New Year Chores

Calendars, mostly.  I have 2 in the kitchen.  One kitchen calendar is about regular scheduled things like recycling, contractor visits, and special TV shows.  The other is for medical appointments (both me and The Mews).  It helps to keep those things separate.  

The basement door has a calendar for my planting schedule.  I mark each weekend with a countdown number toward and after average last frost date in Spring and the first frost day for Fall.  Seeds can demand rather specific timing.  It really helps.

There is one in the computer room too.  Since that is where I post about The Mews, I add all their Birthdays and Gotcha Days.  Otherwise, sometimes I forget.

So I always have 4.  Mid-December, I go shopping for them at Walmart (they sell them cheap).  The computer room gets a cat calendar, the basement one is just a note-pad (no pictures), the main kitchen one is either butterflies of hummingbirds, the other is astronomy pictures (because it's about "time"), LOL!

Yeah, I could probably do better using my computer calendar app or even delayed emails to myself, but I'm old enough that the computer is not my main form of record-keeping.  And I like to see nice pictures on the walls as decorative anyway.

The other major New Year chore is to review my spreadsheet list of refrigerated seeds.  I keep them in numbered specimen vials in a tray.  The tray has 2 layers drilled with holes (so the vials stand up and kept in numerical order).  The spreadsheet has the vial#, seed name, purchase date, and expiration date.

So, I can skim down the list and see what new seeds to reorder.  A gardening forum I participate in has a list of the top 20 catalog companies and I only order from them.  There is another site that helps you cancel delivery of any catalogs you don't want to receive, and I have reduced my mailed catalogs to just a few garden companies and a few specialty companies for other products.   Saves some trees...

The garden catalogs usually arrive by end-of-year, so I will sit down with my list and the catalogs.  That can be a bit of work.  Not all sell each variety of seeds I want and it changes year-to-year.  So I have to make a list from each.  I wouldn't mind ordering some seeds from each, but the shipping fees are often quite high so I end up going with one company or another each year and making some variety adjustments.

Message In A Bottle

 Have you ever seen the movie 'Conagher'?  3rd-tier cowboy movie maybe.  But I saw the first half in a hotel room on forced govt travel and had to see the rest when I got home.  Sam Elliot impressed me no end...

Evie Teale is a western widow who writes notes and attaches them to tumbleweeds to drift away like messages in a bottle at sea.  Cowboys find them sometimes but her identity is a mystery.  Conagher has met Mrs Teale a couple of times and likes her and wants to tell her that, but he stays a drifter.

Long story short, he does finally figure out that she is the author of the notes.  

There is a bar fight with The Bad Guy.  Conagher wins, barely almost beaten to death but still standing...  Mrs Teale arrives and says "It's time for you to come home now."  Happy ending.

I understand Conagher.  Yeah, I'm a home-boy and he is a drifter, but its not all that different.  We both just go along on our own one day at a time.  

Or maybe I'm Mrs Teale.  Internet posts are not very different from notes attached to tumbleweeds.  Thoughts sent out into the world with no idea who might read them and no results expected.  I write because I need to express thoughts, not for some number of replies (which however, are gratefully received and read).

I sometimes think I am both Conagher and Mrs Teale.  All of us are both in some ways. I suppose.  Some of us match up and some don't.   Myself, I just drift through life like Conagher, but like Mrs Teale, I send notes to the world.  Not that I'm trying to find a Conagher/Teale connection, just trying to to get through life.

I probably shouldn't post this, but "well why not"?  It's "just" the internet.  Notes attached to tumbleweeds...

I bet Conagher would have liked cats.  😀

Happy New Year

A new decade is upon us.  May 2020 be better than 2019.

Janus was the Roman god of beginnings and endings, thus the 2 faces forward and back.  Oddly, January is not named for him (the Roman year did not start in January) but for Juno, the major goddess.

But I like Janus as symbol of a start of the New Year.  Remembering the past year and looking forward to the next...

Happy New Year and Happy Janus Day to all!

Ending The Year

I could do a post about the past year.  I won't.  Personally, it was fine, but domestically and internationally it was a mess. 

I did some stuff.  I didn't do other stuff.  I need to make a list of things to do soon to get the New Year started right.  Update my Will, arrange for a full physical exam, get the 2005 Toyota Highlander in for serious maintenance (I hate all the too-fancy stuff on the new cars). 

I need to build a small medicine chest for Iza.  I need to completely rearrange the basement (too much stuff, poorly organized).  I need to stop smoking.  I DON'T need an exercise or diet change (other than smoking, I am disgustingly healthy).

I MAY decide to buy a smart phone.  I'm not sure exactly why.  I suppose I'm missing out on "something".  I plan to upgrade digitally in some ways.  Activate Siri on the computer maybe.  Turn on the HDTV voice command.  See what Amazon streaming service has to offer (as a Prime member, I'm paying for it).  I'm WAY behind the tech curve and I keep reading about stuff I COULD do. 

Or maybe not.  I'm pretty unhackable as things stand.  I can't even find myself on the net other than a few address errors of former residences.  Only the computer is online, and I have a backup system that stays offline until I plug it briefly. 

I suppose my 2 blogs are hackable, but they aren't on my computer, so I can't do much about that!

The funny thing is that I was "the techie" in my office.  Fortunately, I was able to retire just as things got beyond my knowledge.

When Dad lived with me in 2012-2014, I showed him "the internet".  He was amazed, but didn't have the slightest idea what he was really seeing.  And it wasn't just his age and declining mental abilities.  He simply had left his own tech world behind when he retired in 1979.  So that is food for thought.  Do I want to try to catch up or do I want to let it go?  And maybe finding myself in a world I can't quite understand anymore in a few more years?

It takes work to keep up with tech.  I find myself struggling with some aspects.  Should I have a "doorbell camera"?  Should my refrigerator know what I've run out of?   Do I need a computer program to tell me about pills and doctor appointments?  And whatever happened to voice-typing?  I might really need that someday, and better to get used to it now than when I am too stupid someday.  What about painless-death options?

Some people make New Year's Resolutions.  I'm pondering a decade or so of my future...  And this is a good time to consider all these things.

Happy New Year

Assorted Things

1.  Got the trailer tires replaced.  It was hard work.  The tires were never removed since the trailer was bought in 1992.  One tire failed at the sidewall from simple age.  So I decided to replace both tires.  Removing the lug nuts was really hard.  And (naturally) the last one was nearly impossible.  I had used Liquid Wrench rust loosener all over the bolts several times. 

The manual car lug nut wrench was short and not much use.  I have an air-powered impact wrench, but it couldn't move the nuts at all (baffled why it didn't work).  I had to position the manual lug nut sideways and stand on it to move the nut 1/4 turn, and repeat it dozens of times on each nut.

I finally got them all off and the old rims removed.  I had special-ordered wheel on rim replacememts for 3 day delivery.  It took 3 weeks.  But I got them*.  Putting the new ones on with cleaned nuts was easier (soaking the nuts in vinegar loosens rust and an old toothbrush got into the inside threads of the nuts). 

* If I had ordered them through the local tire store, they would have done the whole replacement themselves for the cost of the tires.  But they said it would be a week.  Given that the trailer store took 3 weeks and I had to do the work myself, that was a bad decision.  On the other hand, *I* did the work and I have the pride of doing it...

2.  The 2017 gardening catalogs have arrived.  I looked up the companies at Garden Watchdog, a site that evaluates garden catalog companies.  They have a Top 30 list, and I love those, but most don't sell veggie seeds. But they also keep ratings on the catalogs that DON'T make the Top 30 list.  So I looked up some of those.

Some negative ratings don't apply to what I buy.  If negative ratings apply to purchased plants and not seed packets, that doesn't bother me.  So I took the catalogs of Territorial Seed Company, Johnny's Selected Seeds, and Burpee.

Burpee seems to be declining in quality lately and the seed prices are rising.  So * made a list of desired seeds from Territorial and Johnny's.  I did the Territorial catalog first and got an almost complete list.  Then I started a list for Johnny's.  After 6 equivalent (or identical) seed varieties, it was clear that Territorial (with a better review rating) had lower prices, more seeds, and similar shipping costs.  So I am ordering from Territorial this year.

And it is a big year for ordering.  I have lots of veggie and flower seeds that last more than just a few years (kept in vials in the basement refrigerator) and I keep a list of them including the year of purchase.  Many seeds were just too old this year (even refrigerated) and needed to be replaced.

I'm ordering 2 dozen seed packets this year.  Many more than usual (last year was only 5 packets for seeds I had run out of). 

I'll place the order tomorrow (2017).

3.  I have terrible static electricity in bed.  I have a central air duct humidifier.  It helps "some".  I bought a room humidifier for the bedroom 2 years ago.  It also helps "some".  And this year it has become annoyingly loud.

Well, one solution is to get rid of synthetic sheets and blankets.  I discovered that all my shhets and blankets were 50% polyester.  I changed everything.  I now have all cotton.  From the waterbed up, I have a cotton blanket, a cotton sheet, a cotton blanket, a cotton sheet, a cotton blanket, and a cotton sheet.  Just FYI, you NEED layers between a waterbed and you.  Water steals warmth.

And I have a cotton sheet and a cotton blanket above me.

It took some effort.  Originally last week, I was sleeping between two 750 count Egyptian cotton sateen sheets.  I hated them.  Heavy, rough, and frictional.  Trying to drag one sheet over the other as I tossed and turned at night was like dragging sandpaper over sandpaper.

I like "percale".  It is smooth and slidey.  But what I read about percale said it was 50% cotton and 50% ployester.  And I didn't want polysester because of the static.

So imagine my surprise when I was in Bed Bath & Beyond and saw 100% cotton 350 thread count percale sheets!  Hurray!  And in bright red (everything I found earlier was dull earthtone).

The percale sheets were still a bit stiff, but the adverts said after washing, they soften.  Well, my 30 yer old percale was sure soft.  So I've washed the new percale sheets 20 times.  Just kept the washer setting on "superwash" and kept resetting it to there before the rinse cycle. 

The sheets are softer, but need more washing to soften them further.  2017 project, but they are sure less staticy than the old polyester sheets or the newer sateen cotton ones! 

4.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Welcome 2015.

Dear 2015...  May you be better than 2014.  2014 kinna sucked.  Politicians were stupider than usual, there were seriously bad plane crashes, the Russians are acting stupid again, too many white policemen killed too many black guys under questionable situations,  there are too many people unemployed, the world economy is not all that great, and the food supply is not all that safe. 

It your job to fix all that stuff right?  So get at it.