Random 5 for January 30, 2022 – Snow, balance, internet woes, smart things, mysteries

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One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes winter cartoons!

Snow No! — We were at the cut off for a nor’easter snowstorm that came up the east coast of the US. “They said” we would get a covering to 2 inches but we got closer to 4. I can’t complain as the hard hit areas got over 24 inches. We had 26 inches last year just before we moved. Not fun. The beloved husband had two houses to clear. New house is so much easier. The driveway is shorter and the walks are too. Easy peasy.

Catawampus — We have big windows at the back of the house. They are lovely but…well…big. Wonderful when the sun shines but expensive when you want to change out the covering. There are three sets of bamboo shades there now. They are very hard to get even. They always look catawampus. The whole house is catawampus. The fireplace isn’t centered nor is the kitchen window. Nothing is really centered. I will have to live with catawampus for a while. I have to be careful I don’t walk with a tilt.

Gotta love the techies – My internet browser window flipped to the uppermost left hand corner of the screen and I couldn’t grab it to pull it down. (I suspect a certain cat walked across my keyboard and hit a secret key.) I couldn’t do anything. I have another browser downloaded but I haven’t used it in years. It was being persnickety so I used the beloved husband’s computer to google an answer. (Note to self: When you can’t use the internet to google an answer you are up the creek!) A techie had posted a step-by-step instruction to get it down and dang it worked.

Still on techies – I bought a smart plug for a light. Once connected it would turn on and off with a voice command which would allow the light to go on when entering the dark area. Of course I didn’t understand the instructions. It said I needed a smart bulb. I went to our local bulbs and batteries store which has smart people too. The guy said I don’t need a smart bulb with a smart plug. It’s one or the other. (Maybe they would compete for the smart award?) So with no sale in sight, he took my plug and showed me how to set it up (which he doesn’t sell in his store). First he did it on the store’s Bluetooth but he also set it up on my phone so all I had to do when I got home was switch it to my Bluetooth. He spent a half hour showing me how to use my phone. For no sale! You gotta love techies. They love to show off their skills and I love letting them. Brashly I asked him to come home with me but he just laughed. The beloved husband is wonderful with wood but not technology. I am the techie in this house and that is scary.

Well that’s weird – We had a light covering of snow early yesterday (before the large snowstorm). Very early in our driveway there were tire tracks that came right up to the garage. As I came out of the bedroom in my bathrobe, the beloved husband asked if I was out. I had just crawled out of bed so not likely. Occasionally people use driveways to turn around but this person came all the way up. Another mystery of life that we can’t blame on a cat.

So how was your week?

 

63 thoughts on “Random 5 for January 30, 2022 – Snow, balance, internet woes, smart things, mysteries”

  1. The tire tracks up to the garage door creep me out, too!! Yes on the techie stuff, I’m the techier of the 2 of us but there are still things I can’t figure out and need the kids/grands for. Somedays I wish things were simple – give me a light bulb and a dumb lamp, stat! We had 45F and rain then a 25F night and that heavy wet heart attack snow – about 5″ — the kind that clogs snow blowers and kills you with a shovel. Damn groundhog! 🙂 MJ

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    • Don’t put your faith in groundhogs. (Good title for a song!) I’m hoping for an early spring. Any snow (almost) is heart attack snow. We are having your rain right now but the precip will move out before the temps drop low enough for snow.

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  2. We were supposed to get 18 inches of snow from early this morning until 10:00 tomorrow night. It got a slow start but they say an inch an hour … I’m dreading going outside tomorrow morning as it’s the heavy stuff. I likely will not do it all in one fell swoop and I know the plow will go by and make a bigger mess. Bring on Spring!

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  3. I agree about Google as a text book or instruction manual! My daughter actually fixed our dishwasher in 2020 when we couldn’t have anyone come to the house. She used Google and YouTube and was able to perform a complex series of maneuvers and it is still working well. 🙂

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  4. Snow shoveling, Yes, “easy peasy” — when you’re not the one doing it!

    I spend a fair amount of time in Ohio, where, as you know, it snows quite a bit. The window in my upstairs bedroom faces the house across the street. The woman who lives there (apparently) loves to shovel snow. She works a pattern, never veering, up and down, across and back. Smooth, silent and skilled in her calling, like a zen master. It is mesmerizing and relaxing to watch.

    Namaste.

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  5. Here in the Boston area, we got 20 inches of the white stuff. I would have gladly shared some of it with you. Oh the plowing! The shoveling! Well, no, not by us, but still. The ice! And soon it will melt with a large amount of rain and sleet coming our way. Ah, January and February, how you challenge us. By the way, I really like the word Catawampus. Explains so many things that are …. unexplainable.

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  7. What if a cat did do it? I read that some people think they are cats btw.
    Glad you didn’t get two feet of snow! That off-center stuff would drive me nuts unless I figured out a way to embrace it and make it look done that way on purpose. When I moved in here I couldn’t believe how the workers had stuck lights and outlets and all that kind of stuff all over the place–no concern for where it went or if it was centered or in the way of stuff. Eventually I figured out ways around most of it.

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  10. I am not a techie type either. So far, I have been able to muddle through most things…except I cannot get my printer set up! I can live without a printer, but it is easier for me to keep, and find records that are on paper. An age thing, I guess.

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    • There are some things I need a printer for. Right now we have a “wired” printer (I know, how primitive). I’ve moved my computer upstairs to one of the bedrooms and the printer is downstairs so if I need something printed, I have to email to my husband and have him print. A wireless printer is on our list of things to get but life has been so hectic it didn’t happen yet.

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  12. Hi, Kate – I’m the techie in our house as well. Although I have my theory that Richard is secretly hiding his tech skills so that he has more time to golf. He’s very clever that way.
    Oh, and about those tire tracks. Perhaps one of your cats borrowed the car? They are also very clever so nothing would surprise me. 😀 😀

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    • We really don’t either. Dan’s kids live across the country and it doesn’t work as well on the phone. We are buddies with google. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much. I would also like to adopt someone (like the guy at the bulbs store) t help out.

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  15. I have some of those smart plugs…I got one to work with Alexa so I could just ask her to turn my hard-to-manage lights off and on. She worked great for a while, then lost the connection. I think the plug might be at fault, and I can still use the plug’s app on my phone to control the lights. The plug is behind and under my headboard so no urgency to swap it out for another one. Might have to wait until I move…LOL! Ah, the retired life…. 😉

    Deb

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  16. That techie guy that helped you… he gives me hope for now and the future. Kindness like that is a gift. We don’t have a smart house but I think the smart bulb would be convenient. We have a smart refrigerator but we are keeping it dumb. Our smart phones and smart vehicle are enough to conquer… or not. I would so love a techie friend that could have helped with the blog and help me now with the new stuff introduced on Instagram. The tire tracks in the driveway that came right up would be driving me nuts!

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    • I’d love a friend who would teach me in steps. He showed me a lot on how to use my smart phone but by the time he was done, I had reached my limit of learning. I should look on-line for some videos but I never find the ones for the exact model I have.

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  17. I’m the techie here too, and it sucks sometimes. I’m trying to resolve a mail issue, and I find great answers, but I already have all those boxes checked. Maybe I need to go to a store and not buy anything because it sure worked for you. 🙂 I had five bamboo shades, and I loved them, until one broke and I couldn’t just replace one. It got expensive. 🙂

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    • These are around 20 years old. They don’t look bad but they are definitely a little beat up. We replaced some old duets in the big front windows last summer. It was a very wide window and a side window. They are mechanized so they so up and down together. Always even unless we deliberately put one farther down but definitely no catawampus.

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  18. Hmm, you think your bulb guy could help me hook up the new printer? I’ve been trying for over a month to get it hooked up to my network with no success. It’s clear I’m no techie which explains why my laptop was in the sick bay getting a tune up all week. At. All. 😬

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  19. I’ve got a movie for you, Kate ~> I.T. starring Pierce Brosnan. It’s a creepy thriller about the downsides of SMART devices that can be hacked into by those with techie acumen. ACK! We are glad our house is still a DUMB house.

    And ACK for the snow too. Strange about the tire prints. And footprints around the tread marks?

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  20. I’m about as “un-techie” as people can be these days but can figure out stuff and surprise myself sometimes. STILL all that SMART stuff is beyond me. Glad you had a techie guy who wanted to share his “tech tips” with you! We had some mystery tire tracks up our almost cleared (we had 2 inches of snow yesterday) driveway. I told husband probably wrong address thing – they realized before they even got to the top of our long driveway……somehow mystery footprints would be more mysterious though!

    Hugs, Pam

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    • There is a trick to it. We have a peaked ceiling in the family room and the fireplace is not centered with the peak. We are working on an asymmetrical arrangement with the fireplace and TV next to it all bordered with wood trim so it looks more centered. We’ll see how it goes. A visitor going through said that it didn’t catch their eye so I thought that was good.

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  23. I would consider marrying a man who is a techie simply because he’s a techie! Thankfully, I have no desire nor need for the latest and greatest gadgets (my phone is an iPhone 7 and I simply replaced the battery rather than buy a newer model). We got about 2+ inches of snow here total, though it’s not easy to be accurate because of the winds that drifted it higher and lower in places. It wouldn’t be so bad if the ‘feel like’ temperature was below zero! I truly feel bad for the people buried in 2+ FEET of snow and without power on top of it!

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    • We were lucky with the storm. I have an entry level android smart phone and so far it works fine. I wish we had a techie next door or maybe a 6 year old child would do too! They grow up smarter (at least about technology) these days.

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  26. Just a dusting of snow here, thankfully. Getting a 9 lb dog out in these temperatures isn’t fun. And I am the techie in our house too, which is equally scary. Thankfully the hubby is very good with tools and fixing things. We all have our strong points.

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