No recent updates on my niece and the consequences of the accident. News could come tomorrow or in months.
I basically solved my confusion about the EU GDPR notice requiring even foreigners to post about cookie use. I found a brief one elsewhere and stole it. It seems to say enough. Feel free to steal it yourself from here (right under the header). I think that, after a month, I will move it to the bottom of the blog, and later, somewhere barely findable. Eventually, it will become nearly meaningless like "This site complies with all international laws applicable in the United States Courts to the best of our understanding.
I do NOT like that Blogger has eliminated forwarding of comments to email account. There was no reason given. If it saved them money, they should say so. If they polled the community and got a positive response to the idea, they should say so.
The change is a real inconvenience to me. I mean, no complaint to Blogger if they had a good reason, but none was given.
I'm also annoyed about the end to Open ID commenters. I have enough of them who are frustrated and they are long-time commenters who don't want to establish Google accounts. Its not up to ME if they should or should not.
The rain as been amazing this Spring. Starting in early May, it has rained about 16-20" total. I didn't keep track (at the start, who knew it would be a lot?). But I have a good rain gauge and a general idea of how many times I have seen 1/4" to 3".
And the hardest thing is that it has been rather steady. 3" was a LOT at once. But most times it is 1/2" every day or so. The problem is that it keeps the soil soaked. You plant seeds in soaked soil and they just rot.
Joke: "I planted rice in early May and they have all drowned".
Seriously, I have lost a month of planting. I planted 4 square feet of Spinach and got only 4 seedlings. There should have been 4 dozen. And I can't plant my deck pots when they are all mud. Squishing around the wet soil creates little tubs that dry out and form hard layers later that flower roots don't penetrate well.
I have molehills EVERYWHERE! The soft soil is like Heaven to them. They are even in the front lawn and I've never had them there before; it is usually too hard for them to dig through. And the voles use the mole tunnels to get at plant roots. I'm going to have to spray carol oil over the yard. That doesn't bother the earthworms the moles feed on, but apparently, it gives them an awful taste to the moles, so they go elsewhere. and if there are no mole tunnels, the voles are forced aboveground where nearly everything wants to eat them.
Their are mole poisons, but I can't use them. A poisoned mole can mean a poisoned predator (like my cats). And I've never found a mole trap that had any meaningful affect. You spike or whatever an few adult moles and it makes little difference. There are always a few fertile adults left and that means more mole babies. You have to make the adult moles actually LEAVE!
I've started unclutterring the house. Well, you have to unclutter before you can clean, and I've let that go for too long. And no matter what you want to do, something else seems to have to be done first. So I looked around for "first things".
I tend to save interesting home maintenance, gardening articles and recipes out of the newspaper and stack them on a corner of the dining table. I went through the stack and threw most of them away. I'm not really ever going to make those fancy chocolate truffles or hazelnut cookies, I'm not going to make those "tandoori/honey/duck burritos", and I really don't need a 13th way to BBQ a chicken...
And really, if I ever need to refinish a water-spot on a table top or re-grout a tile, I'll just look it up on the internet. It is time to stop saving information when it it so easily available online!
What I DO need to do is collect all the random stuff off the living room bookcases. There are aquarium supplies sitting there. So I need to enclose the existing aquarium stand with wall panel wood and make doors so the stuff has a place to be altogether and out of sight.
And move some kitchen appliances I seldom use out of the cat-stuff closet to above the cabinets, making room for the 2 shelves of cat toys so THEY are out of sight (but surely not forgotten).
And then move some stacked books INTO the bookcases, etc... Figuring out the FIRST thing to do is very important, or else I just end up shifting the clutter around...
And then there is the Cat Room. Which doubles as a storage room. My Xmas decorations are still out loose. I could spend a whole day just in there! I would like to store them up in the attic, but I had some energy-saving contractor in there a few years ago insulating the place 12' deep (and have never noticed any reduction in my electric bill). So it is time to put down some plywood flooring (like I used to have there). And I still have the plywood I originally installed and then removed for the increased insulation in my basement. But that has to be done before I can move the seldom-used Xmas decorations up there.
There is always something that has to be dome first...
Showing posts with label Rearranging the house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rearranging the house. Show all posts
Monday, June 11, 2018
Sunday, February 8, 2015
An Interesting Week
I don't do well in the shortest darkest days of the year, but with the lengthening days, I have gotten more active. It's nice to start accomplishing things again.
1. I got The Salvation Army out here to pick up stuff I never used or no longer needed. Mainly, I had a dining room table and chairs that I bought at their local showcase store 8 years ago. It had some dings and scrapes, and I intended to completely refinish it as a Winter project. Realizing I would never get around to doing that, I wanted to give it back. I was also cleaning out closets and accumulated 8 boxes of miscellaneous household goods in good condition, a telescope (I have a newer better one now), an unopened flat screen wall mount (I decided to use a TV table instead), a nearly unused upright vacuum cleaner (I have wood floors now), etc.
It was all picked up last Wensday (I have decided to change the spelling; "Wednesday" is just medieval). The new open space in my basement workshop is appreciated.
2. I decided my cooking habits were in a rut. 20 years ago, I used to make pizzas from scratch. I relearned how. The first was bad. The 2nd and 3rd were very good. A pizza stone helps. So does a bread machine with a pizza dough setting. And leaving the dough sit overnight in a covered bowl helps. I made my own sauce from crushed canned tomatoes too. I do that for my spaghetti sauce anyway, just let it get a bit thicker. Sliced commercial pepperoni, hot italian sausage, green bell peppers, mushrooms, and onions.
And I made chicken cordon blue, my own breaded chicken nuggets, ground hamburger from top sirloin (I have a manual grinder), pancakes from scratch, and egg rolls.
My efforts to make decent hamburger buns continue to fail, though.
3. Rearranged and vacuumed the entire basement wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling. The guys who filled the walls with insulation last September left such a mess (even though they did a lot of cleaning). But I moved EVERYTHING and vacuumed. I vacuumed some spots that may have never been vacuumed in 28 years. When's the last time you pulled out the washer and dryer and cleaned behind there? LOL!
4. Reorganized all the stuff from the attic that I had to move down into the cats' room and stored them for returning to the attic when I replace the flooring up there. The cats are thrilled to have more space for toys, exploring, and scratchers.
5. Took almost everything out of the computer room, threw away lots of old stuff, and returned little. And there is more to get rid of. Why should I keep the boxes and disks from the apps from Windows 98?
6. Emptied out 3 closets and most of the stuff went to a new pile of stuff to go to charity. It is amazing how much unneeded "stuff" ends up on closet floors. "Out of sight, out of mind". For example, 30 years ago, I became the manager of an office softball team. I had bases, gloves and balls in a box. I'm keeping the ball and gloves, but the bases can go. One thing charities can't say is that I have boring stuff to give.
7. I had boxes of newspaper articles clipped out for "information". Computer articles, gardening articles, cooking articles. That stuff is all on the internet now. So those are going into the recycling bin.
8. One box was half full on fanfold perforated-edge computer paper! That goes back to the days of dot-matrix printers. But I'm not recycling THAT. I now have a lifetime supply of note-taking paper! Some old stuff is worth keeping.
9. The weather today was GREAT. It reached 67F! I went outside to do some gardening work. Mostly, I needed to dig level spots for the 6th of 6 framed garden beds. Unfortunately, the ground was still frozen 2' down, so I did some work, but not as much as I hoped. Still I did some work and the next warm day I can get another 2' deep. That will be enough to build that 6th bed before Spring arrives.
10. Haircut time! Ever 2 months. And I love the feel of heated shaving cream around my ears and neck when the barber does that razor cut!
11. Visited the bank. Got 6x higher interest rates on my savings with some creative transfers. 3% interest is better than .5%
I may have had a more productive week sometime, but I can't recall when exactly. LOL!
1. I got The Salvation Army out here to pick up stuff I never used or no longer needed. Mainly, I had a dining room table and chairs that I bought at their local showcase store 8 years ago. It had some dings and scrapes, and I intended to completely refinish it as a Winter project. Realizing I would never get around to doing that, I wanted to give it back. I was also cleaning out closets and accumulated 8 boxes of miscellaneous household goods in good condition, a telescope (I have a newer better one now), an unopened flat screen wall mount (I decided to use a TV table instead), a nearly unused upright vacuum cleaner (I have wood floors now), etc.
It was all picked up last Wensday (I have decided to change the spelling; "Wednesday" is just medieval). The new open space in my basement workshop is appreciated.
2. I decided my cooking habits were in a rut. 20 years ago, I used to make pizzas from scratch. I relearned how. The first was bad. The 2nd and 3rd were very good. A pizza stone helps. So does a bread machine with a pizza dough setting. And leaving the dough sit overnight in a covered bowl helps. I made my own sauce from crushed canned tomatoes too. I do that for my spaghetti sauce anyway, just let it get a bit thicker. Sliced commercial pepperoni, hot italian sausage, green bell peppers, mushrooms, and onions.
And I made chicken cordon blue, my own breaded chicken nuggets, ground hamburger from top sirloin (I have a manual grinder), pancakes from scratch, and egg rolls.
My efforts to make decent hamburger buns continue to fail, though.
3. Rearranged and vacuumed the entire basement wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling. The guys who filled the walls with insulation last September left such a mess (even though they did a lot of cleaning). But I moved EVERYTHING and vacuumed. I vacuumed some spots that may have never been vacuumed in 28 years. When's the last time you pulled out the washer and dryer and cleaned behind there? LOL!
4. Reorganized all the stuff from the attic that I had to move down into the cats' room and stored them for returning to the attic when I replace the flooring up there. The cats are thrilled to have more space for toys, exploring, and scratchers.
5. Took almost everything out of the computer room, threw away lots of old stuff, and returned little. And there is more to get rid of. Why should I keep the boxes and disks from the apps from Windows 98?
6. Emptied out 3 closets and most of the stuff went to a new pile of stuff to go to charity. It is amazing how much unneeded "stuff" ends up on closet floors. "Out of sight, out of mind". For example, 30 years ago, I became the manager of an office softball team. I had bases, gloves and balls in a box. I'm keeping the ball and gloves, but the bases can go. One thing charities can't say is that I have boring stuff to give.
7. I had boxes of newspaper articles clipped out for "information". Computer articles, gardening articles, cooking articles. That stuff is all on the internet now. So those are going into the recycling bin.
8. One box was half full on fanfold perforated-edge computer paper! That goes back to the days of dot-matrix printers. But I'm not recycling THAT. I now have a lifetime supply of note-taking paper! Some old stuff is worth keeping.
9. The weather today was GREAT. It reached 67F! I went outside to do some gardening work. Mostly, I needed to dig level spots for the 6th of 6 framed garden beds. Unfortunately, the ground was still frozen 2' down, so I did some work, but not as much as I hoped. Still I did some work and the next warm day I can get another 2' deep. That will be enough to build that 6th bed before Spring arrives.
10. Haircut time! Ever 2 months. And I love the feel of heated shaving cream around my ears and neck when the barber does that razor cut!
11. Visited the bank. Got 6x higher interest rates on my savings with some creative transfers. 3% interest is better than .5%
I may have had a more productive week sometime, but I can't recall when exactly. LOL!
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Energy Use After New Insulation and Other Stuff
1. Energy Usage After New Insulation:
One month does not prove anything much, but my first post-insulation project usage for October shows that my Oct 2013 usage was 1326 "some unit" and the Oct 2014 usage was only 973. It is promising, but weather in one month can be different one year to the next. I'll wait to see the next few bills.
But it does look good.
2. The framed raised garden beds are progressing. 3 of 6 completed and the boards for the 4th are all cut. Now that I have the process of building them routinely, the 4th will be easier than the first. And I am set to buy the lumber for the 5th and( last) 6th any day the weather is "OK".
3. I'm continuing to accumulate a pile of donatable items in the basement. Its not the "usual stuff". Today I cleaned out the top shelf of the pantry. Anyone have a bamboo multi-layer chinese steamer? I do, and I haven't used it in 20 years. Onto the pile it goes. I hope the Salvation Army knows what it is. LOL! I keep holding off calling Salvation Army for a pickup because I keep finding new stuff to add to the pile. I wonder what they will do with a 4" lens refraction telescope, for example. But that's their problem/good luck.
4. I'm loving the new trash pickup! I got rid of 12 bags of kitty litter last Friday and 10 today. They say they don't accept "lumber", but I have a barrelful of scrap ends, and so far as I can tell watching them mechanically lift and dump the dedicated container they provided, they can't see what is in it. I can keep cutting the trash lumber into 6" pieces and put them in bags all month until is is all gone. It sure will be nice to not have to drive to the landfill this winter! And I have a lot more junk to get rid of. I'll fit it it into the dedicated Evergreen container even if I need a sledgehammer to break it up. And I'm not trashing any recyclable or compostable stuff.
5. Last night was the first hard freeze here. I dug up 4 Basil plants to try to keep them growing inside on the south window. Picked the last tomatoes too. A few were at orange, so they might ripen. For the others, I will look up "fried green tomatoes".
6. Got out my 3 window box planters tonight. I can get some fancy mesclun lettuce from them over the winter, I have just enough potting soil left from last Spring to fill them.
7. The lowering sun this time of year is now blasting my eyes through the kitchen window. I found a tension rod to fit across the window and a valance to hang just low enough to prevent the glare as I make my lunch. 28 years and I'm finally getting around to doing that! I had a choice of 2 valances. One white lacey and one red. I chose the red; white lace isn't quite my style. Red doesn't fit the white wall and black appliance colors, but who cares. The cats won't complain. I've been considering having the kitchen tiled in various shades of 4" green and painting the rest of the kitchen celery. Maybe I'll hang a little label on the red valance "annoying red dissonance". LOL!
Actually, I like red/green/black as a color scheme. My living room is hunter green, the TV room (traditionally the dining room) is dark red, and all the other stuff is black except for the medium wood furniture. Oh well, I never expected to be displayed in "House Beautiful". I like what I like.
8. Next indoor project is to arrange the planting area. Everything since Spring has just been piled into the grow-light shelves. Since growing season starts indoors here in 2 months, I better get started on that soon. Or I'll need to do it fast the day I want to start planting.
One month does not prove anything much, but my first post-insulation project usage for October shows that my Oct 2013 usage was 1326 "some unit" and the Oct 2014 usage was only 973. It is promising, but weather in one month can be different one year to the next. I'll wait to see the next few bills.
But it does look good.
2. The framed raised garden beds are progressing. 3 of 6 completed and the boards for the 4th are all cut. Now that I have the process of building them routinely, the 4th will be easier than the first. And I am set to buy the lumber for the 5th and( last) 6th any day the weather is "OK".
3. I'm continuing to accumulate a pile of donatable items in the basement. Its not the "usual stuff". Today I cleaned out the top shelf of the pantry. Anyone have a bamboo multi-layer chinese steamer? I do, and I haven't used it in 20 years. Onto the pile it goes. I hope the Salvation Army knows what it is. LOL! I keep holding off calling Salvation Army for a pickup because I keep finding new stuff to add to the pile. I wonder what they will do with a 4" lens refraction telescope, for example. But that's their problem/good luck.
4. I'm loving the new trash pickup! I got rid of 12 bags of kitty litter last Friday and 10 today. They say they don't accept "lumber", but I have a barrelful of scrap ends, and so far as I can tell watching them mechanically lift and dump the dedicated container they provided, they can't see what is in it. I can keep cutting the trash lumber into 6" pieces and put them in bags all month until is is all gone. It sure will be nice to not have to drive to the landfill this winter! And I have a lot more junk to get rid of. I'll fit it it into the dedicated Evergreen container even if I need a sledgehammer to break it up. And I'm not trashing any recyclable or compostable stuff.
5. Last night was the first hard freeze here. I dug up 4 Basil plants to try to keep them growing inside on the south window. Picked the last tomatoes too. A few were at orange, so they might ripen. For the others, I will look up "fried green tomatoes".
6. Got out my 3 window box planters tonight. I can get some fancy mesclun lettuce from them over the winter, I have just enough potting soil left from last Spring to fill them.
7. The lowering sun this time of year is now blasting my eyes through the kitchen window. I found a tension rod to fit across the window and a valance to hang just low enough to prevent the glare as I make my lunch. 28 years and I'm finally getting around to doing that! I had a choice of 2 valances. One white lacey and one red. I chose the red; white lace isn't quite my style. Red doesn't fit the white wall and black appliance colors, but who cares. The cats won't complain. I've been considering having the kitchen tiled in various shades of 4" green and painting the rest of the kitchen celery. Maybe I'll hang a little label on the red valance "annoying red dissonance". LOL!
Actually, I like red/green/black as a color scheme. My living room is hunter green, the TV room (traditionally the dining room) is dark red, and all the other stuff is black except for the medium wood furniture. Oh well, I never expected to be displayed in "House Beautiful". I like what I like.
8. Next indoor project is to arrange the planting area. Everything since Spring has just been piled into the grow-light shelves. Since growing season starts indoors here in 2 months, I better get started on that soon. Or I'll need to do it fast the day I want to start planting.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Why Do I have Books?
Why do I have books?
I had to really ask myself that question today. And the answer is "because I used to read voraciously" and "because I am very information-oriented". I am the reason bookstores used to exist. More succinctly, I grew up "pre-internet and pre-cableTV" and needed books if I wanted information or entertainment. I used to come home from work, make dinner and then sit in a chair reading a book with a cat on my lap (back in the days of Mischief, Cat Ballou, and Sport-Sport).
I spent 50 years collecting books on varieties of subjects. I have 60 linear feet of science fiction books, for example. I also have nearly as many books on science, history, cooking, gardening, philosophy, evolution, fishing, nature, cats, geography, general reference, etc. OMG, I even have a 3' long set of 40 year old encyclopedias! What possible value do those have today when the internet is at my fingertips? They do look impressive though...
But because I decided not to move, I thought it would be a good idea to de-clutter the house and make it look more open. One thing I realized was that I seldom read books anymore. So the first project was to reduce all the bookshelf display space.
I was astonished at how much sci-fi I had. I was also astonished to realize that I hadn't the slightest idea of the plot of at least half of them. I packed those into 7 boxes for storage (I can't get myself to simply dispose of them, though I may donate them to some worthy cause later). I kept the rest, but double-shelved them in the computer room bookcases to save space.
Then I moved most of the information books from the living room bookcases to the newly-freed computer room bookcase shelves. I could probably pack up most of those too, but I at least want to display my interests, and even with the internet, many of them are still useful.
The living room bookcases will become mostly for decoration and display. I have some sets of books that are either valuable (anyone ever heard of "Real Books" or "All About Books"?), presentable (like the uniform 20something book set of gardening and the similiar fishing and hunting set - both from those "once a month" subscription series popular in the 1980s), or impressive (like Winston Churchill's 6 volume series about WWII).
[Speaking of Churchill, I have to mention one of my favorite anecdotes. Churchill was seated at a fancy dinner party next to a stuffy old dowager who intensely disapproved of him. At one pointed she hissed "Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison you". To which Churchill famously (and immediately) replied "Madame, if I were your husband, I would let you". Damn, I wish I could think that fast!]
Well, anyway, back to the books... Almost all of the non-decorative books are in the computer room (my cookbooks are staying near the kitchen). Some of the books I discovered I owned amazed me. Books on magic tricks, odd things to do with common household items, Gray's Anatomy, World Almanacs, Twain's 'Life On The Mississippi', the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe, college textbooks from the 1970s. Just amazing stuff.
I might even start reading again...
I had to really ask myself that question today. And the answer is "because I used to read voraciously" and "because I am very information-oriented". I am the reason bookstores used to exist. More succinctly, I grew up "pre-internet and pre-cableTV" and needed books if I wanted information or entertainment. I used to come home from work, make dinner and then sit in a chair reading a book with a cat on my lap (back in the days of Mischief, Cat Ballou, and Sport-Sport).
I spent 50 years collecting books on varieties of subjects. I have 60 linear feet of science fiction books, for example. I also have nearly as many books on science, history, cooking, gardening, philosophy, evolution, fishing, nature, cats, geography, general reference, etc. OMG, I even have a 3' long set of 40 year old encyclopedias! What possible value do those have today when the internet is at my fingertips? They do look impressive though...
But because I decided not to move, I thought it would be a good idea to de-clutter the house and make it look more open. One thing I realized was that I seldom read books anymore. So the first project was to reduce all the bookshelf display space.
I was astonished at how much sci-fi I had. I was also astonished to realize that I hadn't the slightest idea of the plot of at least half of them. I packed those into 7 boxes for storage (I can't get myself to simply dispose of them, though I may donate them to some worthy cause later). I kept the rest, but double-shelved them in the computer room bookcases to save space.
Then I moved most of the information books from the living room bookcases to the newly-freed computer room bookcase shelves. I could probably pack up most of those too, but I at least want to display my interests, and even with the internet, many of them are still useful.
The living room bookcases will become mostly for decoration and display. I have some sets of books that are either valuable (anyone ever heard of "Real Books" or "All About Books"?), presentable (like the uniform 20something book set of gardening and the similiar fishing and hunting set - both from those "once a month" subscription series popular in the 1980s), or impressive (like Winston Churchill's 6 volume series about WWII).
[Speaking of Churchill, I have to mention one of my favorite anecdotes. Churchill was seated at a fancy dinner party next to a stuffy old dowager who intensely disapproved of him. At one pointed she hissed "Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison you". To which Churchill famously (and immediately) replied "Madame, if I were your husband, I would let you". Damn, I wish I could think that fast!]
Well, anyway, back to the books... Almost all of the non-decorative books are in the computer room (my cookbooks are staying near the kitchen). Some of the books I discovered I owned amazed me. Books on magic tricks, odd things to do with common household items, Gray's Anatomy, World Almanacs, Twain's 'Life On The Mississippi', the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe, college textbooks from the 1970s. Just amazing stuff.
I might even start reading again...
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