Look, more snow!

Now, "look" would make one think that I am putting in a picture of the new snowfall that we got last night. And, if I get my act together, I might just do that. Probably won't, but anything is possible.

Feeling a little tired this morning. Oh well - gotta push through a little work at the Smith - getting the projector back to baseline for the movies this afternoon and evening. The group that came in yesterday needed a lot of video tweaking to get it how they wanted it - and to accommodate using the cyc(lorama) as the projection screen. It would be really clever of me to write down these settings, wouldn't it. Sigh.

Went in and the settings were what they ought to have been. I don't know what that is about. Honestly, I am not making an effort to understand this projector that well. We will, hopefully, soon get a new projector. And server. And become, presto, DCI compliant. That would be nifty. Though movies that we get on DCP are probably going to be fairly costly. Rental and shipping. Anyway, it only took me half an hour to do all the movie stuff I had thought of. Then I took another half hour working on getting the second ticket printing printer set up - to no avail. I will try again on Monday. It really oughtn't to be as difficult as it is. Why they don't just factory install it with a large (high) IP address, I don't know. What ever. Maybe the Artsman support people will be a great help. Anything is possible.

Home became lunch land for a bit. I made mom a small lunch of crackers (she didn't eat them) a third of a banana, some ensure type drink and some orange glop. Oh, and hot coffee. She took a long time to take her pills, but did a decent job on the food. Still holding out hope that her diminished appetite is due to the pain from the shingles. Which, apparently, is getting worse. Fingers crossed that the shingles and the pain go away soon.

I am playing a sniper world war two game on my xBox. Not the best game, but entertaining in its way. I am also cruising through the first Harry Potter book on audio. Put a hold on the second. I wish that mom would like or understand Audio books. Sigh.

The second things that came out of the new oven - six chicken pockets and two pizza pockets! Yum!

These turned out much better than my last ones

More pictures! I am working on a de-cluttering track on Daily Challenge. Yay! I am only going to do it for 9 days for now, but will go back to it as it seems like it will be what I need a lot of in my life just now. I don't think Daily Challenge has a dating track. Hmm. I will have to see. But I am doing the challenges. One of them was to declutter my kitchen counters - something I did a few years ago when I first moved back. Here are the newly cleaned counters:

Left Counter all spiffy

Right Counter even spiffier

I hope to keep it about this clean, give or take, more or less...

Ditto with this counter - sans the laptop and the Harry Potter Book

Some of the stuff that came off the counters (not the puzzle stuff...)

Sayings for all occasions

I love language. Well, most of you probably already knew that. In this post we are going to look at a couple of sayings and see which trumps which.

The first is "Hope Springs Eternal!"

The second is "Flogging a dead horse."

So which is it? Does one keep hoping that by flogging a dead horse our desired (or hoped for) outcome will actually occur? Or do we stop hoping for what we were flogging a dead horse for and start hoping for something else? I would have to guess the latter. Hope isn't about one thing, it is more of a general thing - along the lines of "X is like buses (which is probably no longer true in most places since most places don't have a robust public transportation system) - wait a minute and another one will come along" or "There are plenty of fish in the sea" unless the human race continues to destroy them...Gee, these are depressing. Better get back to hoping...

A couple weeks ago I was optimistic that I had found someone who was going to be a major part of my life. I thought that they were going to be helpful and supportive of me while I would be helpful and supportive of them. Unfortunately this is turning out not to be the case. So I think I will stop with the flogging already and change the focus of my eternally springing hope. Life is that way sometimes.

Does anyone know anyone who I might ask to help me with cleaning up and organizing the house? Someone did offer to watch mom sometime if I wanted to go out. Actually two people have offered - though neither of them has really followed through. But the offers are nice.

I think I will start another puzzle today since I have my exciting new puzzle mat thing.

One step at a time

One step at a time - is there really any other way? And multi-tasking? Really? I don't think anyone can really multitask as we only have one brain - true, there might be other parts not necessarily under our conscious control - but what goes on under the surface is none of our business - until it surfaces of course. So, we, with our uni-brain, can really only do one thing at a time with focus. Driving and putting on make-up? I rarely do it, but it doesn't seem like a good idea. Driving and doing much of anything else - is that really multi-tasking?

Anyway, as I was saying, one step at a time. Most things can only be accomplished through methodical steps forward. Again there are those times when an answer springs into your head - or a task seems to take a lot fewer steps than anticipated, but still, those are just single steps. One of the things I like to say when people find that they don't know where to go or what to do or how to achieve a goal is: baby steps. When in doubt, take little, wobbly steps (sometimes with support if you can find it) in any direction - hopefully in the one you are wanting to go - but really, all motion is forward motion (in a way). At least it is motion.

This all occurred to me as I was working on getting the room at the head of the stairs ready for potential occupancy. We might have a boarder! Mom vacillates between being excited about the prospect and being horrified by the prospect. If it causes her too much stress, we will reevaluate. But for now, it looks like, starting this weekend, we will have a housemate. (I stared this a while ago - she is now safely ensconced in the room - how long she will stay is anyone's guess...she is welcome as long as she wants to stay, but life has a way of moving us around sometimes in ways that we had not anticipated.)

In order to get the room ready, I had to attack the problem one step at a time. First, I emptied out the dresser drawers. Karl, if you are reading this - hahahahahaha (on a couple of levels) - do you want your Heathkit calculator? The dresser mostly had a bunch of random stuff in it - I think one of the drawers was a sort of gift drawer that mom had created. Two and one eighth drawers had stuff in them. I boxed it all. Yay!

Next, I took a few boxes After that, I took some boxes that I had sitting around waiting for Godot on the front porch up into the room to be filled with extra books into the attack - only to make it clear to me just how many books and boxes had migrated into the "orange" room. (The rug is orange.)(This is my childhood room. So I always feel a little nostalgic in there.) The next day, I took more boxes out. Then I piled the remaining boxes near the door for their eventual trip heavenwards. So, all I had left to do was move those boxes and do some neatening and the room would be as ready as it was going to be. Maybe a quick vacuum. We shall see. Mom promised to dust the big table in there - she did actually help (in her way) clean off that table. That was probably the biggest job and I had forgotten that we had done it. (The table did get dusted - I don't know if mom did the actual work, or just supervised Jenny (the aide) doing it.)

I thought I had oodles of time. Turns out, I was wrong. I got a call from my boarder asking if she could move in much sooner than expected! Suddenly, my baby steps needed to be accomplished in rapid succession. Pack boxes, lug boxes, lug boxes, lug boxes. I think, in all, 20 boxes worth of crap made it up into the attic and out of that room. And I mean crap in the most loving, respectful way.

Things that didn't get done - I didn't vacuum the room. Or clean the bathroom we are sharing (except in a very cursorily (cursory sort of way)). But, it gone mostly done. Through baby steps. Yay!

Zoom, zip, pow!

I did in fact get the papers on my desklet sorted and the major bills paid. Yay! I count yesterday as a success. Well, most days I count as successes as I have survived them. That is a good thing, right? Other than that, not a lot of note occurred.

Dinner was totally left overs. And a salad. Does salad count as a leftover? Or does only leftover salad count as a salad? I mean the lettuce and the ingredients have all been in the fridge for a while. The carrots and celery last a long time bathing in water as they do. The mushrooms last longer in the fridge in a bag than they were lasting out of the fridge. Anyway, mom had left over taco stuff, I had left over fajita stuff. Everyone seemed happy.

Since it is so late in the day, I am going to touch on what is happening. I am at the Smith and work is progressing on many fronts. I am getting thing accomplished. Our volunteer is nearing completion of his first major project - getting some lighting storage built. The riggers are doing their fire curtain thing. All is swell with the Smith world. Yay!

Sorry for the thin and boring post. Maybe life will become more exciting later in the week. Here's hoping!

Guess who neatened his room!?!

That's right, this guy. Phase one is complete. I got my room back to a semblance of neatness. Most of the mess was clothing. So it wasn't that hard to clean up. We did laundry yesterday - mom read a book, had a snickers bar and a bottle of water out of the vending machines and watched me put clothes in machines and take them out again. She is, as I type, working away at folding some of the clothes. Go mom!

Sorry for the digression - where was I when I so rudely interrupted myself - oh, right, a neatened room. I wouldn't say clean because, well, it could do with a bit of vacuuming. That isn't going to happen anytime soon. Later today or tomorrow, though, the plan is to clean up my desk like thing - tomorrow - bill paying. Baby steps.

We also went to the library. Mom didn't really know why she wanted to go. Then she decided it was for Gideon books - they were all out of the library. And a book that she saw on the back of the New Yorker - which has four people requesting it before us. Yippee. I am thinking a few months before she will get to have it in her hands. We took out two Rumpole of the Bailey books but she found the one she tried to read not to her liking. Back they will go! I got out two audio books that I picked randomly from the shelves. I hope they are ok. 

Oh, huge-ish news! The pile of newspapers and other things in the corner of the dining room is completely gone. All that remains are some National Geographics which I have a hard time getting rid of for some reason. But they will be moving soon. I think the last time that corner was empty was 2009. Yay!

I did spend some time at the Smith yesterday, despite wanting to have a full week day away from the place. I did neaten a little there as well. And decided I would like some cross bracing on the light storage unit that Bruce built. It wobbles side to side a little too much for my comfort. I don't think that will present a problem. Not looking forward to working on that project on Monday. Poo even.

I ordered a set of Marx Brothers movies for mom. We shall see if she likes them as much as the Fred Astaire movies. I doubt she will. But at least we will have them for a rainy day. Speaking of which, I think a lot of the Northeast is getting rain today. Yay! And the trees are starting to tunr colors and shed leaves. Before we know it, snow! Erich, one of my nephews, loves winter. Me, I can take it or leave it. I have read somewhere that it is supposed to be a very cold winter. Brrr.