the boxes are still going strong

My window boxes, last week, they were planted with the same things and watered/fertilized equally. 

Here are inside views of the kitchen box -

My planter under the side windows, the big pots in front of them are massive tomatoes - 

Empty Closets

 I keep thinking about this. 

The gardening neighbor friend, who lived a couple blocks from me and just moved, had many empty closets. 

The three bedrooms closets, her (now adult) kids had when they lived at home, were totally empty. Each room was set up with bed, lamps/nightstand, dresser and maybe a chair in the corner, and absolutely nothing else. 

Closets and dressers were empty. So all the closets, in the upstairs of her house, were empty. 

I think it had been that way for years. It certainly made moving easier. 

Think about how functional a guest room is with no clutter. How convenient it would be to come home for a brief or long visit and have all storage spaces available like a motel room. The rooms were peaceful and lovely. 

It is my new goal.

Procrastination can extend

This table was put up, temporarily, with the intention that I would use it to sort the genealogy papers that needed filed in their respective 3-ring binders. 

I expected to have it done in 24 hours so the table could be put back in the attic. 

Several weeks later, it took less than an hour to do all the filing, and my husband took the table to its storage place in the attic. 

Yes, we walked around that table for weeks. 

I think the problem was the table was not annoying enough. 

Right by the computer room door - very easy when I was taking the papers off the counter and putting them on top their respective binders. I sorted immediately. 

This started because youngest was here,  was working from home for a week, and I was clearing space for her to spread out in the computer room. 

I even had a package of sheet protectors ready for the filing. But then procrastinated on the next step, putting the pages in the binders, for ages. 

Each time I walk down the hallway now, it seems so big, without the table in the way. 

Two flower pots

I have gotten rid of a lot of flower pots in a use it or lose it mindset. 

The last two now have a set place to go each year. They fit perfectly and add a little dimension. 

The flowering annuals came from the clearance rack. 

Fold3 and Great Aunt Dee

You may have heard of Ancestry and Family Search which are online databases for genealogy. 

In the USA there is Fold3 for military records. 

I have not used it a lot, it is on my “futures” list. 

I just saw an interesting article (below). This topic does not pertain to me, probably not to you either, but it is a good read -

https://blog.fold3.com/wwii-research-and-the-missing-air-crew-reports-collection

This one definitely pertains to me -

https://blog.newspapers.com/exploring-the-society-pages-in-the-newspaper

I discovered that in the 1950’s one of my great aunts wrote a column for the local newspaper in my original  hometown. She lived in an area of the county, outside of town, that was active. She wrote about their local activities as well as the community member’s family activities including our extended family. 

I have placed lots of dates using her column. The best example is I now know when my grandparents moved, because my Great Aunt Dee wrote about going to their new house for a small dinner party. 

Using the better quality, instead of storing them

I had a wild assortment of cheap bins in the cupboards in the garage.  

I had a very nice set of latching bins in the attic, empty. 

I moved supplies from one set of bins to the other, next to the bottom shelf (below). 

The locking ones are so much more reliable to use with heavier garage supplies.

Bonus, they look much tidier since they are cohesive.

And I sold the odd ones quickly/easily.

Stranger Things

If you like the Goonies, and you like Fringe, my guess is you would like this show. The show has good casting, writing and direction, in my opinion, in science fiction genre. 

Middle and my husband have watched since the beginning. They have not yet seen the latest season. 

We started back at the very beginning, and watched the first two seasons while youngest was home for a full week over the 4th holiday.

Continuing on, now watching separately, we really enjoy each season’s different story line with the consistent/returning cast. 

We offer Witness Protection

 I am showing you the Cheyenne Cone Flowers. At the feet of the bird is a patch of daisies. In front of the daisies are Cheyenne Cone Flowers hiding from the bunnies. 

Three summers ago I planted them in the backyard and the bunnies kept them trimmed down to about 2”. 

Last summer I moved them to the side of the driveway. 

This summer they have the long arm of a squash helping to hide them from the sun and the bunnies and they are thriving. They get watered nearly every day. 

Identifying photos during a scanning visit

My mom, husband and I went to my mom’s first cousin’s house to scan photos, a couple Saturday’s ago. 

This is our second time going to a relatives for a mass scan, we went to Iowa in the summer of 2019, very good timing. Middle went with us to my husband’s cousin’s house, we stayed the weekend. Eight months later, we were in a long lockdown. 

On that first trip, my husband labeled each photo, on his lap top, as he scanned, which was time consuming. 

This trip, I used post it notes and the camera on my phone, which worked better. 

What mattered, what I needed to document, was what I did not know by sight.

I knew I was coming home to move the photos from my husband’s laptop, which we had taken in order to use our portable flatbed Epson scanner, to our PC. I also knew I was immediately going through all the photos, labeling them on the PC. 

So I only needed to make notes on what I did not know, mostly years and locations. If I knew the people, I did not need a note. 

This worked very well. I wrote most of the notes myself as I loaded the scanner. Sometimes my mom’s cousin wrote longer things out for me. Most of the photos were not labeled. I had my mom and her two cousins to help look/think/calculate. I am very good with identifying people in photos. 

My husband ran the laptop/scanner. 

(My mom mostly enjoyed looking at photos and talking with her cousins, who she had not seen in person in decades, but chats with them online on occasion.)

Very valuable to me

I use the key pad, on the outside of the single garage door, many times a day. 

The puppies and I go out that way for walks, I use that single garage door to water plants, and garden. 

Watering/gardening, I leave the garage door open. 

Walking, I shut it behind us. 

I wear my very small cross body when I walk, it holds my phone. 

I usually have earbuds plugged into my phone and listen to podcasts or talk to youngest (on her way home from work). 

The puppies and I walk about three times a day. 

I used to do this with the neighbor’s pup too. It gets us all out of the house and fresh air. It gives us something to do and breaks up the day. Lots of walking practice at this age pays off in a quality dog for the rest of its life. People are stopping me to comment on the puppies’ beautiful walking skills already. I can stop and talk to people and they are just nicely at my feet. 

 

If the power went out or the battery died on the garage key pad, I would be locked out of the house. 

So I clearly needed a key in my very small crossbody.

I was worried a loose key would get lost. I definitely needed something flat to hold the key. My solution was the thick envelopes with a snap closure that the bank uses for safe deposit box keys. They had an extra for me, when I asked at drive-up. 

So this is now the entire contexts of my “purse” -

That is my medical insurance card, drivers license, AAA card, two credit cards, $60 cash, the key fob for my car, and my house key. 

The fob goes in the bottom of the cross body and stays there. I use the buttons on the inside and outside of the car to lock/unlock. I use the lever on the inside of the car for the trunk. 

All of that fits easily/comfortably in the small side zip of my cross body. My phone fits in the larger pocket. I wear that cross body in the neighborhood and in the car. 

It is extremely light, even with my phone in it. Out and about, I never take it off, it stays on my body. 

This system allows me to have the absolutely basics, in a hands-free way. 

If I am going somewhere more complicated, I pack extra things in a small canvas bag. 

This is a long way from the purses my grandmothers used to carry. 

Update on the slide situation

All the way back in January, I mentioned slides absolutely do not last.

https://baby-steps-v.blogspot.com/2022/01/slides-public-service-announcement.html?m=1

We do not have a lot of slides, but we do have some that we want to save. Preserving slides means converting them to digital, quickly.

Our local library has lots of electronic and craft/skill equipment available for use. So 3-D Printers, scanners, sewing machines, soldering equipment, etc. 

The library slide scanner is an Epson, but more complex than the Epson we have at home. This one has a special light, down the center. (See my arrow).

The holder positions the slides exactly under the extra light.

It scans four slides at a time.

It was about the same speed as our regular flatbed Epson scanner at home. The scanning app/buttons were exactly the same. 

The conversion quality is good. The photo with the boys and the car on the computer screen was a slide. Now it is a digital photo. (Yes, that photo is hysterical. It was my husband doing some type of slide photo assignment for a college photography class in the early 1980’s. Normally he did not/does not take slides. Those were college buddies.)

So we will be able to convert all our keeper slides to digital photos, easily and for (nearly) free. The only expense was we replaced our memory stick. Memory sticks also do not last.

We scan the slides on the library system. We save them on a memory stick plugged into the library computer. We bring the memory stick home, plug it into our computer, save the digital photos.

This scanner will also scan negatives. We have not yet tried that, we think all our negatives have been printed. Plus, there  are still photo stores that will print negatives. But those brick and mortar/local photo stores are dwindling very quickly. In my area, we are down to Walgreens photo lab (in the store) and some things have to be mailed for processing. And we have one local specialty photo store left. 

Another 100 year old album

I am on my 3rd or 4th 100+ year old photo album. 

These are the ones with heavy black construction paper like pages.  The albums are absolutely crumbling and not at all archival safe. 

The photos in this one are are fading fast even though they have not been exposed to light. 

The first 2-3 albums, I carefully disassembled. I was able to save all the photos. 

This album, someone was very heavy handed with the glue. I cannot remove all the photos safely. 

This album belonged to my husband’s maternal grandfather. He was in the navy, aboard The Wyoming, WWI.

We have scanned every photo worth saving. My husband emailed copies to his three brothers. All of the photos will go on my genealogy blog for that family line. 

The album and all the photos are eventually headed to my local library, but I did not have enough family information to write a thorough bio sheet. 

We had a meeting with a genealogist yesterday morning and she was able to help. This is a (free) service available through my local library.

She made me feel very good. I had written down everything I had found carefully. But I was quite stuck. She found enough to get me over the hump, so I can continue researching that line myself. But she made a point of telling me it was hard going. When I got stuck, it was for good reason. 

Project Runway

While we had the peacock TV steaming system (one month, to watch the Olympics, no commercials), I watched season 19 of Project Runway. 

I enjoyed it more than any other season, and I have watched (and loved) them all. 

If you do not know, Heidi and Tim moved to Amazon Prime with a different version three years ago. 

The regular Project Runway continued with different host and Christian Siriano in the Tim Gunn role, Christian is most excellent.

There was no “Heidi” person on season 19, new host had just had a baby and was home, she stopped by for one episode only. 

Christian Soriano continued with the Tim Gunn role, really really well. The three judges took care of that section of the show and it was actually much better that way. They have my permission to continue that way and save themselves the cost of the female host. 

The challenges (season 19) were more creative and appropriate than ever before and many themes supported small businesses and minorities. 

There was one major blow up early on that did not bother me, it was actually interesting to see it play out as neither side understood the other’s point of view. 

Yes, Swatch is still at Mood, but now very old.

I still have Peacock, the free version with commercials. 

Pantry!

I think a pantry, any pantry,  needs a top to bottom re-examination and scrub once a year. 

At my house, with very high shelves, this means my husband on a ladder, handing things down to me, scrubbing/drying the shelves, and then putting the keepers away. 

As I was handing the keeper stuff to my husband to put away, I had to urge him to spread things out. I finally said - like a magazine is coming to shoot tomorrow for an article. 

I was very aggressive this year. Everything I questioned, my husband was perfectly willing to let go, he was not attached to anything. He did not care how long we had it, who gave it to us, how much it cost. Progress! 

We sorted based on whether or not we use it regularly, whether or not we use it with a houseful, whether or not we even like it. 

We got rid of things we have had for almost 40 years. We got rid of family things that are older than I am (61). We got rid of things we used to use, but have not used in years. We got rid of things we have never used. 

So yes, ALL THAT pictured above, plus what the girls took, came out of my pantry. 

No, I do not have a before photo for you. Yes, I wish I did. But it was a spontaneous project. We were well underway  before I thought of a picture. 

The pantry now feels like it has room to breathe. 

Bottom left 

Top left

Normally I avoid Shondaland

 I have learned to steer clear of Shondaland shows. 

Shondaland, before I started avoiding ABC -

I loved Grays Anatomy for the first couple seasons, then it turned soap opera-ish for me. Ditto Private Practice. 

I could not stand the flashback style of How to Get Way with Murder. 

I loved Scandal in the beginning, I thought the writing was strong and it was very well cast, then it got a little too off course for me. 

So I learned I was not a Shondaland fan. 

It got easy because I learned to avoid anything on ABC. They/ABC have a very clear type of show business plan that does not appeal to me. The only way I can describe it is I think they write down to what they think is their audience instead of writing up. 

Back to my point - now that Shondaland has moved to Netflix, I run into her. 

Shondaland on Netflix -

I could not sit through even one full episode of Bridgeton, way too soap opera-ish for me. And at that time I did not realize it was Shondaland. Middle was watching, I sat, I tried, I left. 

Inventing Anna on Netflix -

So, when the girls wanted to watch Inventing Anna, I started gathering my things because I was sure I was not going to like it, simply because it was Shondaland. (I realize that is opposite of the general opinion.)

And while I did not love Inventing Anna, I did enjoy it. 

I was familiar with a bit of the true story, I saw a news story (on 2020 S43/E35).

Shondaland story is told with a lot of flashback, normally a negative, but somehow that did not bother me. I am not sure how else they could have done it. 

I got used to the (annoying) accent after a while, I give credit to the actress, because we looked up clips of the real Anna, and it is very correct. 

Each episode is an hour and while we liked the show, each hour seemed l-o-n-g. The ten episodes seemed like a lot. I did not want them to eliminate any of the characters or story, I just think it needed tighter writing and editing. Like 50 minute episodes would have made a big, positive difference. 

LOVED the reporter character, well written, perfectly cast. She 100% made the show. I found this great article - 

https://www.vulture.com/article/inventing-anna-fact-check-jessica-pressler.html

Two big drawers in the kitchen

 These were super fast clean outs. I got rid of a few things. I rearranged dishpans which helped a lot. I switched some other things between the two drawers too. If you are wondering about the hammer, I use it to tap the knife when cutting watermelon, squash, etc. If you are wondering about the new knives, if I have company complaining about the sharpness of my regular knives, I open a new one for them. 

Before -

After -

Before - 

After -

NBC

I love The Blacklist. I think it is smart and well written and unique. It is very well cast. I cannot predict it. The latest season broadcast recently. It was previously the only show I watched on NBC. 

I am watching the newest Law and Order on NBC. I enjoy each week, but not quite as strongly as the original series. 

NBC won me over for a second series this year when they resurrected the original Law and Order (above). I went back and watched Law and Order LA on Prime also. I am currently watching Law and Order Criminal Intent on Peacock.  

I just added a third NBC series - 

This is not a duplicate of The Black List, but it is similar. The writing is very good, it is clever. The casting is fabulous.  I am a big fan of Morena Baccarin. I am becoming a fan of Ryan Michelle Bathe. These two main characters are female minorities and are written as brilliant women. Both actors do a great job. 

I have the NBC app and the Peacock App. Between the two of them, I am able to watch NBC for free. Sometimes there is a commercial, I think just one at a time, it does not bother me. 

The computer room clean out

Nearly two years (2020-2021) of my husband working at home, and my mother bringing all her photos to my house (2019), and the stacked boxes from my husband’s old office clean out (2017) cumulated in a very big mess. 

If you look at that picture and wonder how the counter can handle the weight, it could not. One of the support brackets broke in half. 

A handyman installed a temporary support post. 

I ordered a four drawer cabinet for storage and to support the counter. I ordered the cabinets (Lowe’s) at the end of January, they arrived mid April. 

Those cabinets are my limit now. 7 years of tax binders/my genealogy binders not included, all the papers/files in the house must now fit in these four drawers. 

This is where we are today, very pleasant workspace, I am in there daily now -

The steps in this process included:

- shipping about 36 packages of photos to other people

- getting rid of 2 old file cabinets on wheels

- installing a 4 drawer storage unit for counter support 

- shredding an enormous volume of old papers 

- limiting papers to what fits in the 4 new file drawers

- repairing the broken support

- cleaning out every cupboard and cubby

- removing all the extraneous stuff from the floor 

- removing as much as possible from the counter

- rearranging the printer/PC work stations 

We devoured both seasons of this series

We are not team rainbow. We are team Dewey Decimal System. Just saying. 

But I absolutely agree with making shelves, closets and drawers look fabulous. 

And how much must they charge to cover all their air fare, hotels, staff?