Week of 20260517 - Missed Church - Migraine; PowerPoint Photo Layout; Steph Has a Doctor; Help Asking for Help; Rolling Shelves; Trimming Limbs; Laptop Improvement; Conference Committee Interaction
= Sunday, by the time Steph was able to ask for Excedrin, it was too late to have it help in time for church. I almost ruined the water-level indicator float for the planters; I started to remove what I thought was packing foam; if you don’t understand something, that’s not your invitation to break it. [slow shake of the head] After coordinating with Steph, I sent a Word document with screenshots from the mock website the Cvent vendor had shown to us to the young single adult conference committee we’re advising.
= While considering how to present information about our mission, I hit on a better PowerPoint layout to accommodate 3x4 photos on a 9x16 PowerPoint slide: put the title and text on the side that’s away from the lectern so photos can be at their maximum height and you aren’t blocking text to point to items in the photo.
= Monday after work, Steph signed up with a doctor; her appointment is more than a month from now. We retrieved our "I love me" [certificate] books from storage; PayPal wanted Steph to prove she's married to me.
= Tuesday, I gave a speech that demonstrated my suggested PowerPoint layout (and included a few photos related to our mission). Because our insurance company wants fresh photos of our property, I started to trim branches overhanging our shed, visited our neighbors across the driveway twice, and wound up speaking with their son who mows our lawn; we negotiated a price for two hours of his time to deal with those limbs. (I would have to have propped a ladder against the apex of the shed, not an even side, while I stood on the ladder above the shed to use the chainsaw.) I had not intended to ask for help today, but I had help asking for it.
= Wednesday after work, we assembled rolling shelving units for the sewing room, units of the kind that we use in climate-controlled storage. Steph worked in the sewing room while I cleared vines and tree limbs I could handle with nippers.
= Thursday, Steph had a headache that turned into a migraine. I chatted with a helper at HP; he provided instructions to keep my laptop from rebooting when it dies; that will let me write down the error and then shut it down manually instead of having the error message immediately vanish. [It reboots less-frequently now that I’ve made this change. Hmm.]
= We considered a couples cruise deal obtained by senior missionaries who arrived in Ghana the same day we did: the Sroufes. Pricey but doable. And we’ve never been to Alaska. Just in case, I ordered an autoharp case that will fit in my suitcase, something if I had thought of long ago, we could have had the autoharp in Ghana. [sigh]
= Steph led a great interview for the podcast. With her concurrence, I sent a workbook format I had adjusted for the Young Single Adult conference committee to respond to Deeksha Goyal’s requests for information, filled in the best information I had, and sent it to the committee council.
= Except for limbs near the shed, I finished clearing limbs that I could reach with a ladder and nippers. (Why? So the two hours of help I agreed to pay for will be for things I can’t readily do.)
= Friday during the AI meeting, I summarized Copilot’s attempts to provide seasonal trends and 1st-quarter comparisons for three locations. After work, we drove to Prattville to watch “The Mandalorian and Grogu”. Home, we watched episodes of Reacher until midnight. We relaxed.
= Saturday, I moved some items from the house back to storage, spent some time with Dan Gordon, and picked up dessert at Walmart for tonight's meal. I was home by 4:45 to be with Steph for feeding young Elders at 5:30 (moved back from 6 by them to handle another appointment). After they left, I went back to Walmart to finish shopping and returning items. Steph successfully finished things associated with the podcast before midnight.
The red stick shows that there's water in the cavity below the dirt. This is a "self-watering" planter, but of course someone has to add water when the red isn't showing.
Our late-afternoon meal was Kraft Mac and Cheese with pulled pork and BBQ sauce.
The bonsai needed misting.
And Steph separated "daughter" bulbs from the tulips; maybe they'll grow also.
(And, there's a set of blue flowers that would have been crowded in the planter outside the craft room window.
I took a picture of the planter instructions before tossing them out: wet cardboard.
One oddity: the instructions claim that lid latches unlock when parallel; we find that they seem to lock when at 90 degrees. We'll look at this further when we put lids on a couple of these planters when the weather gets cold.
The planters are from Ollie's Outlet; they seem fine so far.
I removed the paper and plastic associated with six planters.
It would have been difficult to break this lock when it was locked, but when it was unlocked and hanging from another object, I accidentally popped out the hasp; this went into the trash. [We bought a larger lock.]
Big plastic containers for shoes are easier to paw through than piles in the closet would be.
Neighbors across the driveway from us had their grass removed.
Lawn sign for a business. The caricature looked like one used by a different business to sell mattresses. I later discovered that this guy is selling cars.
The trailer advertises a GPS tracker.
My solution to condensation
Climate storage. We rolled three of these out before we had what we needed today. Then we rolled them back into the aisles they filled.
Of course, it would be at the bottom of a stack of boxes that needed to be unloaded to reach it.
After its pull rope snagged on a cart we were moving back into place, the door refused to stay up by itself.
When I think of Smuckers, I think of jelly or preserves.
Smuckers Nails (!) "For the sweetest mani with serious shine" It advertises a one-step gel that doesn't need a lamp to cure it and has built-in base, treatment, color, and top coat.
A little shimmy going on with Walmart Radio
This employee is getting up in the world.
A thoughtful touch outside Publix: the "desk" is deliberately not blocking someone else's use of the ATM. (I would prefer the "desk" to be farther away, but at least there is one.)
The neighbors are getting a grass transplant (turf).
Steph finally got some rest.
Watering plants at night; the bonsai aren't looking good.
Beef flavor ramen with canned corn and its liquid: OK.
When trying to install front seat covers in the minivan, I found this remote to a DVD player that's folds down from the ceiling behind the front seats.
It had been in a pouch behind the driver's seat for a while. The contacts seemed sound, but the DVD player ignored both the remote and its manual controls (except that the player ejected a copy of "Finding Nemo").
Some folks have it tough.
'
Thoughtless to those who use a wheelchair
The Walmart recliner finds another satisfied customer
The duck needs more chlorine tablets.
I started to tackle the branches that are threatening to swallow our shed.
But the nippers weren't getting the job done. I would have to extend the ladder over the shed and try not to fall through the shed roof while wielding a chainsaw.
But I eventually hired our across-the-driveway neighbor's son Oscar to clear what he can of this in two hours.
My HP laptop is frustrating. What you see here is temperatures of each of the eight cores, being monitored for a half hour. The laptop passes all of HP's machine and operating system tests, but it continues to reboot "randomly".
Lizards in the States aren't as colorful as the ones in Ghana.
I had not included a container for Steph to mix her microwave rice and Korean BBQ tuna. She mixed the items in the rice bag and ate from there.
Here's a sample layout from rvleaders.com
Using our decorative pitcher to freshen the plants
I bought these two weeks ago for the sewing room. (We threw out our existing shelves before we moved; they were that bad.)
Supervisor and occasional helper
The instructions say to connect the poles to achieve full height before you start, but it's easier to build the bottom half, then add the poles for the top half. (Doing half at a time makes it easier to control pole wobble.) Empty boxes make a shelf roughly level while you shim its corners to the desired height.
I prepared for us to reach high to add shelves.
But stepstools weren't necessary. With help, the shelves were placed.
Trying to work using the iPad
The instructions say no tools are needed. You do need scissors or a knife to cut plastic ties.
The grey plastic you see is a pile of shelf liners: one sturdy liner for each shelf.
Some construction stages are easier from the floor.
Building the second unit, I didn't bother picking up the plastic shipping spacers first.
We negotiated shelf heights. This needs to fit Steph's needs, after all.
Room for bolts of fabric, and possibly some parked sewing machines
I had agreed to only two hours of Oscar's services. So, I thought it prudent to attack what I could readily handle to give him time to attack what I could not. This tree is near the fence that "connects" us to the neighbor on the circuit breaker side. I had not realized it was reaching out, and this one's on our property.
I dropped one limb over that fence I talked about earlier.
I left dangling branches for another day and more energy.
Steph's organization was well-underway.
The cat had made a mess when she was accidentally locked up.
But a plan was taking shape.
The bonsai are looking worse than before
Our small tomato plants are OK so far.
The minivan is in the street instead of in the driveway to make room to get the limbs from the back yard to the curb.
The bulgogi had been left long and stringy. Steph took care of that.
Bulgogi and mushrooms over rice: nice
Steph fired up an old gift.
I filled the folding carts that had been in the sewing room with items to return to storage.
Beginning to hoard boxes to help a friend move
I got tired of having this security system adapter on the dining room floor. (That system was left by renters.)
I removed the panel, snaked the wire out, and then removed this panel holder.
We should do this more often. Elsa doesn't mind the brush..
And pushing a button releases the hair for disposal.
Leaving it free for the next round
Cooler weather, more energy, I used nippers from the ladder to finish what I had started.
Daily, the needles are looking less- and less-green.
My attempt at egg salad. Eight eggs, 1/4/ cup of Miracle Whip..
1/4 cup of sweet salad cubes (cucumbers)
1 teaspoon honey dijon mustard
Result, good!
Just taking a photo as a sample. We'll install trim to overlap recessed window openings in the master bedroom to try to reduce the light that gets around the blackout shades.
Our vegetable garden and a few tulips
I think our gutters need cleaning. (We only have a dozen feet of gutter; it shouldn't take long.)
Getting ready for work is a process.
Steph was on the phone when I stopped by her office at work.
Buttered popcorn at the movies
It appears to us that Prattville is getting another hotel.
Interesting name for an eatery
[good]
[had almost no donuts ready]
I moved table and chairs out of the dining room to clean the floor well.
..
Still misting our probably deceased bonsai.
As Grady Springer has taught us, most vehicles get bigger tires, not raised axles, to get farther off of the ground.
They really, really don't want us to turn early.
The plate says ICEBRG; the all-white vehicle says TUNDRA. Nice match.
The plate says LEXME. Poof, it's a Lexus.
Who puts a cowcatcher on the rear bumper?
Steph was ready for our dinner guests.
(Somehow, I missed taking a photo of the four Elders who ate with us.)
Walmart: you don't have to go to Michael's for frames.
These have come down in price, I think.
In a Walmart gas station teller's window
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