Monday, March 18, 2024

Trying to Catch Up and a Small ARGH!

I apologize for last week - I know I've gotten comments and emails from several of you, my friends and readers. Last week was a bit of a cluster-f**k, and time disappeared. I can't necessarily promise that this week will be any better, but I'll try - LOL. Just know that I DO read your comments and very much appreciate each and every one. Now I have to catch up with all of your lives - something I love and something I haven't had the time to do. Bad me! 




There just aren't enough hours in the day, and last 
week was killer. I'm WAY behind on the lives of you, 
my readers and my friends. I apologize, and I'll try 
my best to catch up with you this week. 



Yesterday was a rather easy day - BBQ ribs for dinner again, so once again I was curling ribs into the crock pot, tossing on the BBQ sauce, and letting them cook for six hours. It's hard to beat a recipe that works - LOL. I spent much of the day at the computers - my laptop set up on a TV table behind me, my desktop also up. I was trying to finalize my "Clearance Inventory Check-in Sheets" that has been my project for the past two-three weeks. It's finalized now, and it works well. But getting the final printouts was a bit of a nightmare. 




Over the past two-three weeks I've been developing 
a check-sheet inventory system for our clearance boxes 
and bins. We have various of these on the countertops, 
but had no real handle on the inventory for them - what 
was sold wasn't the problem, but what was "taken" was. 
So, I've developed these sheets. I've been testing them 
over the past two weeks and they work well. I fine tuned 
them yesterday, finally got them printed out on my GOOD 
printer (which was VERY difficult), and have them ready 
to go. One task done, millions of more still pending. LOL



I'd format the final versions on the laptop, save them, bring them up on the desktop, and send them to the printer. The good printer - the one I have at home and call my "workhorse" is an Epson WorkForce and it's fabulous. It's an older printer, however, and it refuses to talk to my laptop. So, I can do all of the formatting and changes on my laptop, but then I have to save the documents in the appropriate folder, then bring them out onto my desktop and send them to the printer that way. It's one of many work-arounds I've had to figure out in my long life of dealing with different versions of computers for the same tasks. 




I tried to fine a photo of the screen layout that I 
now have, but couldn't locate one. There are aspects 
of it that I really like, but a lot that I don't. I suppose 
I can allow my brain a bit more exercise and get used 
to it, though. 



I also am growling at my phone. I got pinged on Friday by my operating system asking if I wanted to switch to the "Easy Home Screen" version of my Android software, and I - at the end of a rather frustrating day attempting to control my drone - said "yes". In some aspects, it's rather nice. Things are less cluttered and it's faster. In other aspects it's a total PITA. That PITA part really comes to play when I'm running through my apps as I do every morning. When I awaken, I settle in for my morning meditation which comprises 10-20 minutes of meditation with "Insight Timer". I then follow that up with several solitaire games that get my brain in gear for the day - Pyramid, Solitaire Scapes, Block Soduku, Majong, Jigsaw Puzzle Epic, and finally I go into Happy Color which I'll go back and forth from throughout the day. 




So this is NOT my phone or my screen, but I do 
play Solitaire Scapes as my second mind 
game every morning. I have a routine I do to 
get awake and alert for the day ahead, as well as 
relax into the day with my meditation - which is 
ALWAYS the first thing. It helps keep my 
life in balance - silly little things here and 
there, but they're all important to my mental and 
physical stability. 



Notice all of the various names of the apps? I used to have them arranged in a row. It was easy - I knew them by sight, not name, and I just moved down the row every morning. With the new home screen, the apps are all alphabetical in the "App Drawer" and I suddenly had to remember what each program was named. Of course, they're not clustered together any more either. I'm finding it annoying to have to search out each one every morning, and I actually have to check a sheet to remember what they are called. GRRRRRR. I know it's a Google thing and won't affect most of you, but I'm NOT very happy with the new set-up, even though it IS cleaner and seems to be responding faster to commands. 




Happy Monday to all. I'll get a handle on my phone 
within the week, and really, if that's all that's annoying 
me right now, it's all good. Enjoy your day! 



So, it's Monday morning, and time to dive into work. I hope all of you have a wonderful Monday and I have every intention of being back here again tomorrow before I head off to the swimming pool. Enjoy the day, Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.



Saturday, March 16, 2024

A Drone and A Book - It Was a Bit of a Crazy Day Off

I bought myself a new toy last week, and had a bit of time yesterday to try and learn how to operate it. It's a little drone - LOL - cute as anything, less than $40 total, so inexpensive enough that if I can't learn to operate it, or if it won't do what I want it to do, I won't feel guilt giving it to my next door neighbor's kids, or simply tossing it. 




It's a cute little drone, and it probably will do exactly 
what I want it to do, I just have to play with it a bit 
more to understand how the software is set up. I did 
take it outside to fly it a bit yesterday, and it flies nicely. 
I ordered more batteries from Amazon too, since each 
battery only lasts for about 10 minutes of flying time, 
and my drone only had a single battery. 



It's Chinese, of course, which means instructions are minimal, at best. Although I managed to get it to fly, and learned how to avoid crashing it, what it's not doing - that I need it to do - is broadcast photographs of what it sees to my phone's camera setting. Digging into the internet for answers, I found a drone dude who uses a lot of them, and he said he had no problem getting the drone to sync with his Apple phone, but when he tried an Android phone, it was crickets - no image at all. I'll continue playing with it when I have some time, but since I bought it because I wanted to take a closer look at the condition of my roof and gutters, if I can't broadcast to my phone to actually see what I need, it's useless hardware for me. It's fun though, although a bit frustrating. 




The Terro Ant Killer DH has been using to get rid 
of our mini ants, seems to be working very well. 
I haven't seen any ants at all over the past two 
days. We'll keep this up for a week or so, and then 
see if that's the end of them for a while. We'll 
have to keep an eye on things, though. Just in case. 



The ants seem to have packed up and left town. We're not seeing any - alive or dead - but we're continuing to put down fresh poison. For those of you who have used Terro Ant Bait in the past, how long should we continue to freshen our bait? I'm thinking 1-2 weeks, but I really have no idea. It does work a treat, though. Within 24 hours, the ants were a short chapter of history. 




I owned this version of Anya Seton's 
book. I'm quite sure it's still a well-worn 
copy in the upstairs library. I read on my 
phone these days - my library is electronic 
and at my fingertips at all times. "Katherine" 
was one of the first e-books I purchased 
because I couldn't imagine not having it t 
hand to read. It's been a decade or more since 
I last read it, but I'm loving it just as much as 
the first time I cracked it open as a teenager. 



I've dived back into a book I've loved since I was a young girl. "Katherine" by Anya Seton, was a book I first read as a teenager. I totally fell in love with the character, as well as how well it was written, piling through all of the author's other books after I finished this one. I purchased a copy of it for myself later, and that copy has seen heavy use ever since. It was one of the first e-books I bought when I purchased my Nook e-reader, and I was out of current books to read, and looking for something when I came across it on my lists. I keep lists of the books I buy, by the year, on my phone. I would totally mess up and purchase things second (or third) times if I didn't have lists. 




What makes the story interesting, isn't so much the romance 
between John of Gaunt and his third wife, Katherine, as much 
as their children - the children became the Tudor line in 
British history, and that was an important line indeed. Katherine 
was a mother of kings for generations to come. 



To return to the focus, however, "Katherine" tells the tale of a young woman, child really, who grows up to be and direct ancestress of the Tudor line of Kings and Queens of England through her second husband, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. She was the sister-in-law of Geoffrey Chaucer, and of course, John of Gaunt was a Plantagenet, a contemporary of Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II. It's a fascinating time in the history of England, and I had forgotten how very much I love this book. Picking it back up again after many years is like welcoming an old, dear friend to the door of my house for an extended stay. Just the Best Thing EVER. 



"Books are like people. Some you meet once and that's enough. Some you want to get to know better, and whenever you are with them you discover more about them. Some are old friends you haven't seen in years but to meet them again is a joy."



My mother never re-read books. She never understood why I would ever want to do such a thing. I, on the other hand, re-read books often, if they're good ones. I've read Tolkien's trilogy more than 100 times, and I've probably read "Katherine" at least 50, and "Atlas Shrugged" more than 30. I re-read books that I love because they bring me the same joy re-reading them as they did when I first cracked open their covers. It's like meeting old and dear friends again at a party, instead of getting to know new people whom I've never met before. Old friends are wonderful - in real life and in books. I'll close this now, return to my tea and my book, have breakfast and try to have a productive day at the shop. Too bad I can't fly my drone there - maybe I could resolve the software issue while at work. But no, I'm pretty sure I'll be far too busy with computer work to spend any time playing with my drone - LOL. Have an excellent Saturday and weekend, I'll be back on Monday morning. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.



Friday, March 15, 2024

Friday, Skating and Hockey - All's Good in the Frozen (Melting) Northlands

It's Friday, which is always a great day in my week. It's a day for making my next week's "Ogre Juice", a day for grocery shopping, cooking, and catching up on things that didn't get finished on Wednesday's "day off". The weather is turning colder for the next two weeks, but it should be dry, at least until the end of next week. We're actually going to drop into the "teens" for our temps on Sunday - rather shocking in this Non-Winter we've been experiencing. This year is going into the record books as one of the warmest winters on record, if not THE warmest winter on record. I'm totally behind our winter, even though our outdoor skating rinks never really had an opportunity to be used at all this year. 




We have neighborhood outdoor ice skating rinks throughout 
the Cities. I can think of at least three within two miles 
of my house, and there are probably several I'm not aware of . 
These rinks are maintained by the Parks and Recreation 
board, they all have ice houses so that you can switch from your 
boots to your skates easily, and most of them have lighting 
for the early winter nights. I've skated on several of them, 
and it's fun, if not quite as smooth as an indoor rink with 
a Zamboni machine. I doubt they've been used this year 
at all, though. We've been too warm for a good freeze. 



So today I'll go grocery shopping, blend my alkagizers for the upcoming week, clean house, work on the computer and roast/broil my salmon for dinner. There's only three more Fridays before Easter, then I probably won't have salmon again for dinner for another year. 




In the USA, everyone who earns money of any kind needs 
to file a form 1040 with the Internal (or Infernal) Revenue 
Service every year. It's a PITA, but necessary. I had all of the 
information the accountant needed for this year's taxes, 
though, so I was happy. I went through my donations, and 
donated more than $1000 to licensed charities last year - 
that makes my heart happy. 



We had our appointment with the Accountant on Wednesday, and actually had everything needed, so he's working on the tax forms, and we're busy with our lives. There's no activity with the ants - it's as if a magic wand came and wafted them away. The poison was supposed to follow them back to the nest where it would spread throughout the colony. It seems to have managed that within 24 hours. Phenomenal! We'll keep it up for a month or two, in case there are any stragglers, but I'm hopeful that they are now dead and our of my life. Nasty things indoors, absolutely amazing and wonderful critters in the outdoors. 




Marat Khusnutdinov is our new center, playing on our 
third line and wearing #22. In his first game he skated 
well, even scored a point. The team is on a road trip 
now, so he'll have a chance to bond with the guys. 
Having Karill Kaprizov around for translation help 
will also be a plus for the young man. Welcome to 
Minnesota, Marat! 


The Minnesota Wild have a new player - Marat Khusnutdinov. I suspect we're going to enjoy watching this young man on the ice. He just got signed and moved here from St Petersburg, and within two days was centering our third line. He and our star Kirill Kaprisov have bonded really well - I think it's helpful to have someone else who can speak the same language when you're coming from a new country and thrust into the limelight immediately. He's centering our third line, paired with Foligno and Gaudreau and played very well for his inaugural game. Now the team travels to St Louis, beginning a three-game road trip. That will give him time to settle in and start to feel really comfortable. There's nothing like a road trip to bond players - LOL. 




There's nothing like a road trip to bond hockey players. 
A lot of the season is spent on the road, going from 
one game and location to another. We have three road 
games in a row now - St Louis, Anaheim and Los Angeles. 
By the time the team returns in a week, Marat should be 
feeling pretty comfortable playing with his new team. 



So, that's all I know today. I have a pile of things I should do on my mental list, we'll see how many of those tasks actually get accomplished before I settle down for the evening. Have an excellent Friday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.



Thursday, March 14, 2024

Taxes and Ants - Huzzah!

So, to start things out. The ant traps, of which DH had set up several, seems to have been successful. Yesterday morning I had a teeming number of stacked ants on the one trap, nothing on any of the others he had set out. Yesterday in the early afternoon, there was some movement around the one trap, but not the frantic activity of earlier in the day. Today, when I awakened and checked the traps, there was NO movement. None. We'll keep the traps in place, of course, for at least a week, maybe more. But it looks to have been successful. The live ants carried the poison back to the nest, and it has passed through the nest now, affecting all of the living ants. 




This is NOT one of my dead ants, but it is 
a lovely photo of a dead ant for illustrating 
the paragraph above. My ants are too tiny 
to get a good photo of. 



Taxes - Aearwen had to cancel our afternoon chat yesterday, and I was fine with that. I still had to get a few things in order for the accountant. So I sat down at the computer and compiled a list of my charitable contributions for the year. These are contributions - one time or ongoing monthly donations - to a variety of charities - not personal gifts of this or that just to help a friend out in a time of need. I still came up with a nice long list of contributions to the tune of more than $1100 for the year. I'll have to continue working on that. It looks like animal welfare is high on my list - two animal charities, and then people - LGBTQ and others who need a helping hand. I'm pretty happy with that - there's no sense in having the ability to help others and not doing so. 




I'm a big believer in donating to charities. I am fortunate 
enough to have funds available, and so I make sure to 
spread some around to help others who are less fortunate, 
or animals - near and dear to my heart. 



Today it's back to work for a day. I have to get focused and use the checksheets I've been developing to get a handle on our Swarovski crystals. DH still wants those to be our next week-long clearance sale, and I know what I need to do to make that posssible. Now, to try and think of a way that won't be impossible for my customers or my staff, and keep things moving throughout the week so that we can easily find each product the customer wants to buy. It's going to be tricky. 




If I can pull off making a workable checklist for this 
upcoming sale, it will be excellent. I've been getting 
practice in how I want to do this by working on the 
inventory sheets for our clearance boxes. Now to 
see if I can apply those lessons here - LOL. 



I actually slept until my alarm went off this morning - something that's fairly rare. Lately I've been waking up before my alarm (which is set for 3:00 am - so a bit crazy, right?). I had just settled down to my morning meditation when I heard DH come down the stairs. Fortunately, he has learned to NOT disturb me in the early mornings, and the sounds of him moving around disappeared quickly. When I was finished with my meditation, I headed downstairs and found him at his computer, playing "Lord of the Rings Online" - a game which we've planed for a LONG time since we were part of the original beta group for the game way back more than 20 years ago (I'm pretty sure it's been more than 20 years now - can't swear that for sure, though). DH has been playing my characters lately - trying to get them more caught up. I haven't played for more than a year, just no time or inclination. Maybe after I retire I'll reclaim my characters for myself. 




We've been playing Lord of the Rings Online since 
the beta and that's a long time. More than twenty 
years now. DH plays almost daily, I haven't played 
for quite a long time. It's a good thing he's keeping 
my girls up-to-date for me. 



So, I'm wrapping this up and heading out to the pool for my third and last swim of the week. I'm really looking forward to being in the water, even if the book I'm listening to is dragging on a bit. Still, it's keeping me occupied and in sync with my swim routine, so I can't/won't complain. I found out a long time ago that listening to books while I swim allows me to have the best workout, so I embrace it whether I'm in love with the particular book or not. I might not love the book, but I do love the characters, so I'm moving along with the plot. Rather like life, sometimes - LOL. We just move along, in spite of the fact that not all days are stellar. Have an excellent day, Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל. I'll be back tomorrow.


Wednesday, March 13, 2024

*Sigh* - Taxes and Ants - They Never Disappear

DH laid down some ant traps yesterday in hopes of catching those micro ants that we had in the pantry. He put them into the pantry as well as into the yellow bathroom that is adjacent to the pantry - the one that Sharon uses when she's in town, and that I've taken over for my own over the past few years. I had seen a few of these micro ants in that bathroom before, and had made sure DH was aware of that. 




So, this is the pile of ants clustering around the one ant 
trap in the yellow bathroom. The small circle below is one 
of the small rubber bands for my braces and it measures 
1/4" (7mm) from edge of the circle to the other edge. So 
these ants are SMALL. They're hopefully taking the poison 
back into their nest. That's what the ant traps are supposed 
to accomplish because if they're inside the walls, I'm 
not deconstructing things to kill the suckers. 



When I got home from work, I checked out the ant traps in the bathroom. Two of them were pristine, but the third was "Disco Club Gone Wild". It was teeming with the crazy micro ants. DH thinks he knows where they are coming from, but I'm not sure we're going to be able to do much about that - it's an inside the walls thing caused by some plumbing fixes from a decade or two ago. Still, we're at least a bit more aware and on top of things now, and he'll tackle things again on Thursday. 




Tonight, right after DH gets home from the shop, we head 
over to our accountant for our personal income taxes. I hope 
I've got all of the paperwork together - I've spent the last week 
accumulating the various reports and printouts. I'll have to 
double-check my charitable contributions and make sure I haven't 
missed any of them. The monthlies usually aren't the problem, 
but I do occasional off-the-cuff donations now and again and 
have to make sure I've got those listed. Just one more thing to do 
on a busy day. 



On the other aide of ants is another annoyance - income taxes. We have an appointment with our accountant late this evening for our personal taxes. I think I've gathered everything we need - I'm pretty good at that. DH is responsible for his own reports on his investments, etc., but I gather all of the household stuff, my own financial things, and other banking materials. As we've gotten older and certain funds have been merged together, it's become a bit easier, but it's always a chore gathering the paperwork and making sure we have everything together. I'll be making sure during the day today, before I chat with Aearwen. 




I love cooking ribs in the slow cooker. Since 
DH and I use completely different Bar-B-Q 
sauces, I actually have a dam set up in the 
middle of the crock pot, and use a roasting 
bag to keep the two racks completely separated 
(and make for REALLY easy clean-up). I curl 
them into their sides, pour on the BBQ sauces, 
put on the lid, and cook them for six hours. 
They fall off the bone. So good (and so easy)! 



So it's a busy day today. I really need my time in the pool to decompress before diving into it. I have my first load of laundry already in the wash, and I need to survey the refrigerator at some point to figure out if I need to cook anything for the upcoming week. We're doing ribs again on Sunday - they were BOGO at the store so DH picked some up. At least that's an easy cook, and several days for eating. I'm off to the pool - need to work out some of this stress. Have an excellent Wednesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.



Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Stuff, Thoughts, Cleaning - Maybe Cleaning the World Again?

Looking at my computer desk, I think Wednesday will require a serious clean-off of the top of the desk. When my stacks of papers and projects and "stuff" gets higher than three inches, it's time for a serious clean. However ... Wednesday night is also our night for personal income taxes with our accountant, and I will be making sure our bills, etc are in order and ready for whatever he asks when I get to the shop today. That's another hour or two, but at least at the shop I have counter tops - lots of counter tops upon which to spread and stack invoices, grouped by kind. 




Our personal income taxes are far more complicated 
than our corporate taxes. DH actually keeps the corporate 
stuff under control, but personal stuff is a hodge podge of 
my charity gifts and donations, various other stuff, and 
investment statements. I'm not sure I have the year-end 
statements from my two brokers, so I'll have to double-check 
that today. 



It must have been easier in past times when all you had was word-of-mouth. Of course, given the "flexibility" of memory, inaccuracies were built in to that system. But, the "taxes" were demanded by the property owner, the town Mayor, the provincial Governor and the King. If you were at the bottom of the stack, you just did what you were told to do - easy, peasy, and lots of room for complaint - silent complaint, since you didn't want to be whipped, imprisoned, or conscripted into the armed forces for whatever war was then current. 




Medieval peasants had it quite a bit easier in many respects, 
than we have today. We have the conveniences, and central 
heating and high levels of cleanliness are wonderful things, 
but they didn't have the world-wide issues that we're facing 
now. They might have had megalomaniacs, but they didn't 
have nuclear armament to back those idiots up. They could 
destroy a small part of the world, but not the world as a whole. 



Isn't that the way of humanity? Times of peace followed by oppression and times of war? We're on a precipice in the USA now - so many, many things can go wrong and plunge us into the darkness that is spreading across the world right now. All I can do is think about the dinosaurs - the most successful species Mother Nature has ever come up with. Dinosaurs managed to make it a LONG time. If you include birds, they ruled the earth for 233.3 MILLION years, knock the birds out, and it's only 167.3 million years. Humans ... well, we're not doing as well. Even if you include the ancestors to humanity, we've only been around for 3 million years, and if you're just including Homo Sapiens, it's actually 200,000 to 300,000 years. We're babies, and we're destroying our planet so good on us? Not really. Mother Nature really needs to step in and start again. She needs another success story. Maybe the cockroaches? 




Dinosaurs were incredibly successful, appearing on 
EVERY continent and landmass throughout the world. 
We're also spreading, but we're nowhere as successful 
at living within our environments. We want to change 
everything to suit us, rather than learn to live easily within 
the land we're inhabiting. We're also extremely 
warlike and aggressive towards our own kind. That's 
not a recipe for species survival. 



So, I'm heading off to the pool. I think I need a swim to clear my head of all of this extraneous junk. After all, it's not very uplifting to realize that the new kids on the block are bringing in the heavy equipment and getting ready to raze every structure on the block to the ground. I think I need a swim after that mental image. Have an excellent Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.



Monday, March 11, 2024

Not All Choices are Good Choices

Last night, I got sucked into watching the Oscar Awards on TV. Now, I rarely see movies, and I really don't care much about the Academy Awards, but DH turned it on, and I totally got pulled into it. I suppose it was because it was actually entertaining! The revamp that they did kept things moving well, Jimmy Kimmel was quite fun and sharp, and the dresses - OMG those poofy dresses!!! Who in fashion hell decided that most of the women would look absolutely marvelous in something that would immediately turn them into a bobblehead? Was it "Barbie" oversplash? I have no idea, but some of those gowns should be taken immediately to the trash and burned. 




OMG, Ariana Grande was totally over 
the top in this pink monstrosity. I guess 
it was channeling "Wicked", but I wasn't 
a "Wicked" fan either. That book just 
left me cold. 



I think the gown that irritated me the most was that pink number with enough floof around the mid-section of her body to hide an army! Really! I mean REALLY! That was beyond ridiculous. I was hoping Zendaya would wear another futuristic "Dune-style" gown this time, but she went for Hollywood glam instead, and totally pulled it off. She's got the body for that kind of gown, and she looked amazing! 




Zendaya looked stunning, as always, this 
time in a Hollywood classically-styled 
gown. No futuristic on this one, but she 
didn't need it. It was awesome. 



So, Billy Eilish did a good performance of what turned out to be the Oscar winning song, although I was underwhelmed. My preference was for the Native American pow-wow drum, which was wonderful and so nice to hear again. I miss hearing the drum. DH isn't fond of pow-wows, so we never attend them any more. I used to go a lot, and the song of the drum always stirs my heart and my feet. 




I loved the Pow Wow Drum performance at 
the Oscars, but there wasn't a single photo 
of it on-line to be able to share. So, I just chose a 
drum at rest at a real pow-wow, not just some 
musical performance. Pow-wow is dear to me, 
and I miss attending them and even dancing at 
them on occasion. 



I hadn't seen (and probably won't see) any of the movies up for the major awards this year. There are a couple that interest me - "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Oppenheimer" being the two at the top of my list to maybe see. I can skip the rest. I'll be trying to see "Kung Foo Panda" this week with Chickie though. See? I don't hate ALL movies, just MOST of them - LOL. Have an excellent Monday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.