Friday, March 26, 2010

7 Quick takes (Vol 62)

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1.
Life continues to be consumed by this darn getting the house ready for sale business. I have to say that I just don’t like my mind and time being consumed by this. There are other things that I need to think about and take care of and do.

Today, even as you may be reading this here blog, my house is being “staged”. I am sure that I will have plenty to say about it next week. It will now cease to really be my house and I will be living in a model home. Oh. Goody.

2.
Folks, I don’t have that many followers here at Chez Knit….just 34 of you. Or actually now just 33. I realized on Tuesday that someone had “unfollowed”. I don’t know who it was but when you only have 34 followers then anyone who leaves is like a neon sign. It shouldn’t bother me, it really shouldn’t. My life should not be defined by that small number, especially when I see other people who started their blogs later than I did and they have a ton more followers.

Oh the green eyed follower envy monster is rearing it’s ugly head. And it is ugly. And I don’t like that I feel that way. I struggled with envy for so many years. And just when you think you have a handle on “it” then you get sucked back in and by such a small thing.

And then I get to wondering why? Did something I wrote just so turn off that person that they decided to “unfollow”? I don’t think I will ever know. But I am trying to see the lesson in it.

Because God brings lessons in even the little things. I am just not seeing it yet.

3.
In the last 5 days I have been to four different Lowe’s in my area. I am truly sick of Lowe’s Home Improvement stores. And I have to confess that two of the four trips were necessary because I was in a hurry and didn’t count correctly. Man do I hate it when that happens.

I try to remind myself never to leave the house in a hurry and to know what I am supposed to be doing. This week it has been all about cabinet hardware. It needed to be updated before

the house goes on the market. Heaven forbid if everything doesn’t match. So on Monday I go to the Lowes that is closest to my house and buy just one of the handles and one of the knobs to try out. No problem, they look good.

Tuesday evening I am back at the closest Lowes to buy all the hardware, only I had forgotten my piece of paper that told me how many pulls that I needed. But I have been in this kitchen for 10 years so I just sat in my car and mentally counted….69 pulls are needed! And there is no way that they have that many. So I buy all that they have and the fellow in hardware checks the inventory at the other stores and I toodle off to get the rest at the Stow store. No problem! Except that when I get home I realize that I am…..7 pulls short. I forgot to count one spot. DAGNABBIT!

On Wednesday Kevin, who was hanging some fixtures for me, came to tell me that two of the glass covers in the chandelier box were smashed to smithereens. GRRRRRR. So it is back in the car and over to a THIRD Lowes. Where I switch out the covers for new (they had to open a box) and buy the rest of the handles…..I come home and finish installing them….and find that I am STILL one short. Oh for the love of Peter, Paul and Mary when will this end.

So after Kevin leaves, because I don’t want him to know that evidently I cannot count worth beans, I go back to Lowes a fourth time. For one handle.

4.
I am totally obsessed with watching “The Owl Box”. Have you seen this? It is a Barn Owl named Molly and you can watch her in her owl box and as she has her owlettes hatch. She laid 4 eggs, three have hatched so far. It is total addiction. And if you are especially lucky you can watch her eat something like a rabbit or a rat or a mouse. Excellent!

5.
I actually fixed the vacuum cleaner yesterday…all on my own. It was the highlight of the day which is just really sad when you come to think about it. We have an in house vacuum system that I really love….99% of the time. But if something goes wrong and it doesn’t work, say when someone vacuums up something that gets lodged in one of the tubes and shuts the system down, then I don’t love it. I don’t love it because they charge me $75 just to walk in the door to LOOK at the thing. That is painful.

So the carpet cleaning attachment, the “Turbo Cat”, hasn’t been working correctly. It really has been slowly dying since the repair person put in a new belt, which I could have done myself but he was here fixing something else too. I have been nursing it along because I didn’t want to buy a new one. Yesterday it wheezed it’s last. There is vacuum power, the beater bar just wouldn’t turn. So, I disassembled the whole thing (which I have done before), cleaned it all out, put it back together and it worked, arthritically, but it worked….for about an hour. Then total shut down.

By this time it was late in the day and I wasn’t having a great day and the last thing I wanted to do was disassemble the darn thing again. But that is what I did. Took it all apart again. Having a hissy fit the whole time.

“Lord I just want this thing fixed! (sniff, sniff) I just want to vacuum!”

And then I looked at it again. And realized that when the repair guy had reassembled it he had put a part back together backwards. I switched it around, put everything back together and…. it vacuums like new!

6.
It snowed yesterday. Not that much, just “a skiff” or as The Dillards would say, “Just enough to make everything slicker than deer guts on a door knob”. Thankfully it shouldn’t last long but such is the nature of Spring around here. I don’t think I remember a Spring in the last 24 years where we haven’t had snow on the daffodils. And sometimes they get buried.

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. I am sick of shoveling snow.

7.
I have been going through files. I have tons of files that don’t ever seem to see the light of day. And when I have these “clean out times” I wonder why I keep these pieces of paper. They take up space in files I never look at. But they are interesting. What to do. What to do.

And then the light bulb flickered to life. Hey, you have Adobe Acrobat you dingbat. Why not scan those things into the computer where you can save them electronically.

So I am. And I am cleaning out the file drawer. And it feels excellent.

Do you save massive pieces of paper and then forget about them or why you saved them in the first place? It seems that I do.

Have a great weekend.

11 comments:

  1. This week, my almost-5-y-o son yanked a drawer so hard that it shot off its rollers (that is HARD to do!) and it smashed to the floor and broke the whole pull. They don't make that particular one anymore, so I feel your pain. Parenting moments.

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  2. Sounds like you've had your hands full lately!!!!

    As for your #7... that's EXACTLY what I've been doing!!! I found that getting all of my bills electronically sent to me as PDFs is a whole heck of a lot easier than sitting down and opening a ton of envelopes that come in the mail each week. Saves paper, saves filing, and saves stress. I've started doing that with EVERYTHING... recipes, bills, patterns, and now even instruction manuals. Makes for a lot less to store.

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  3. I'm a follower but not listed because I'm not on blogger. Don't you have Google Analytics or something like that so you can see how many people are coming to your site? This is why I love Wordpress. The stats are fantastic!

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  4. To Chelsea, I'm not a blogger either, but still became a following (just to make Deb feel more loved.)

    Molly the Owl actually has two eggs left. 3 have hatched already with 2 to go. The next is due on Saturday. There was a sixth egg but it wasn't viable, so she ate it. Yech! She eats EVERYthing as a matter of fact: leftover shells, entire animals -- expelling the bones and fur in "owl pellets" which she then breaks apart to line the nest. How cozy, huh? She is SO cool! Be forewarned everyone: watching her site is VERY addicting!

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  5. ah :) i hear you on the followers. i comfort myself by reminding me that blogging has become second nature to me and so just the act of blogging is rewarding! followers = bonus.

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  6. @Chelsea - I now use Statcounter for all my stats and I love it. Blogger doesn't do a good job with that. I have way more readers than actual followers.
    @Kathleen - been there, done that.

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  7. #4, we have an owl living in an old silo. The kids like to look at the dropping and find bit if bone and animal fur undigested.

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  8. Hooray for fixing the vacuum cleaner! I love a good story of triumph!

    And, to make you feel a little better...
    YOU became our 3rd follower. That's right, one, two, free (as my toddler says). So imagine if WE lost one! (I am really not trying to discount your pain...just sayin' I can imagine your pain AND, on the bright side, compared to us you are FAMOUS!) :)

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  9. I like the Owl Box....thanks for the link. It is so easy to become addicted to those things. We have an Eagle Cam in our area...located in Norfolk Botanical Gardens. For the last several years, the same couple returns and lays their eggs. You can watch the entire show 24/7 ~ from birth to leaving the nest. Quite addicting...but I went through rehab so I only visit once in awhile now. :)

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  10. I just realised (yes, a full day later, yes a little embarrassing) that in my comment I called you a follower. And this morning I realised that you commented not followed. Which is, I think, better -- I'll take a comment over following any day! So IN CASE you were sitting there with a puzzled expression, I am just going to humbly swallow my pride and say, oops!

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  11. I so identify with the multiple trips to Lowe's. AND the vacuum cleaner repair (in my case, my Mom's...just can't trust those repairmen, can ya! AND the files! I'm doing taxes and I have six month's worth of filing before I'm done.

    Somebody Halp Me, Please!

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