeks.  The automated message said that they could not help with registrations mailed in less than 4 weeks ago. Since it was more than 4 weeks I waited put through the computer system to find out what was going on.  Nice woman came on and told me that it had been "processed".  If it was process why hadn't the check cleared our bank?  She did not know.  It was processed on June 21, I should call back if I do not have it 14 days.  I pointed out to her that the registration would expire before then - what should I do if it is not here before the expiration date - can we drive the van - NO!!  So we are waiting to hopefully receive the registration - at least the check is finally clearing the bank as of today.  If we don't get the registration before it expires, hopefully our car will not have problems and we won't need to drive the van.

I then had to call our medical insurance as one of my prescriptions was turned down - as past  6 months, need to go to back to the doctor for new prescription?  Huh, never had this problem before for self or husband - and why did all of other prescriptions go through.  Found out doctor had written the prescription for too long a time and I have to call him to fix it - why did they give the first renewal?  Our state passed a terrible law some years ago.  In an effort to stop the theft of prescription pads, all prescriptions must go directly through a computer system.  In the old days we would get the prescription, make sure they were correct and take whichever ones we needed filled right away to the pharmacy.  Now we have no idea if they are correct and if we don't need a medication renewed as we have, still get it anyway - if it is one of the expensive ones, we tell them to put it back and we call when needed - more work for pharmacy staff and time wasted picking up prescriptions. 

We need to go food shopping and plan to do so tomorrow. So in addition to writing to all of you nice readers and doing our laundry I took inventory of what food we have and what we need.  How nice to do something normal - we may even go out lunch at Wendys first - our third time doing so since mid March 2020. 

 THOUGHT OF THE WEEK - Is it the pandemic which is making everything weird and resulting in all of these stupid small problems one after another after another after...?

Are any of you finding you are having this same problem of one stupidity after another?

 

    

ITS THE LITTLE THINGS GOING WRONG WHICH TAKE UP OUR TIME

 Sorry for posting so many days late.  

As I have mentioned in other recent posts, for some reason husband and I are going through a period of one small problem after another.  None are life changing, but it is a constant thing.  As soon as everything is dealt with and I think I can ease up - something else goes wrong.  

This past week I managed to mostly put to rest the problems of dealing with the renewals for both organizations of which I am treasurer and I started to breath normally again.

We went for our second meal out of the house (lunch at a different Wendys).  The plan was to go to two major stores near the Wendys and buy some plumbing items for our RV and some paper goods and two food items for which we had coupons from the other store. 

We went to the store for the plumbing items - they did not have them.  We had lunch.  We went to the other store and were able to buy all the items  - except for some reason they do not carry the paper towels which their main office had on sale.  A quick stop home to put the food in the fridge and we were off to another are where both chains had stores.  We were able to get one of the two plumbing items husband needed at one and the paper towels at the other.  We then drove past our house to a different chain's store to buy the needed plumbing piece.  An entire day gone - again.

Yesterday (Saturday) husband suggested we change the registration sticker for our RV as it comes due in early July.  I don't have it.  I checked my records of what has come in the mail.  (Life has been so confusing that all non-junk mail is listed in a computer spreadsheet with date received and date opened (as husband has me wait 3 days with the mail in a sealed plastic bag before opening.) We have not received the registration.  

I keep track (for years) of when outgoing mail is posted in my organizer files.  I did mail out the registration and payment.  Our van renewed a month ago - it took 20 days from when I mailed the renewal until we received the registration (based on my records mentioned). It is now almost a full month since I mailed the registration for the RV.  I called our bank and checked on its computer - the check has not yet been cashed.  UH OH!

Now in normal times this would involve a trip to the DMV, enough of a problem.  But our DMV offices are only open with an appointment and there are very limited things that one can make an appointment for - where is my registration (or even, I need to renew my vehicle) is not one of them.  

I could check the status of the renewal online - but I would have to open an account for my husband and we don't want to put all the information they ask for online.  Sooo, I will be spending tomorrow - Monday - on the phone trying to find out what to do.  There goes tomorrow!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is amazing how little things can mess up our lives.  Breath deep and keep working away at them. 

MY CHOICE IS EITHER/OR - BUT THERE WAS A THIRD CHOICE

 I suddenly realized that it was Wednesday night and I had no thought on what to write about.  Then the mess presented itself.  

First, I should explain that I am a rather picky eater so many nights I cook a completely separate dinner for myself from that which I cook for husband.  I mostly have set dinners to cook for me when I don't like a particular food he wants for dinner – for example, on Monday nights he has hot dogs and beans for dinner.  I can no longer eat hot dogs (due to getting sick after doing so once) and I don't like/eat beans.  So on Monday nights I make myself a chicken patty and rice left over from Chinese takeout – sometimes with a gravy, tomato sauce or left over chow mein vegetables.   Not a big deal.

But tonight it got sooooo much worse.  First there was dinner.  Husband was having smoked sausage with left over mu shoo chicken (see even our choices in Chinese takeout are very different) and some rice.  I had a boneless chicken breast with leftover pasta and added peas.  So to start with, after I cooked the kitchen was full of used pots in addition to our dishes, etc.  Not a problem, normally we watch TV (in the kitchen) and when he goes upstairs after the weather report at 11:20 pm I do the dishes.  Not a big deal.

We had discussed today having a chicken stew that we like for dinner tomorrow.  The plan was to cook the chicken tonight (2.5 hours) and then tomorrow afternoon I would take it off the bone and use the meat and broth to cook the stew.  Husband knew this was the plan and that I would be cooking the chicken after we ate dinner, and while we were watching TV.

Husband still had in the freezer a package of ½ pound of ham, left from the ham we cooked for New Year's Day dinner and had taken it out and put it in the fridge to make ham salad.  It never dawned on me that he planned to do this tonight after dinner – but that was his plan.  So the chicken had to wait.  

The sink was mostly full with the dishes from tonight and we had used both of our 2 quart pots, both of of our 1.5 quart pots and both of our 1 qt pots.  A lot to wash, but it did not bother me.   

I was about to go and take out the chicken to simmer for tomorrow's stew when husband told me that he was going to make his ham salad.  I looked around the kitchen at the lack of space (we have a rather small kitchen) and knew that if he had this idea in his head, we were going to make his ham salad “now”.  

I had to find the small food processor we have – and had forgotten completely about as we never used it until he decided to make ham salad Spring 2020 after we made a ham for Easter.  I found it.  The had to find the other items he needed to make it.  Remember, I said at the start of this post that I am picky eater, well there are foods that I don't even look at, let alone touch and one of them is any kind of meat salad or anything else with mayonnaise – or even mayonnaise on its own – and you know who is going to be cleaning all of this up.  He made his ham salad and while he was finishing up and putting it in a plastic container, I started the chicken cooking.

So now our kitchen sink had the assorted cooking and eating items from dinner, the equipment he used to make his ham salad and was overfull already.  

I left the chicken simmering while we finished watched TV.  I then had to start washing what was in the sink – which had to come out of the sink to do so.  Washing up done – even the terribly icky (to me) equipment used to make his ham salad and from heating his mu shoo.  

Then the garbage question.  If we leave the remnants  of the ham and other items from dinner in the kitchen they will get smelly in the garbage.  Tonight is one of the one the nights we can put out garbage for the morning – so it goes out tonight or sits either in the house or our large garbage can outside.  Which one?  The amount of garbage in the bag/pail is maybe 20% of the capacity at most  - probably less.  Which would you do – waste the rest of the bag or have smelly garbage – and I should mention that the style of bag I like (with twist ties) is getting harder and harder to find – in addition to being a general waste of the plastic bag to put it out so empty?

Aha!  I can almost always find another choice to a problem.  I took the matching sized bag of paper garbage from our office downstairs and dumped it into the kitchen bag, which filled the kitchen bag which could to out for pickup without wasting the bag.  I have another bag of the same size in our paper shredder which is just about full – so tomorrow after I pull apart the chicken for the stew, I can throw the bones and other icky parts into the replacement kitchen garbage bag and then dump into that bag the shredder's bag which should just about fill it – and then put that full bag in our outside can to take out of same and leave at the curb on Sunday night for Monday pickup.  I will have filled and used a new bag in the kitchen, and will need yet another one for the kitchen, but I will be able to continue to use the 2 bags in the office until they are full again.  Problem solved.  

The chicken finished cooking since I started writing this post and I have put it in a plastic container to deal with tomorrow and its liquid in a separate plastic container.  I have not yet dealt with the pot and utensils from cooking the chicken – they are soaking and will be washed when I do the wash up from our late night snack, so I have to chance to breath – until I need to go downstairs and change loads of laundry which are washing in the basement.  (Wednesday night is first laundry night, followed by finishing of same on Thursday night.)

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When confronted with two choices and neither one of them works – look for a third and maybe even a fourth choice. Don't presume that the situation is “either or”.  Often there is another or several other choices that one has not thought of before.  In this case I managed to find a solution so I don't have smelly garbage in my kitchen while also not wasting a plastic bag by putting it out without it being filled. 

WHAT IS NORMALLY DONE OVER 5 MONTHS ALL HAS TO BE DONE AT ONCE INSTEAD THIS YEAR!

 I have been using up my time finishing up the renewals for two organizations I am in.  Normally our reenactment unit renewals are due at the beginning of the year – our national organization needs (wants?) their renewals to them by March 31st and my embroidery chapter renewals are due to our national organization and our local region by May 31st.  Throw in tax season which normally ends on April 15th and there is a lot – but the various parts of what I need to do is spread over 5 months.

This year the national of our reenactment unit decided it was a good time to update their membership system, so their renewals are due – of course – May 31st.  And as any of you in the USA know – tax season was extended to May 17th.  People being how people are – just about everyone puts off renewing and/or filing taxes until the last minute – so late April and May has been overwhelming.  

The taxes were finished and out on time to the clients – except one client asked for an extension – he always does.  But the dues collection and submission have been running behind.  As of today I have heard from 3 of the last 4 people I needed to speak with (combined from both organizations).   So tomorrow I will be able to do the paperwork for one group and hopefully will hear from the last person, so I can do the paperwork for the other group.  

I am treasurer of both groups, and membership chair of our reenactment unit.  I took on the membership chair position as it is easier for me to collect the dues and paperwork than have someone else do so and get it all to me – as the unit is relative quiet with no meetings or events when normally the renewals are taking place.  My embroidery chapter has a membership chair and normally she would be going after members for renewals and collecting the dues – but this year (and last year) due to the pandemic and no face to face meetings it has been easier for me to collect the dues and have them mailed to me – or she would first have to do that after all was mailed to her.  

When I get all the paperwork for both groups and mail it out – slightly late for both – I will be very happy that it is all finished and take a deep breathe.  The client with the tax extension will contact me about actually doing his taxes in late August to early September – as he does every year.  

Of course life does not stop for all of this – I am still doing the housework, checking and paying bills, cooking, laundry, and so on.  And, as I mentioned  last week – we have been getting our RV ready to go out after sitting for almost 2 years (problems with it stopped us mostly from traveling in 2019 also).  

This Friday we are taking the RV to an authorized shop for its generator.  In addition to needing its normal oil change – they have to figure out why it does not start.  They charge US$160 an hour.  We are hoping it is something simple – such as the fuse is out of place or the fuse needs to be replaced – when we go there the bill always seems to be huge.  (Normally we take our RV to our dealer in another state for the oil change as it is much cheaper and they don't add on other things we didn't need and don't put in too much oil so that it does work right.)

But after posting so late last week – I was bound and determined to post on time this week!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
What needs to get done, somehow gets done.   One must figure out how to do so.  Figure out which needs to be done first and do it, even when everything needs to be first!  Then do everything else.