Keeping cool and uncollected on my break
This has been a weird week off, almost reminiscent of camp 2004. That was the year it was barely in the 60s all week, and I was yelling at the kids--most of whom had just been my students--to go put pants on, and some of the would say, we didn't bring any! You just don't expect it to be that cool in August. That's how Tuesday and today were, randomly cool. It did hit the 70s today but was in the upper 60s by about 5 o'clock. Cloud cover helped with that. It was a bummer for me since those were two of the days I was at the house, so I wanted to spend time outside. Tuesday felt cooler, and mom and I did take a walk to the post office and Goodwill so at least I got my outside time; today, I tried to have lunch outside, but the wind picked up and once I was finished eating, back inside I went.
I did get some stuff accomplished around the house, including pulling old sheets to go to recycling. I spent a bit of time looking up what could be recycled and what couldn't, as that's changed over the years. Like before, batteries had to be recycled at the public works building in town. Now, if they're regular old alkaline? They can be thrown in the trash. Other batteries have to go into the household hazardous waste pile, and that recycling location is in Naperville near the Target. I know just where it is; alas, the hours are 9-2 Saturday and Sunday. That's not convenient for work or band, guys. It would be so much easier if I could go when I was already in the area.
Textiles and shoes and cell phones, those can go to the recycling center that I pass on the way to work every day, only a couple miles down the road. Except...guess what...MORE streets were closed today! Oh goody. Like, with Western closed--and they only added "Western Avenue" to the detour signs this week; we saw that on Wednesday--I've been taking Van Nortwick. Except today, now even that was closed. Seriously, Batavia, did you *have* to close like every other street on the northwest side at the same time? My only choice was to go all the way out to 31, which I didn't want to do since it's a busy street, but I got super lucky and there was no traffic so making a left onto it was easy-peasy. Not sure what's going to happen when I go back to work but that's Monday's concern. Anyway, the recycling drop off is super easy, and then I went and got gas and a wash and returned home. Mom and I have plans in the morning so dad and I opted to go grocery shopping about 1 this afternoon. Let's just say that there's a specific demographic of shoppers at that time and while I don't fit it, dad does. We had our driveway sealcoated this morning so we had to schlep our stuff from the street and over the grass, but otherwise that was fine.
The rest of my time has been spent trying to catch up with various things. No kidding, one item on my to-do list was "make a to-do list," heh. In cleaning my room--I'm a doom pile person, if you know what those are--I came across an old little notebook I'd acquired from my grandfather and in which I'd started an older to-do list. Many of the items haven't changed, sadly enough, but it was a good place to put my current one. I'd toyed with the idea of typing it up and putting it online, as I'm starting to get into Google docs through work, but ultimately I decided that pen on paper works for now. I just need to do lots of things. Did I get to a fair amount of it this week? Yes. Have I only scratched the surface in some ways? Also yes. At least I've gotten rid of a few things that have been weighing me down, as I've realized excess stuff and clutter only exist to make me feel heavy at this point. And now that I've written a few things down, I have a better idea of what needs to be tackled in the future. How soon that will happen, I don't know; work's about to get pretty stressful and that will take much of my energy. Making a dent does help a bit, even mentally, so I will chalk it up as a win. And, I still have two more days to make progress.
Oh! And one more thing that was on my to-do list--I needed to update the credit card on my Ancestry.com account, except after 23&Me had its data breach last year, Ancestry decided to be cautious with its customers and went with 2-step verification in order to access accounts. Alas for me, mom's email had been the one on the account, so I've needed her to be around for me to log in and get the code from her email. We finally did that today, and I told her I was taking her email off the account. She was all, can't we both get the emails? No, mom, that's not how it works. I also haven't been able to access the account at all since this happened, so it's been months since I've even looked at anything or checked hints or whatnot. One of my little to-do projects involves typing up stories about a distant cousin I'd connected with and who has since passed away. I want to share some of what he'd told me so other people know what he was like--he was a theater guy who then became a nurse, if I remember correctly. Nice guy. Sorry to hear he'd died suddenly. I also set the account so that both mom and I should have access to it on our respective devices. Worse comes to worse, she'll need to get the code from me. I told her, if she wanted to pay for the account and put her card on there, she'd be welcome to keep getting the emails. Otherwise, as the card holder, I should really be getting them. The username info isn't changing. Everything else is the same.
I did get some stuff accomplished around the house, including pulling old sheets to go to recycling. I spent a bit of time looking up what could be recycled and what couldn't, as that's changed over the years. Like before, batteries had to be recycled at the public works building in town. Now, if they're regular old alkaline? They can be thrown in the trash. Other batteries have to go into the household hazardous waste pile, and that recycling location is in Naperville near the Target. I know just where it is; alas, the hours are 9-2 Saturday and Sunday. That's not convenient for work or band, guys. It would be so much easier if I could go when I was already in the area.
Textiles and shoes and cell phones, those can go to the recycling center that I pass on the way to work every day, only a couple miles down the road. Except...guess what...MORE streets were closed today! Oh goody. Like, with Western closed--and they only added "Western Avenue" to the detour signs this week; we saw that on Wednesday--I've been taking Van Nortwick. Except today, now even that was closed. Seriously, Batavia, did you *have* to close like every other street on the northwest side at the same time? My only choice was to go all the way out to 31, which I didn't want to do since it's a busy street, but I got super lucky and there was no traffic so making a left onto it was easy-peasy. Not sure what's going to happen when I go back to work but that's Monday's concern. Anyway, the recycling drop off is super easy, and then I went and got gas and a wash and returned home. Mom and I have plans in the morning so dad and I opted to go grocery shopping about 1 this afternoon. Let's just say that there's a specific demographic of shoppers at that time and while I don't fit it, dad does. We had our driveway sealcoated this morning so we had to schlep our stuff from the street and over the grass, but otherwise that was fine.
The rest of my time has been spent trying to catch up with various things. No kidding, one item on my to-do list was "make a to-do list," heh. In cleaning my room--I'm a doom pile person, if you know what those are--I came across an old little notebook I'd acquired from my grandfather and in which I'd started an older to-do list. Many of the items haven't changed, sadly enough, but it was a good place to put my current one. I'd toyed with the idea of typing it up and putting it online, as I'm starting to get into Google docs through work, but ultimately I decided that pen on paper works for now. I just need to do lots of things. Did I get to a fair amount of it this week? Yes. Have I only scratched the surface in some ways? Also yes. At least I've gotten rid of a few things that have been weighing me down, as I've realized excess stuff and clutter only exist to make me feel heavy at this point. And now that I've written a few things down, I have a better idea of what needs to be tackled in the future. How soon that will happen, I don't know; work's about to get pretty stressful and that will take much of my energy. Making a dent does help a bit, even mentally, so I will chalk it up as a win. And, I still have two more days to make progress.
Oh! And one more thing that was on my to-do list--I needed to update the credit card on my Ancestry.com account, except after 23&Me had its data breach last year, Ancestry decided to be cautious with its customers and went with 2-step verification in order to access accounts. Alas for me, mom's email had been the one on the account, so I've needed her to be around for me to log in and get the code from her email. We finally did that today, and I told her I was taking her email off the account. She was all, can't we both get the emails? No, mom, that's not how it works. I also haven't been able to access the account at all since this happened, so it's been months since I've even looked at anything or checked hints or whatnot. One of my little to-do projects involves typing up stories about a distant cousin I'd connected with and who has since passed away. I want to share some of what he'd told me so other people know what he was like--he was a theater guy who then became a nurse, if I remember correctly. Nice guy. Sorry to hear he'd died suddenly. I also set the account so that both mom and I should have access to it on our respective devices. Worse comes to worse, she'll need to get the code from me. I told her, if she wanted to pay for the account and put her card on there, she'd be welcome to keep getting the emails. Otherwise, as the card holder, I should really be getting them. The username info isn't changing. Everything else is the same.