MOWING, SNOWING AND KNOWING WHEN TO HIRE HELP

 Well we finally did what we needed to do.  We hired a gardener.  

We used to have a gardener whose employees came weekly and mowed the grass – mostly in the backyard as the front of our house is mostly paved driveway – and cleaned up the leaves and such.  We actually had several of them over a time.  The last one disappeared – we were waiting for his people to come and clear the snow one winter a decade or so ago and he never came.  He did not answer his telephone.  We called our former gardener who had “sold us off” to this one and he checked.  Our gardener had moved back home to another country.  

Husband decided he (we) could deal with the mowing and seasonal cleanups and we started doing same.  We hired a company to clear the snow in winter as that can be a bit much for us – depending on the amount of snow we get.  This worked a couple of years and then the snow clearing company said it was only doing snow removal for commercial properties – as did and has every other snow removal company we have found.  

So we have gone along for some years dealing with it all ourselves – and husband is not what he used to be in terms of what he can do (which is why I have been helping/doing much of the work) and spends the fall and winter in terror of being snowed in and not being able to get out of our house if we need to.  

We managed to get through doing the mowing, cleaning up, and snow removal as well as we could.  But then the pandemic came along.  In 2020 we were staying in the house almost continually.  In late summer we had to go to our garage (which serves as husband's wood shop so it was needed before during the year).  The garage sits behind our house on one side and the regular door to it is on the side.  We needed something from the garage in late summer and when we went to go into the garage we saw our backyard – there was waist high grass and weeds!  We realized we could not handle it and decided to ignore it, let it all die over the winter and start anew in 2021.  

But 2021 was not much a better year and we again forgot about the backyard.  I knew that we would not be able to deal with what had grown in the yard – “weed trees” - plus poison ivy was probably running loose also.  So we discussed it and decided that in 2022 we would hire the same gardener as our next door neighbor used.   I even made notes in my cell phone and computer calendars to remind me to start the process in March 2022.

Of course I missed March and did not get in touch with the gardener until May.  He is very nice.  How nice?  Turns out he has helped us before.  During the winter we had a large snow storm – the snow was light and fluffy and we easily cleared it away.  Unfortunately the county snow plow crew did not come through until the day after the storm and the sidewalks/driveways had been cleared and the light snow was thrown back onto them as HEAVY PACKED snow.  We set out again to try to clear the snow chopping off bits of the packed snow and shoveling it.  A pickup truck with a snow plow on the front stopped and told us to move away from the snow – he then drove up the driveway partway and broke apart the packed snow.  He would have done same with our other driveway cut but a snow plow came through again (so glad they came twice two days after the snow and not at all during the snow) and said something to him and he had to leave.  When the gardener came after I called him to talk about what we needed – turned out he was the good soul who had helped us?  

His crew has come twice (it started raining heavily the first day) and cleared out our backyard.  It is now rather bare.  He suggested he would bring new dirt and fill in so backyard was even and reseed – but, he warned us, we would have to make sure to water it regular until the grass was growing.  I agreed.  I then remembered  - the back water faucet is shut off as it had frozen and water was dripping.  So before he comes and does the reseeding work we have to get a plumber to come and fix the faucet!  

Husband had been very nervous and tends to oversee a bit too much – I try to keep him in the house and not out bothering anyone.  

Today we went out and bought a new window well cover and put it in place.  We are hoping that the basement flooding that we had during Hurricane Ida last year and after wards whenever we had heavy rain will no longer happen.  The water seemed to come in through/around this window and the cover was gone from it.  We did not have the same problem by the other window whose cover remained intact and in place.b

And we can actually walk in our backyard – even go to the shed back there.  Which reminded us – we need to fix one of the hinges on the shed door!   And he lists residential snow clearing on his website!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Sometimes one has to give in and admit that they cannot do something.  When it is something which even children can do (mow grass) it can be even harder to admit that one can no longer do it.  But one has to learn their limitations and give in and hire someone to do what they can no longer do.

REARRANGING THINGS FOR BETTER USAGE OF SPACE AND BETTER ACCESS TO THINGS

 My apologies for my absence. I thought I missed a week – but I have never missed 2 weeks before. - EVEN WORSE - I NEVER FINISHED POSTING THIS ON MAY 6.

I have been doing some rearranging in our kitchen. As I have mentioned before about the organizing rule of “putting like with like” leaves open the question of what are like items. For example in the field of clothing is it all socks together and all underwear together? My husband pointed out to me about a couple of decades ago that this did not make sense. If I wear some types of underwear daily and some types of socks daily - I am opening two drawers every day. If instead of socks together and underwear together (which I had done since I was in my early teens) which meant I had to open 2 drawers every day. If, on the other hand, I consider types of items I wear just about daily- whether socks or underwear in the same drawer - and put the same of these items which I wear once in a long while in the other drawer I only have to open one drawer almost all of the days. Hmmm, I had never thought of like with like as wear daily together and wear rarely together elsewhere. It does work well.

In the kitchen I had changed several years ago from all of a type of items being together to putting what I use daily or almost so together and rarer used items together. Our everyday dishes – a set for 8 – was on two shelves in one of our 4 kitchen upper cabinets on the bottom and middle shelves (of 3 shelves). But there are only two of us. Every time I needed to use something from the middle shelf I had to get a step to reach the item. I now keep 3 dinner plates, our 2 lunch plates, some unrelated dinner plates that I use when cooking, 4 of our soup bowls (as sometimes they are also used for small serving bowls) and 4 of our small plates (for dessert, side plates, etc), as well as two of the same type of the unrelated plates smaller for use as utility plates plus since I have wire shelf to split this shelf in two I also have 2 small serving bowls. On the bottom shelf of the matching cabinet on the other end of the kitchen I have two each of the glasses we use (I like tall thin ones, he likes short wide ones), 2 mugs for hot beverages, some small glasses used for utility, measuring cups (wet and dry), two ice cream cups and some other similar items. I now can reach what I need to set the table for us without having to climb on a step.

But what about our other two upper cabinets? Well one of them is located over our stove – so very rarely used items are in it as I have to climb, not on my step, but on a chair to reach anything. So the good china and rarely used serving pieces/baking dishes are in it.

The fourth cabinet is next to eh 3^rd, but hanging at the same height as the first two – meaning I can reach the bottom shelf. This is the one in which I recently did some rearranging. On the bottom shelf I have some platters, 2 hot plates to put hot dishes or pots on at the table, and 3 serving bowls of the same size and shape with different designs – about minimum in size of the bowls we own. On the shelf above are other items used fairly regularly – the difference being that I can reach and take out the gravy server with the small pitcher kept in it (pitcher intended as for milk or cream when serving coffee, tea, etc, but more often used by me as an alternative gravy server which is why they are stacked together) and more bowls. In this case from my large bowls used for mixing and cooking, a wooden bowl bought to use for reenacting but replaced by a better one for same, and a medium sized serving bowl.

This setup worked well for us in the past as we did a minimum of cooking for the two of us as we ate dinner out 3 nights a week and lunch out daily. But since the pandemic life and cooking has changed.

Last week I thought to myself that I use that medium bowl on the second shelf of the cabinet at least once a week now – and each time I use it I have to climb on the step to get it down and then do the same to put it away. But it is rare that I use even 2 of the 3 serving bowls on the bottom shelf (they are bigger than my small and medium bowls but smaller than my large bowls. Mostly when I use one of them for the two of us I have made biscuits or rolls and need something to put them on table. Hmmm.

So I took one of the three bowls on the bottom shelf and climbed up and took the medium bowl from the second shelf out and rearranged the bowls on the second shelf to include the one from the bottom shelf and put the medium one on the bottom shelf – no more climbing to get it down.

In addition I have been using some pots which are kept in the lower cabinet, under where the bowls are stored, that I do not normally use with any frequency. It has been hard getting the wok in and out as it is in the back left side of the cabinet. In the front right side of the cabinet I have a 8 quart pot (just went and checked as I did not know how large it is) which normally sits unused in the cabinet except for cooking soup from scratch for holidays but I have also been using to make ravioli for dinner every couple of weeks during the pandemic. Behind it sits several items – some for baking, some for cooking – including a large round flat griddle with slightly raised sizes. These pots have sat in this cabinet for decades with no problems. But for some reason now that I am using the 8 qt pot it does not go back into the cabinet easily as the griddle is suddenly in its way.

I had taken the griddle out during the week – since it is rarely used I was going to move it to the basement storage closet (well, technically area where the gas meter is located in the finished part of the basement with walls and door to hide it). But then I started thinking again. I took it and put it in the back under where the wok goes and moves some smaller items where the wok goes to the other side where the griddle had been. It worked. The 8qt pot fits back into place in the front right of the cabinet (with smaller pots stored in it as before) and has no problem coming out and going back in. The left side of the cabinet has the wok in the back on the griddle and since it raised up slightly off the floor of the cabinet and some items which were there have been moved to the rear right, it can be more easily taken out and put back. I did have move one large pot lid to the small half shelf at the back of the cabinet over all of this – but it all works so much better now.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

What area of your home just does not work even thought it meets the “like with like” rule? What other way can the items be sorted to still be “like with like” just using a different standard of “like”? How or when or how often things are used is just as valid of making them “like” items as the items actually being the same kind of item.

HAPPY HOLIDAY

 A Happy Passover

A Happy Easter

A Happy Ramadan 

If I have left any others out, please forgive me.  

Apparently this is the first time in 30 years that all 3 of the western religions are occurring at the same time.  That is organization. :-)

HUSBAND FOUND ME AN EXTRA WEEK FOR WORK - AND THEN HE USED IT UP

 On March 28 I started to panic – it was almost the end of March and I still did not have information from clients to do their taxes and was in the middle of one return which was taking longer than it should – plus I still had to do our taxes and those for our craft business.  In my mind I had ONLY TWO WEEKS to finish the returns and two of the clients live in other states – and with USPS running as slowly as it is I wanted to get the out of state returns out 2 weeks before they were due – so clients would receive them, have time to review them, and not have to do any of this in a panic – which I was already in.  

I had not looked at a calendar – just “it is the end of March already and taxes are in 2 weeks!”.  When my husband asked why I was in a such panic and I told him, he told me that there were 3 weeks, not 2.  Amazingly this was correct – taxes are not due until April 18 and that is a Monday so I had the week I was starting plus 2 more weeks.  After he kept saying that he found me an extra week.  

Sounds good right – an entire extra week!  How did I spend that extra week?  Husband's birthday is this week and he decided we (he) were getting a big (not a BIG, just a big) screen TV as who knows when or if we will ever be able to go to the movies again – not only due to Covid, but we don't like the new recliner seats and the local independent theater we had been going to which did not have same has no information about the future other than that is “temporarily closed”.  

So most of the week he “found” was spent going out and looking at tables to put the TV on in addition to looking at TVs.  Towards the end of last week we went to Ikea and bought the table he figured out would fit where we needed it (both in terms of length, width, and height – but also clearance under it so we could keep the DVD chest he made a number of years ago as the table would be going in the same space – with the chest sliding under it (where the chest has always been).  We then drove to the Costco in the next county (the one here is much too busy even in normal times for us to deal with) to order the TV to be delivered to us – as we could not carry it home nor could we carry it into the house.  They do not allowing ordering in stores – take home only, so we had to then call their ordering service and order the TV.    This process took 2 full days (such as short as our days are) last week.

Then another day was taken up with assembling the table from Ikea.  This is always a simple process – which isn't.  We have assembled a lot of Ikea furniture in the past 20 years and while most make sense to me – he is always confused and there is always “discussion” over whether I am handing him the correct pieces, screws etc to him.  Luckily once it was assembled it fit where it needed to go even better than we thought it would.  

Today the TV was delivered and physically setup by the delivery people (extra US$20 for same).  I will say that we are very happy with Costco's delivery.  We were told the tentative date when it was ordered.  Late yesterday afternoon we had a computer call giving us a 2 hour window for the delivery – since their delivery time for TVs starts at 7am and we normally do not go to bed until 4 am, we were concerned about having to be up and dressed at 7am to wait for them to show up, so we were very glad of being told which 2 hours they would be here (and thankfully it was late morning).  We then had another phone call today from the fellows delivering it to tell us they would be here in 20 minutes.  So, their letting one know when to expect was great and the fellows were very nice.  

So we had the TV sitting on the table and husband was ready to start setting up what he has for it.  This included running to Walmart to exchange a DVD player he had bought for the TV which was lacking its cord in the box – it was listed on the instruction sheet, only to find out after we exchanged it that it did not come with the cord – all of their players apparently have the same sheet and there was an asterisk he had not noticed saying only one of their players comes with the cord.  Luckily we had a cord in the house.  He then spent several hours setting up the information and such of the TV and of the DVD player – much of the time I was needed to help him.  

So now it is less than 2 weeks until the taxes have to be filed and I still have 3 returns to do, though at least the client is in the metropolitan NYC area and our returns can be mailed on the 18th!  BUT – a client who mailed the return to out of state mailed me a notice she received from her state government – a refund of her overpayment on her 2020 return …. which was suppose to be credited to her 2021 return and has been taken as payment on same.  So, now I have to redo part of her paperwork.  Luckily she is overpaid more on her 2021 return than the amount not credited to it, so it is her estimates for 2022 which have to be changed – and I emailed to her and said I will do so after the 18th as it does not affect what she is filing now.

I used to do so many returns with so many less problems than pop us these days!   

And yes, I have pointed out to husband that he used up almost all of the extra week he found for me, so the extra week he found helped him – not me.


THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

It is amazing how the little things take up/waste time.  

TRYING TO FIT THINGS INTO SMALL SPACES OR LITTLE TIME

 Have you ever had to fit more in a space than fits?  Yes, I know – that is what is organizer is about, not having to do this, but sometimes…

Back in the normal times before Covid husband and I would go to the movies just about every week.  There was (is?) an independent theater in a nearby community that we would go to. While it had become a multiscreen theater it had not changed over to the terrible lounge seats – still had old style movie theater seats (same type as in school auditoriums, Broadway theaters, etc) and having once sat in lounge seats at movie theater, we vowed never to do so again.  It is currently still “temporarily closed”.  We went to “late showings” - which at this theater means the movie starts 9:30 to 10:30 pm, as opposed to when we used to go to midnight movies in the old days.  While it has some theaters which are rather small, it does have just about full size theaters.   And it was reasonably priced (even for so for seniors) and had a very nice staff.

This is something we have missed – last time we went to a movie was in late February/early March 2020.  We have instead been having our movie night at home watching movies on TV – which is not the same, not only due to small screen, but missing in the atmosphere of a movie theater.  

Husband has recently got into his head to buy a large screen TV for our living room.  I was shocked.  Husband spent a good deal of time decorating our living room in – more or less – colonial style – which is why I was shocked that he would put a big screen TV in it.  (The TV which is in there – not digital – is in a period looking piece of furniture to hide it.  It does not have a cable hookup as we tend to only watch TV in the living room while putting up and taking down our Christmas tree  - when we watch specific Christmas DVDs and New Year's Eve – when, most years we watch “the ball drop” in NYC through Roku – though one year we watched Animal Crossing's New Year Party instead – I actually liked that better. )  

Between this and the price, the idea of a big screen TV in our living room to watch Saturday night movies shocked me.  This discussion has been going on for about a month or so.  He has decided that the theater we used to go to will never reopen and we are too uncomfortable in the lounger seats in other theaters.  (Though we have found one other theater with “real theater seats”, but it is not near us.)

He has been going back and forth with ideas on what to do – then deciding they are no good, then a new idea and then back again.  Just when I thought he had given up – it is becoming reality.  He has bought one for his birthday which is coming up in a while.  

In doing this we had to figure out a lot of things.  His first idea was to have the TV hung on the wall.  Only wall possible was where the TV set furniture is now.  BUT – that is too close to the heat, would have to be hung off center on the wall, and he found out that one has to help the installer hang the TV – if we could do that, we would not need the installer.  

His second idea was to stand it on something.  An obvious choice to me was a large wooden chest he built – it looks like a hope chest – top lifts, lock on front – but on this one, the key in front is the handle to pull down the front and drawers come out with DVDs in it – so the top is stationary and can have (and does have) things put on it.  That is too low for what he wants – he want to “look up at the TV like one looks up at the movie screen in a theater”.  He went looking for a stand to put the TV on – either one that stands on the floor or one that stands on a piece of furniture.  

He found a stand that he liked how it held the TV at a chain computer store's website.  Problem is that the dimensions are obviously wrong – how could something 4 inches tall hold a TV which is so much longer than that?  We drove to the local location of the store – none on display.  We asked a manager about the dimensions – he went to his computer and looked it up – on their website and read the numbers off to husband.  Husband, a bit impatient, pointed out that he had read the same on his computer and how could the stand be 4 inches tall?  Manager agreed that had to be wrong (both he and husband decided it had to be the shipping box dimensions) – but when husband if the boxes “in the back” could be checked for the dimensions – he was told no, “It is a brown box with no writing on it” - then how do they know which item is in the box.  We left.  

He started thinking again – the TV comes with feet, if we got the smaller size than he was looking at (65 inch instead of 70) and we could figure out what to put over the chest of DVDs to make it longer for the feet – it should work.  

We looked at an assortment of ideas of what we could put the TV on.  (In this entire process since it started we have, in our minds, rearranged the furniture in the living room end wall to end wall, side wall to side wall, end wall to side wall and so on.)  

He finally had an  idea and in his words “went back to works” - Ikea.  We bought today a table from Ikea.  It should fit over and around the chest of DVDs – box stays in place and is usable.  Table is extremely modern in design, of course – but if it makes him happy…

We then drove to Costco to buy the TV and have it delivered – believe me, he has done extensive research on where to buy the TV, warranties, service contracts, setup etc.  Problem is that one cannot buy it at the store and have it delivered – it can only be delivered if it is bought online – we hate to order things and have them delivered, but that is what we had to do – after wasting about an hour and a half driving there and home – even worse these days – the gasoline that was used for the drive there and back!  He has ordered the TV.  The table will sit in our van until early next week when we bring it in and assemble it.  

In addition to this mess we had a “discussion” with our cable company over a 20% increase in price (which they lowered for us), the cold water started dripping in our downstairs bathroom sink – after an hour and a half on hold – they could not help us as they no record of our faucet model and were the Canadian office of the company (reached through the US 800 number) and transferred me to their US office – I hung up as I did not have another hour to wait.  And it is tax season and getting closer to when I have to finish returns for clients – and us.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – Doing anything today has become hard to do – nothing seems to be easy to do any longer and not just do to Covid and limitations arising from it.  Who ever thought buying a TV would take weeks – maybe even months – of planning, needing to change the plan several times including buying the TV?

TAX TIME IS HERE

 Well here it is again – tax season!  I am sure I have must have mentioned this, but just in case I haven't – I am an accountant.  Not a big fancy one such as you see in movies or on TV, but a small practice practice one.  To give you an idea of what I mean – a friend of mine was marrying a CPA – he said he worked for a small firm – the sort of companies which only have a bookkeeper to deal with keeping track of expenses, deposits, etc (keeping the books as it is called).  He thought he was working with clients like mine as his clients did not have full bookkeeping department.  I laughed and explained that to me that was a large company – if my clients had a bookkeeper  a set of books beyond their checkbooks I considered them a big company!

Over the last couple of decades my practice has shrunk – I am down to one business client (plus my husband and my craft business – which I do the accounting as the owner) and 4 tax clients - one of whom is a dear friend and I have to annoy her again as she has not filed a return in 3 years and will be losing her refund on the oldest return if she does not file that return by April 15 this year.  It is enough work for me to still be able to say that I am accountant and these clients, with the exception of my friend, have been with my father or my prior boss for decades and decades.  In one case I do a tax return for the daughter of one of my dad's old business clients – first work I did in accounting when I was 12 was adding up the payroll of her father for my father.  So the annual contacts between the clients and myself is a good deal of catching up the year that passed on a personal level.  Oh, one client died last year.  His son/executor said that I would still be doing his return this year – but I have not heard from him and am guessing that his accountant will be doing his dad's final returns.  That cuts down the number of clients I have by one.

I have finished one return so far this year and I am good way along with a second return.  Still waiting to get the info for the third return – and of course my friend needs a bit of pushing (why should she lose out on her refund).  Somehow with the pandemic – even with keeping me in the house most of the time – it is harder to do the returns these years.  I have also done the business client's return – it was due by March 15 not April 15 – and started on our business return.

What does this have to do with organizing?  I have to fit all of this into my schedule in addition to everything normal I do.  I have to get the returns done on time – which means early enough for me to mail the returns to clients and allow them time to review the returns and mail them out in a timely manner.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
DON'T wait until the last minute!  Get your taxes prepared early – you can always hold until the last minute to mail out.  (If you need to – find out which Post Offices near you will be open late on April 18 and will postmarking the late mail  - yes, this year one has until the 18th to file their taxes. When I had a lot of clients, inevitably, several would need to file extensions and my husband would drive me late on April 15 to that post office and sit outside in the car as there would not be any parking available due to people filing their taxes at the last minute – my dad always said that at the main Post Office in Brooklyn employees would be outside with sacks for people to drop their taxes into, so they did have keep the actual office open late.)

When going late on April 15 to mail out I have seen any number of people standing in the Post Office filling out their taxes forms leaning on the walls as they are that late – don't let that be you!

USING YOUR CELL PHONE CALENDAR TO GET AND STAY ORGANIZED - IN THE HOUSE AND FOR SHOPPING TRIPS

 We are expecting another large snowstorm this coming weekend.  I have been checking to make sure we will have the food we will need if it does snow.  In the interim we will get one or two days with heavy rain – and husband does not like to drive in same these days, so we will need to make a food run tomorrow I guess.  

In the interim I pulled 4 slices of white bread and 2 of rye from the freezer.  This would allow us to have sandwiches as they will be defrosted when we need them.  Husband HATES frozen bread.  I don't like it, but deal with it better than he does.  

Due to my switch in cell phones (and, yes, I still hate the new one – it will have to do something to redeem itself to change my mind) I am not even sure which app I am suppose to be using for my shopping list as I now have 3 different memo apps!  In years past (before the pandemic) I would keep my shopping list in my various (over the years) cell phone.  One never forgets it that way and if suddenly while out it is decided to food shop – there it is!  During the most of the pandemic I did not want to have to take my phone out in public, so  I had a small piece of paper on the fridge and wrote down what we needed to buy.  More recently I have gone back to having my list in my phone – I also add non-food items from around the house this way as the phone generally travels around the house with me.  (Not that I get a lot of phone calls or texts, but husband likes me to have it with me in case I fall “and can't get up”.  No, he would not hear me screaming, but that is another story all together.)  Hopefully I will remember which app I used – yes, I am starting to get that old.  

We bought a set of new sheets and pillowcases.  We had 2 sets of white and one of light beige as we bought same when had bedbugs – easy to see the bugs on the bedding if it is of a light color.  Unfortunately over the ensuing 10 plus years it has also been easier to see the stains on them.  We bought tan sheets – light enough to see bedbugs on it but dark enough to hide the stains – and no, after we got the bedbugs that time we have not had any sense – but whether that means we can relax or if it means our hard work at avoiding them has worked we don't know.  Then again, my leading culprit for where they came from is a tax client of mine and he moved out of state and is no longer a client.  Husband helped me changing the bedding.  I hate changing bedding more than other job.  Being short I also have short arms and I have figured out that is why I hate changing bedding – my arms are too short to deal with queen sized sheets and blankets easily.  Husband helped this time (either the first or second time in 40+ years of marriage – he may have helped when I made the bed made up before we got married for when we returned home.  (Good thing it was – we got home in the wee hours of the morning and would have ended up sleeping on an unmade bed.)  It made it a bit easier.  I guess I will ask him to help from now on.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
How do you use your electronic devices to help you organize?  In addition to my shopping list in my cell phone I have reminders for chores which need to be done – including weekly reminders to take out garbage, do the laundry – even run backups on my computers.  The phone calendar you always have with you (you know you do) should be used to help you get and stay organized – use its alarms to remind you.