On to the next...

 

Here we are just nine days away from Christmas and then only a week after that – the New Year! Am thinking that I am not the only one thinking that time passes very quickly -- at least sometimes. Am also thinking that I am one fortunate person...for a lot of reasons really.  Case in point...

Just one week ago my son and his family arrived and were able to spend a long weekend with me. My daughter and her family (who live in the same town as I) were able to join in as well. Perfect! Such all-together times are rare. (I love having all my chicks under my apron -- if only for a few marvelous days.)  So fun – a little nuts off and on -- but wonderful all the way around.  For one thing, they surprised me with having arranged for a family photo session – something I have wanted to do for a long time.  Unfortunately, it was a breezy and damp 36º and a bit muddy as we headed through the clumpy pasture -- dotted here and there with patches of slippery snow. Someone thought my old red barn would make the perfect backdrop for the photos.  (I forgive that person. They were right, after all.)  We all survived and although we were coatless for the trek and the photo shoot, no one can see the shivers in the still photos.  All in all, it went just fine and the photographer (Thank you, Barb! - of Be Inspired Photography) was fantastic – managing the 8 of us well… which … had to have been akin to "herding cats" or "being confined in a room with a bunch of wild ferrets".  My family can be somewhat uncontrollable and unpredictable when we are together.  I love that about us. I think we are fun. Anyway – the "sneak peek" photos turned out beyond great.  Can hardly wait to get them all … think I will try to make one of those photo books for each branch of the fam. Update -- was able to download all the photos last evening.  Can you "see" me smiling?  I am. Most definitely.

Anyway - now onward to 2022… hope it will be a new beginning of a better time for all. I am going to try to look forward with just an occasional looking back. I mean -- we all learned a few things during the past couple of years and I may need to touch base once in a while just so I am reminded of all the important lessons I learned. Then there are the important times that need to be remembered ... and ... family times are, obviously, #1 in the important category. Then again -- now that I think of it -- good friends should be included in that category as well. Yes ... Family and Friends -- gifts both. They make up the most important circles of life -- each of us has such circles ... at least one. I cherish them.  Am thinking that you do as well.

Anyway – I wish you all a lovely holiday season and New Year. I hope that you have people with whom to share these times - family and/or friends.  We have all come through the past couple of years and...  survived many challenges.  We cannot give up now.  Right?

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

 

Never a dull moment...

 

It’s been a nutty few weeks -- annoying, but minor "stuff", in the grand scheme of it all.  We have all had such times.  The thing is ... for me … it is essential to find something humorous at such times.  So… here’s the deal.  The situation involves two, totally separate occurrences.  #1 is the survey that Best Buy wants me to submit, and #2 the shipment of a heavy cylinder of O rings I received from a family-owned company in Texas - O rings that I never ordered. Exhale.

Let’s start with Best Buy and I will make this a painless as possible for you to read.  On October 1^st, after an extensive and exhausting search for a white double wall oven unit to replace my 20-year-old one, I found one online at Best Buy in Erie, PA (44 miles/32.7min) from my home.  Perfect. (White, by the way, is apparently no longer a socially acceptable color in new appliances – totally out of the popular spectrum and therefore almost impossible to find.  So, of course, that is the kind I love the most. It matches my kitchen.  I like what I like and the finish doesn't show fingerprints.)  Anyway – It was delivered and installed on November 1st by two pleasant young fellows sent, for some unknown reason, from Akron, Ohio (150.8 miles/2hrs24 min) from my home.  When they left my house both ovens worked perfectly, but they installed the double ovens leaving them sticking out 2 inches from the wall cupboard – necessary because there was a junction box behind them that needed to be moved and these nice fellows would not/could not move it.  Okay – I understand.  So… I had the junction box moved by others and the oven fit perfectly – except it was discovered in this final process that the Akron installers had broken an important piece that holds the control panel in place – or perhaps it came broken. Who knows?  Duh…  

Long story short – Best Buy has no email address for any customer support so... I wrote them a letter.  I had pictures that I so wanted to attach to an email so that they could “see” the situation.  Crickets. More Crickets. And here I was having taken the time to learn how to move pics from my phone to my PC and how to attach them. Sigh…  So – I contacted the appliance company itself.  They do have a customer support email.  Immediate response. They loved my photos and sent an appliance repairman on December 2^nd.  He ordered the necessary part(s) from his phone and will be back on the 16^th to replace whatever it is that needs to be replaced.  They will bill Best Buy. I had, after all, purchased that pricey five-year- warranty.  Note – I still have heard nothing from Best Buy… except ...  they just sent me a customer satisfaction survey. And guess what – you can attach pictures.  😁 I am going to have fun with this survey for sure. I will let you know if Best Buy actually puts my review on their website.  I am not betting the ranch on it. Oh --Guess what? Update! Best Buy did post my review … and they are sorry – yet -- still did not offer an email address. Said I could chat with them or call.  I am just not into chatting online – the answers seem to be computer generated by a slow-running machine with a human name that doesn’t read well, doesn't grasp what you have already described,  and asks you stupid questions that have nothing to do with the problem. Further…I don’t really have the patience for in-person calling unless it is absolutely the best option for the situation. (You probably noticed this lack of patience in my response to things before this point ….  I get that.)

As for the O rings....  Amazon let me know that the backorder for the weed torch I wanted was cancelled as they could no longer get that particular brand. I found it at this family-owned company in Texas in about three minutes, so I ordered it. To continue -- although Olga, with a smiley face, had checked the order – alas – they had shipped me a heavy cylinder containing a sack of 2” O rings instead of the torch.  I called them (the best option) and who did they connect me to?  Olga.  Olga sounded overworked and shorthanded … but…  we ended up having a lovely chat and she was going to send me the weed torch immediately. I am not holding my breath, but I did believe her.  I like her. We will see.  She said to keep the O rings - for now.  Not sure what that means.  A good friend of mine suggested that I could make jewelry out of them.  Hmmm…  Update!  Huge thanks to Olga.  The Bluefire 32” Weed Torch arrived safely to my porch. I still don’t know what to do with the O rings….  Ideas? I am just hanging onto them --for now.

So…  those two things are on my mind at the moment.  One thing for sure… I would rather think about stuff like this than the current state of affairs politically, or of the anxiety mongering media, or the perpetration of the fears of the damncovid by those “in power”. I am sick of all of that. "Stuff" like that seems to be always there seething under the surface. It may even have something to do with frustration levels and a lack of patience.  Don’t know for sure.

Makin' a list and checkin' it twice...

It’s that time of year – a time of meal planning, gift buying, and -- in the hills of northwest Pennsylvania -- a time for taking the buckboard to town in order to lay in supplies for the stormy winter days ahead (It’s actually snowing a wet, heavy snow as I begin to write this post – accumulating about an inch an hour for a while now. Here we go….) 

Now those of you who have been reading From Pencil Box to Keyboard for a while now know that I am a planner type – some might say – obsessed a bit with structure and very much drawn to list making as if lists had strong gravitational pull. Case in point – my Thanksgiving post just last week was in list format.  I definitely do not fly through my life willy-nilly by the seat of my pants. I am most comfortable with at least some sort of a plan… even if it is vague.  We are who we are….

Anyway – it is that time of year when lists spring up daily in my head and then appear on my kitchen counter. I keep a list tablet there... sometimes more than one.  Also -- In addition to my list of passwords for various websites, I find myself awash in other lists.  There are shopping lists – one per holiday meal - in addition to the regular weekly one. There is a Christmas card address list which needs to be updated soon and a budding list of things I must remember when doing taxes in the all too near future. Then there are the daily To Do lists that sometimes spread over a week and/or across an entire month.  Sometimes I think I need an index list to keep track of all my lists.  It’s that bad.

I confess I am awash in lists for sure. Some people are convinced that we all have these "must do" lists – either mentally, on an electronic device or ... hand written. I prefer the hand written ones because it is fun to pick up a pencil and cross off things as I move through the list. It is satisfying. I have been known to write down something extra and unplanned that I accomplished just so I can cross it off the list. Yes, really.  If it is a chore list, I always start out with the hardest one – you know -- to get it checked/crossed off early and out of the way – off the list. (If I do nothing else all day, at least I did that hard to do thing.)  But – I think we need to remember that there are fun lists too.  I love to think of bucket lists and wish lists, of lists of my goals and of the steps I need to do to get there.

The only thing I don’t really understand is the laundry list.  What is a laundry list? Where did that phrase originate?   Something to do with a laundry for sure. My life has never had laundries.  We always did our own laundry – and that process did not involve lists – only separating whites from darks… and maybe pretreating -- steps in the laundry process that not everyone does anymore - much to my amazement. It also involved me learning to iron starting with my Dad's handkerchiefs. I was 8 and the ironing board seemed very tall. (That was also before steam irons. There was the sprinkle bottle to help you create your own steam, and the irons were heavy -- very heavy.) Remember, too, that was before permanent press.  Boomers understand what that entails - something akin to waking up hill both ways.  Anyway -- calling a list of seemingly unrelated chores a To Do list is simpler for me…  so just check that laundry list question off the question list. Put that on your To Do.  

Happy Thursday!  It is now twenty-three days until Christmas... just in case you weren't counting down.  If you forget the day count, just ask any of your grandkids.  Bet they will know.  They recently made their Christmas Lists.