SETTING UP A NEW COMPUTER AND UPDATING AN OLD COMPUTER - OYYY!

 Computers – can't live without them and can't live with them!!

And they DO need to be kept organized!

Computers are important to keep organized also.  In addition to each having a desktop computer, we each have laptop computers (and I keep my old ones so I have 2 Windows XP latptop computers, a Windows 7 desktop computer, and my latest – a Windows 10 laptop.  (I am using the latter as I post.)  My Win 7 and my Win 10 computers each have a virtual Windows XP machine in them.  (This allows me to run old XP software in them – mostly my Lotus Organizer.)

My husband I do not keep our data on our hard drives.  We keep them on thumb drives (originally on 5.25” floppy drives, followed by3.5 inch floppy drives, then zip drives, and in the years since – thumb drives (aka stick drives).  This does several things  - most importantly if our hard drives die we still have our data and it is easy to move the data from one computer to another.  We also each frequently back up our hard drives to external hard drives to prevent loss of data on same.  

This all comes to mind as my husband has just bought a new laptop computer.  He has vision problems from when he had cataracts despite having had surgery for same – mostly problems seeing to read small print.  He has been struggling more recently to read items on his laptop as it is a small one, so we discussed it and he bought a 17.5 inch laptop.

He bought it Monday.  Yesterday (Tuesday) he took it out of the box and started setting it up.  First, of course getting rid of some of the newer features which he did not want and finding features which no longer come with them which he DOES want.  

In doing of all this (so far) he noticed that the hard drive on our network did not show up on his new laptop – he checked my laptop and it was missing there also.  So tonight he dealt with this problem and got the hard drive to show on his laptop.  He then moved to my laptop to fix it also.  Why?  Because he needs to do so, so mine will be able to access that hard drive.  Have I used it?  Maybe – once – or twice.  

In fixing this on my laptop the computer decided that “Whoopee! She is letting me do things!”  “I am going to update – whether she likes it or not!”  So I lost over half an hour of my “me time” on my laptop (which I get in the evening as opposed to using using my computers for work related work or house related work).  

Understand – I am not against computers.  My first use of a computer was a main frame IBM computer back when programing and answers were by punch card (programming in Fortran) in high school.  That was followed by a main frame computer which used various stations around our college campus to enter things (programming in Basic).  But each version of the software to run current computers seems to make more and more problems.  And they do help to keep one organized and cut down on paper clutter.

NEW PILLOWS FOR HUSBAND - AND WHERE TO STORE THE OLD ONES

 Two weeks again – sorry no post last week. Then again – is anyone other than me actually reading these posts? (If you are a “hi” would be nice so I know someone is out there.)

My husband decided he needed new pillows for when we (hopefully soon) start traveling again in our tiny RV. (Think Chevy van conversion, not the RVs you see in movies and on TV.)

He had recently been having sleeping at home and bought a new pillow to use at home. He had me bring in his pillows from the RV and he tried them and they were not comfortable. (It has been since 2019 since we used the RV and the pillows.) So we went out and bought him a new pillow – same as the one he bought for the house. I put pillow covers on that pillow and one of his old pillows (he picked which one) and he tried using them at home for a few nights and said it was fine. I also bought him 2 new pillow cases – why I am not sure as I will be using the old pillowcases for me, but he insisted.

Do we throw out the old pillows? No, of course not! “We might need them.” Now the problem becomes where to store them. I have mentioned that our house is on the small side (though much larger than our RV) and storage is limited.

Our house has 3 bedrooms – the largest one is, of course ours. We had planned for the remaining two bedrooms to be used for our children – who were not to be. So, the middle sized bedroom serves as our office – we sit at desks facing each other – and our main library space for our books. The small bedroom was setup as a guest room in case one of our moms or a niece or nephew needed to stay with us. It has been used 3 times – once my niece and nephew (brother and sister) used the single bed together when they were very young and stayed overnight. Same niece used the room again twice on two different occasions when doing something with us. Other than that it has not be used a bedroom. The bed is covered with a blanket and there are stuffed bears (and a few of their friends sitting on it) and the room has become known as the Teddie's room as there are also shelves in the room holding stuffed and other types of Teddies and their friends in it. (We use the closet for husband's out of season clothing and some other storage.)

Among the other storage for the room are the bed pillows for the room which are kept in pillowcases and stand against the walls waiting for someone to stay and use them. (I would change the pillowcases if someone used them as they have been on the pillows for years – some of them have Teddy bear designs on them.) So I put the extra pillows in pillowcases and stood them on top of the ones already in place.

At least with this resolved and the extra and RV pillows out of our bedroom I again have back the place I put the laundry basket when I bring up the clean laundry to fold and store. The extra pillows had been sitting there while he decided which pillows worked for him.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

Think outside "the box" when looking for places to store things – often storing them in some way which makes sense or looks decorative (or you can make look decorative) is the best place to store them – especially larger items which need “a home”.

JUNE - ALREADY????!!!! SPRING CLEANING? - I JUST FINISHED STORING AWAY CHRISTMAS - LAST WEEK!!!!

 JUNE – ALREADY?!

I guess it well into “spring cleaning” time?  Anyone doing any?

Well ….  I have mentioned that I have a small “village” of small bears  - figurines, toys and such (about  ½ inch to maybe 6 inches tall each) in our upstairs hall.  If you have missed this – it started as a Christmas village populated by bears and grew to a year round village which is changed (more or less) monthly to match the month.  It is a terribly silly thing, but husband and like it and it gives us smiles – and during the worst of Covid it gave us someplace “to go” when we stuck in the house.

It gets overdone for Christmas – like a small village which is over crowded for the holidays with shoppers, a parade, carolers, Santas, skiers, skaters, booth selling hot beverages and renting out skis and sleds, bears finishing decorating the large tree at the center of the village…  The rest of the year the setup is much is less.  

I have mentioned that I am accountant.  I had an extremely odd and bad tax season this year so the bears have been having Christmas all the way into May (and the mom bears were upset at no Mother's Day) as I have not had a chance to store the Christmas part away.  I finally had a chance last Sunday to start taking it down.  Christmas in the village is almost done being stored now.  I should finish this Sunday and will jump ahead to wedding and later in the month graduation in the village.  (Same young bear couple get married every year.)

Sooo, who is doing spring cleaning – not the bears they are too tired from celebrating this long.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Things need to be done.  Sometimes something suddenly takes up a continuing huge amount of time and it needs to done and other less essential things put aside.  That is life and we have to take it as it comes and then catch up when we can.  

TIME FLIES - DOESN'T IT? GETTING OUR RV READY TO USE THIS YEAR

 Wow another week already?  

We started dewinterizing our tiny RV yesterday and finished today.  For those who might not know about this (I had no idea until we bought it) in the fall one has to remove all the water in the tanks and pipes in the RV and put in special anti-freeze to keep the pipes, tanks, etc from freezing and possibly splitting open.  

Comes the spring one has to get the antifreeze out of the pipes and tanks.  This is done by draining the liquid in the pipes and tanks out. (The antifreeze is a special one used in RVs and boats; it is not what is put in the engine of vehicles.)  One then replaces same with water and bleach and drives back and forth, stopping short to mix it throughout the pipes and tanks.  It sits awhile.  Then it is then drained out of the RV and the RV tanks and pipes are filled with plain water – several times – and drained again each time to the get the bleach and any remaining anti-freeze out of the RV.  We have spent the last two days doing this several times to our RV.  Now the water system is usable for this year's season.  

Understand, this RV is a van converted (commercially) to an RV – NOT one of those large things you see on the road and in movies.  It is very, ummm, “cozy”.  The entire inside space is something like 20 feet by 6 feet.  Think about a room that size and living in it – toilet, kitchen, living room and bedroom – all in that space.  

So it is now prepared for any traveling we do in it this summer. Husband has plans.

Think about living with your significant other in a space this small.  You have to be very close friends!

ANOTHER WEEK AND AT LEAST WHAT HAS TO BE DONE IS ......DONE!

 Goodness – another week again – seems like I just posted yesterday!!

Have you found that time moves differently since Covid started? I find this. I think I did something a couple of weeks ago and when checking on something about it in my computer organizer – I see that it has been a month and a half!! Things I do by rote, suddenly I forget to do. File on my computer drive are not in the order they should be.

I am trying hard right now to get everything back to where it belongs and how it should be. One problem is that husband was miserable staying home all the time and is now trying to make up for it – I pray for rain so we will stay in the house and I will get things done. Even as I writing and posting this (at 1:30 am) I have just moved the first load of laundry to the dryer and put the second load in to wash.

REALLY need to clean the house. Husband had started vacuuming the floors out of boredom – but no longer does. (I prefer to “Swiffer” them, sound of a vacuum has scared me since I was a child.

Four things I have extremely cautious to do on time – clients tax returns, pay our bills, the laundry, and cook meals/wash the dishes.

Does anyone else use the toe of their “fuzzy” slippers (while wearing them) to gather dust bunnies together and then pick them up and throw them out with their hand?

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

I try to keep doing the little things which HAVE to be done to help me keep going. We are fed. We have clean clothing and towels/bed linens. We have our medications and take them as we should.

What do you ALWAYS do as it so important to be done?

MUST BE ABLE TO THINK QUICKLY OF WHAT TO DO OR SUBSITUTE WHEN SOMETHING IS NOT WORKING

 Sorry I haven't posted. Life has been a bit crazy. I even still have one tax return to prepare – for a business.

I am guessing that I have posted before around 2010 we had bed bugs and that has shaped a good part of our life since then. Husband decided he needed a new bed pillow. (None of the spare, un - or rarely – used ones could even be tried.) He thinks his head/face hurts due to his pillows. Today we were at Walmart and he bought a new pillow.

After we had the bedbugs we bought a device called a Pack-tite. One is suppose to put their suitcase(s) in it after traveling and heat the suitcases and contents so that if one has brought back any bed bugs they will die from the heat. We no longer travel using suitcases as we dealt with this problem by buying a tiny Class B RV (think Chevy van, not big RV lumbering down the road or in a movie). So when he bought a pillow today I had to put it in the Packtite to heat it – just in case.

I do laundry on Wednesday nights and so it was no problem to heat the pillow at the same time as the Pack-tite is in the same room in the basement. Or so I thought. The remote read thermometer I use to monitor the temperature in the Packtite stopped reading while the Packtite was still heating to temperature. I have to make sure the air in it does not go over 120F. It uses one of those “button” batteries – we have all different sizes of them in a bag in our bedroom. Up two flights of stairs. Thought I found the correct size battery. Back down 2 flights. No, it was the wrong size. Back up 2 flights. We do not have this size battery! Heating already started and husband wants to use the pillow tonight – what to do?

We have two double read thermometers in the kitchen – both read the temperature in the kitchen. One also reads the temperature outside the house. The other one reads the temperature in our refrigerator in right near husband's insulin. Which to take? Well, it was just after midnight so the temperature outside does not matter and I took that thermometer. Since I do not have the remote read – I have been running down and up the stairs every 5 -10 minutes. There is a maximum temperature and it has to be shut off when same is reached. On last trip down – that occurred.

For some reason these past few years life seems to get crazier and crazier.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

We all have to learn to think “outside the box”. When something does not work or is missing one has to think of alternative methods or items to use.

HAPPY HOLIDAY

 To you and your families - 

I wish a good holiday of whichever spring holiday is yours.