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themartianchick

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About themartianchick

  • Birthday August 4

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  • Gender
    Female
  • Location
    Central NY State
  • Interests
    The 3 Rs...Readin', 'Ritin', and Researchin'!

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  1. We are getting some snow and wind in NY today. I have been racking up the hours for one client and creating materials for others. I haven't felt this good in years. I've been sleeping in most days and staying up pretty late. Being able to sleep on a schedule that aligns with my Seasonal Affective Disorder has made me more productive...and creative. I did manage to do some cleaning and straightening over the past few days and downsized my shoe collection a bit. I need to do the same with the clothes in my closet. I have far too many items, including items that no longer fit. It is so difficult to get rid of "aspirational weight-loss clothing." I have also boxed up a lot of my book collection. I own a lot of books, but I'm only attached to certain ones. We intend to buy another house, and I want them packed up and ready to go. I've already read them all, but I have to have books in any house that I live in! We have begun planning our next trip to Florida, so I have been packing items that need to be relocated there. Tomorrow will be colder and I have to get Dad to a doctor appointment and maybe do a bit of grocery shopping. We have plenty of food and nothing that I want to cook.
  2. Good morning, everyone! Don't you just hate it when you know that you have something, but can't find it? I went through that yesterday. Our oldest daughter called to ask if I had some discarded materials that she could use to create a greenhouse effect for some flowerpots. I remembered that I had been gifted one of those small wire frame seed starter-type greenhouses and never used it. I was positive that I knew exactly where it was stored...and just couldn't find it. The good news is that I managed to find one of those small seed starter trays with a lid and gave her that for the time being. The other good news is that kickstarted the cleaning of my craft room and the bedroom closet... and under my desk, too! This is the first time in years that I have had enough free time to even attempt to do this. The only bad news is that I'm not finished with any of the three areas that I mentioned and I still haven't found the mini greenhouse. Today, I will be eating the final container of last week's soup and a few other fridge leftovers. I have already gotten in a long walk and hope to finish my closet and desk today. I need to find a better storage option for my shoe herd, though. The craft room is going to take a long-term investment of time. In addition to storing crafting supplies for crafts that I no longer make, it also houses holiday decorations and any other crap that I can push in there when I need to "clean-up" quickly because company is coming. I'm not really ready to face that right now.
  3. Our local mall was giving away free glasses to view the upcoming solar eclipse, so I went to collect them. We already have some but plan to give these ones to family members to keep them safe. I had a couple of virtual meetings today, but it has been pretty laid-back. I spent an hour looking for stone floor tile to install on the kitchen counter in the condo. I want the look of stone but refuse to pay thousands for a slab. I need to order some samples so that I can see what it really looks like. I need to take care of dad's taxes, but that will probably be pushed off until tomorrow. I am glad that the storm hasn't been as bad for Mt. Rider. We are only expected to get rain from the same system. We live in a major snowbelt that usually gets dumped on. This year, we haven't had much worth shoveling and are way behind the averages. Here is a link to an annual contest between NY cities: https://goldensnowball.com/ Feel better, Littlesister! There is no need to try to push through an illness. You've been working hard enough and deserve to take some time to support your health.
  4. Now that Family Dollar and Dollar Tree are owned by the same company, I am not surprised that they are trying to close stores. Family Dollar had a habit of opening new stores within easy walking distance of each other. It really over-saturated the market. In my city, we have 4 on the same street and on the same side of town. The street is also serviced by a major bus route, which makes it even more ridiculous from an economic development point of view.
  5. Hubby did manage to fix the auger, but it could not manage to move the clog. So, we called Roto Rooter and they jetted the line...twice. It didn't work. In fact, their hose actually burst the second time. So, they used their auger on the cleanout valve in the basement instead of the floor drain, and that did the trick! The cost was more than we wanted to spend on a repair like that, but it could have been far worse. A neighbor had to have their sewer pipes dug up to address a similar problem. That would have cost thousands of dollars. I still feel as though I lost the entire day and hope to make up for it tomorrow. At least, I can cook tomorrow.
  6. My sincere condolences, Euphrasyne and Mother... It is always difficult to lose someone that you care about. I know that to also be true when you lose a fur-baby, Miki! We are busy in our household today. Yesterday morning, hubby discovered that we had a small sewage backup in the basement. He figured that he'd address it after lunch because he had something else to do in the morning. As it turned out, he couldn't fix it and planned to work on it this morning. Today, he can't get the drill to go back on the drum auger and it might not work anyway. He has kept me busy searching for solutions online and I'm just about ready to call a plumber. We actually had to go to one of our vacant rentals (about 2 miles away) to use the bathroom. We have the 5-gal bucket w/ seat and a chemical toilet, but we don't really want to deal with either of those right now. I think that we will need to get the line hydrojetted. Who knows how much that will cost?
  7. Good morning, everyone! Today, I am taking my dad to get an x-ray and hoping that is the only thing on his agenda. We took him grocery shopping last week and made a little outing of it by taking him to see our daughter's new house before the demolition/rehab begins. He can be extremely slow in a store and a simple trip to the doctor's office and a store like BJ's or Walmart can take up an entire afternoon. My husband had been managing the majority of his appointments, but now that I am retired I will be doing more. Aside from that, I plan to get in some weight training and a walk today. The temperature is going up to 58 degrees, so it should be a beautiful day! Hubby will be fixing something on his sister's car. I also need to get our health insurance sorted out. I tried to apply for coverage on the NY Health Exchange on Sunday, but the website had a problem in the middle of the application. I also need to find a Medicare Part B for hubby, as he was using my work insurance to cover that portion of his medical expenses. No cooking will happen today, as we have leftover chicken soup and rolls for dinner. Have a great day!
  8. The 'little consulting work' that I mentioned has now consumed about 4 hours of my day and isn't all comprised of billable hours. However, I did pick up 2 new clients (old friend and his girlfriend) so that should pay off down the road. So far, the bread machine has made the dough for rolls, and I made the chicken salad and chopped salad. I even managed to pace through the house while talking to the new client! (That counts as exercise, right?) I do need to take care of that humidifier, though. Once the sun goes down, I lose all energy to get things done. I am inspired by your diligence, Littlesister! I have some deep cleaning and decluttering that needs to occur in this house, but I keep procrastinating. Maybe I'll start next week...
  9. You are busy, Necie! My husband still drags his feet when I mention that I can order the exact thingamajig he needs online versus going to six different local stores and hoping that they have the correct obscure part. There has to be a male gene involved in this... Today, I will make chicken salad, a chopped salad, wheat rolls, and soup. I will also be cleaning out my humidifier. It is designed to give the whole house some extra moisture when the heat is on and addresses some of the menopausal eye dryness that I've been dealing with. You are supposed to only use filtered water in it and I started out using a Brita to provide it. Hubby decided that it was too much work and started filling it with tap water, so it now has some limescale in the bottom. I also plan to filter some more water so that there is always some available to pour in. I also have a little consulting work to get through, too. Have a great day, everyone!
  10. The beauty of the drying porch was that it was fully screened. I could hang clothes out when it rained and I used to put up plastic sheeting during the winter. I couldn't dry clothes out there all winter, but could dry them through December and whenever there was a thaw. The upstairs laundry room also had racks for drying. It doubles as extra pantry space, too. Our basement is a dirty one. The house is an old Victorian so everything is stone and cement. I hate doing laundry there because if you drop something on the floor, it becomes instantly dirty. For that reason, I don't use the drying racks in it. With a little luck, we will be out of this house soon and will rent it out. I want a really clean basement in the next house and I want it remodeled into a rec room and laundry.
  11. Although my last day on the job was February 29th, today felt like the first day of (my second stab at) semi-retirement. We are back in Central NY and I laid out a few goals to work on. The first one involves taking care of my health: proper sleep, exercise, and nutritious meals. To kickstart that goal, I slept a little late and put a chicken in the oven at 10 am. I got a good workout in and fixed a couple of sides to go with it. I sorted through all of the mail that had accumulated during our month in Florida and watched Amazon Prime all afternoon in my pajamas. I did manage to unpack a few items that were in my suitcase but didn't work too hard at it. The good thing is that everything that we brought back is clean, as there is a washer and dryer in our condo. I can certainly empathize with your laundry situation, Euphrasyne... In NY, I used to have a 2nd floor laundry room and a 2nd floor back porch that I could dry clothes on. During the years that I was caring for my mom, my husband re-located the laundry to the basement against my wishes. To line-dry clothes now, I would have to schlep them from the 2nd floor to the basement for washing and then haul them back to the 2nd floor to hang them to dry. I used to do his laundry...Not anymore! In Florida, we don't have a drying rack and I have too many clothes that can shrink in a dryer. I had noticed a mildew odor in my closet and decided to wash all of the clothes that had been in there for the past few years. That is when I realized that I had no place to hang them. I ended up putting them all on hangers and hanging them up on the curtain rod for the patio doors, in the coat closet with the doors open, on the shower curtain bar, on the towel racks inside the spare bath, on my exercise bike, etc... I was positive that one of our friends would drop by unannounced and see the house looking like a weird, clothing store.
  12. Violet used to post solid advice about food preservation on Mrs. S. I believe that she passed away a little while back, but her posts should still be searchable. She was a stickler for using all of the proper procedures and equipment, as she used to teach food preservation through her local extension office.
  13. You'll be missed, Jeepers! Be safe...
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