The current version is usually posted at http://wlweather.net/Pcw/
While I was combing my hair this morning, I remembered another story. Most of you were around for this one, and remember more of the details — I was in New York at the time.
When Dad parked his combine for the last time, he didn't know it was the last time. Before it was time to use a combine again, he had retired, bought a house trailer, and gone to Florida.
After a few decades, the combine was valuable only as scrap. I forgot or never knew whether Alice sold it or gave it away. Much to her astonishment, the new owners thought that they could tow it away on its own wheels. It was a great relief that it was off her property before it fell apart.
Which reminds me of another trash-cleaning story. Alice gave the barn to someone in exchange for cleaning up the mess, and he fished out the salable bits and left a bigger mess than before. She was quite wroth.
I celebrated the new year by counting my cash (while sitting at the table, if you remember the song). I have $24.90 more than Quicken says I have. I baffled and puzzled and checked that I had not forgotten a withdrawal, then entered the difference as a negative unrecorded expense.
There were at least two genuine unrecorded expenses, so the real discrepancy was bigger.
9:10 AM 2/1/2025
I got up at half-past eight and was still putting on tights at nine.
inch and a quarter of snow on picnic table
Dave accuses me of always "jumping on the computer", but I had no idea how much I used it until I spent an entire day being unable to add something to my shopping list, transcribe notes, check my e-mail, correct my chore list for the home helper, jot down an item for the Banner, . . .
2025SEW1.HTM — copy to Pictures of Tools
3 January 2025
[pictures] A frightfully-clever case that I improvised out of a greeting card to protect a needle threader. The two flaps fold in to keep the threader from falling out: roll it up, secure with a paper clip. Every few months I'd find it in the arm of the futon and wonder "what is this?"
Today I was darning a sock at the kitchen table, and had a terrible time re-threading the needle after weaving it into the sock. Don't I have a needle threader in the arm of the futon?" Yes, but I still had a terrible time persuading the short end to enter the loop of the threader. Finally I managed to rake it through with the point of my SuperSnips, being too lazy to get up and fetch a more suitable tool.
A long time after I made this case, my dentist prescribed fuzzy toothpicks. Every hundred days, I get a beautiful little case meant for ten toothpicks and just right for carrying a few needles and pins. All my other threaders were in plastic cases, and now this one is too. But it's not back in the arm of the futon; I put it into the snack bag of darning wool. Perhaps I'll add it to the go bag of hand-sewing tools when the darning is done.
The home-made case will be sent to the land fill as soon as I photograph it.
The computer is still down. Makes me nervous that I don't know how to back up this file.
Saturday, 4 January 2025
two tablespoons of cinnamon in about half a cup of brown sugar.
Dave ordered a 600 battery for my power supply, but made a typo and got a 650. It can't be sent back.
9:05 PM 1/7/2025
Quite a while ago, I created a desktop document called "Blankmap.odt" to print out map snippets before a ride. Pretty soon, I was also printing my itinerary and shopping list, and the document proved to be a convenient place to park small things I didn't want to lose track of.
Notepad is handy for taking notes, but prints lousy. So whenever I wanted a hardcopy of the chore list for the home helper, I would copy it into Blankmap and print just that one page, then delete it.
Well, duh, why not just leave it in the file and edit it for next week?
Then JOYXP died, and my only copy of Blankmap was on a thumb drive. Well, there's another copy on Optiplex4, but I can no longer contact Optiplex4.
I did copy it to the desktop on Vista, which is what I'm using to type this.
An old version of Open Office will run on Vista, but a Web browser capable of downloading it won't, nor has Dave figured out how to connect Vista to the printer. I'm seriously considering snitching one of his Linux computers.
With Linda T. coming tomorrow, I was getting desperate, so today I decided to copy Blankmap to a computer that had Libre Office on it, extract the chore list as a text file, and sneakernet it to Dave's laptop, which is connected to the printer.
There wasn't too much fussing and fuming about creating a text file, finally finding a USB port that worked, opening Blankmap, putting the entire contents on the clipboard (I couldn't see to move just what I wanted), pasting it into the text file, and deleting the unwanted parts.
Then I found the Sneakernet drive full. Deleting everything left it still full, and some of the folders wouldn't delete. They did empty. I finally had to reformat it.
Then I had to call Dave in before I could copy the txt file to the Sneakernet drive. Triumphantly we carried the drive to Dave's laptop, turned off the screen saver
. . . and saw an icon for Open Office.
I printed with Notepad.
7:20 PM 1/8/2025
Dave's new laptop died and he packed it up to send it back. I suggested making a tour of Alicks, where he needs to fill a prescription, Staples, to drop off the laptop, and Popeye's, to pick up lunch.
I listed chores for this week and next week, and Linda T. checked all of them off except vacuum the carpets, and I heard the vacuum in the living room and bedroom — I think she forgot to check it, or thought the job should be done over.
We saw Dr. King this morning, and not long after that Dave got a call from the clinic Dr. King had been nagging to call him. Now we have an appointment in Fort Wayne for the seventeenth.
1:25 PM 1/9/2025
This is the second time the lake has skimmed over with ice. The first coating washed up on shore when the wind resumed. On the way back from Popeye's, I saw some geese standing on the ice, but there are shiny spots way out that I suspect of being open water. With the wind so calm, it's hard to tell. The creek is open between the sand bar and our beach.
We liked our Popeye's chicken very much. Dave got a sandwich; I got a three-piece dinner so that we could have left-over chicken for supper. We shared the fries, I ate the biscuit all by myself.
I washed clothes and the fitted sheet before we went off to Alicks.
When we got home, there was an Amazon truck in our driveway, and the driver was halfway back from dropping off the new battery for the UPS that had started all this mess. (We disconnected JOYXP to swap power supplies, and it wouldn't start up again.) The box also contained a USB splitter and an electric razor.
I'm taking advantage of the outage to move the Linux computer to the spot where JOYXP was, so the cables won't get woven together again. I don't know what I'll do with all that monitor cable when the monitors and the switch between them are on the same table.
In addition to pulling a lot of cables out of the tangle, the mouse on Linux now reaches to the right side of the keyboard. I've been
6:26 PM 1/9/2025 I found a couple of USB ports on top of my vertical monitor when I took it off the table to be able to get at the computer I wanted to move. Dave doesn't have any more idea of what they are for than I do.
I looked up Lakeview School on Google Maps while I was reading the Times Union yesterday, and discovered that Google thinks there is a large store called "Antique Village" on the fairgrounds, not too far from the restored log house. After much puzzlement, I decided that it is a copyright trap.
I didn't feel like shopping after my nap, and Weather Underground and the stuff we saw spread on the streets on our way home suggest that it wouldn't be too bright to go tomorrow.
When I got up after kneeling to plug in the UPS that Dave put the new battery in, I absent-mindedly put my weight on the corner of a table that was balanced on a marine storage box to make it fit on a dolly, tilted it, and dumped Vista and all its peripherals. By some miracle, all that was needed was to pick up the stuff and put it back on the table. I figure that the tangle of cables broke the computer's fall.
I wanted to plug the power supply in so it would be fully charged when we get around to replacing the power strip with it.
Dave likes his new shaver, but he's keeping the box.
1:26 PM 1/10/2025
I thought that I uploaded PCW every time I closed DOSBOX, but it appears that I last backed up after creating the January Banner, but before writing anything in it.
And I write things down because I can't remember them.
Last Monday, I went to the library with Jeanie again, and it went much better. I sat between the same two women. Jeanie's version of long-tail cast on is much more clear than the one I'd been practicing out of The Learn to Knit Afghan Book. If I did a lot of casting on, I'd want to learn Barbara Walker's method. It takes a while to see how it works, but it works very fast.
My copy of Knitting Without Tears is missing.
Tuesday we saw the cardiologist, Wednesday the urologist, Thursday I've already mentioned, today I noticed that if I had a food bar for breakfast, I could buy groceries and get back before the roads got bad.
I went first to Martin's, took a quick glance to see that they don't sell GenTeal, and dashed back out without realizing that this was my chance to buy flatbuns and Hillbilly Bread, which is probably just as well, since I got home just as the storm began. When I came out of Aldi after getting things we were out of, such as walnut halves, and also indulging in two boxes of "Mochi" (ice-cream balls wrapped in Mochi, which is a sweet rice paste), the snow hadn't started, so I went to Zales. (We were almost out of GenTeal.) When I came out, there was a dusting of snow on the car and I had to use the windshield wipers on the way home, but the snow blew off and all that got dragged into the garage was what the tires picked up in our driveway.
So now we are all set to enjoy the storm from indoors. Dave said "I *like* Hillbilly Bread", and I said "Let them eat sourdough".
6:54 PM 1/10/2025
When there was last enough light to see, the lake was all white with a few spots suggesting open water.
8:12 PM 1/11/2025
The not-white spot closest to the sand bar appeared to be skimmed over with ice. I saw two children and an adult on the sand bar; I've no idea how they got out there and I'm not going to wade through the snow to look.
We have a little Hillbilly bread left. The bread bin of the freezer is stuffed. That's partly because there's a few Omaha Steaks at the bottom, but we've got a lot of bread.
My new computer will be delivered Monday, so I'm not putting any more effort into trying to get Thunderbird running on this one.
I was looking forward to an all-day ride today, and the weather was lovely, but Boy's City Drive was white so I thought the roads might be a bit iffy, and I didn't look forward to putting on four pairs of tights plus sweatpants. Last Saturday, I spent ten times as much time getting dressed as I spent on the bike.
1:03 PM 1/12/2025
I noticed, on the way home from church, that Grace not only hasn't removed the WLCC signs, they haven't switched them off. I have two theories: Nobody with the authority to turn them off has noticed that they are electric, or they haven't got a switch.
Ninth street is still blocked, so I came home by Sunday Lane. Used College to get to it, as 8th Street has not been plowed. Grace had cleaned the sidewalk along College, but the cleaning of the walk beside Ninth Street ended abruptly at the entrance to the dorm, with no way to get to the street, so I walked in the street. Took a good look when I got to the blockage, but the thick coating of snow left few clues as to what was going on. The Winona Lake Web site says only "road construction" — and says it will be open again on the ninth. I presume the thick coat of snow has something to do with the delay.
Dave says the new computer won't get here until Tuesday. He is annoyed. The wireless keyboard and mouse have arrived.
Yesterday I noticed a check list I'd made when we unplugged the computer to change the UPS, and realized that I hadn't plugged the scanner back in. So I plugged it in and Vista asked for the driver disk that had come with it. Consulted with Dave, and was on the verge of telling Vista to search the Web for the drivers when we decided to keep it in Dave's room instead of mine. So we plugged it into one of his computers and nothing happened. Much fussing and fiddling later, we decided to buy a new scanner. We decided on the current model of the one that failed — I liked it as long as it lasted — and he is ordering it now.
5:12 PM 1/12/2025
The gray patches on the lake are bigger and more numerous, but they aren't rippling.
11:57 AM 1/13/2025
First thing today, I rode (and walked beside) the flatfoot to the post office, bought a book of twenty flag forevers, and mailed the taxes. The box said that they will be picked up at four thirty.
Stamps are $ 0.73 now. Not as bad as I thought before I turned the "book" over and found that there were twelve more stamps on the back.
On the way back, I stopped at the park to put a book I've been carrying around for quite a while into the Little Library there. The Heritage Trail has, indeed been plowed, as I was told last summer, but isn't honestly open to bicycles. Luckily, I was riding a fat-tire pedestrian accelerator, so it was easy to walk beside it. Well, at least easier than wading in snow without a rolling cane.
On the way out, I saw a wheelchair ramp leading to a clean sidewalk in front of the post-office door, and thought I'd ride up it. I had to pick up my fat-tire bike to get it over the curb. I'm not sure a wheelchair could manage without a strong shove from a passer-by. I wonder whether I should report that — and to whom?
I intended to come back by way of the teller machine, being out of twenties, but I should have worn thicker socks, thicker gloves, one more pair of thin tights, and a light sweater.
9:16 AM 1/14/2025
Looked out the window and said "We're not going anywhere today — in either vehicle. (Forgot we also have a truck.) I couldn't see the other side of the lake if I didn't already know that it's there.
I haven't been able to find out how to use .log on Vista Notepad, and suspect that it doesn't have that feature. XP Notepad had exactly two features: F5 typed the date and time, and making the first line ".log" would cause it to jump to the end of the file and type the date and time when you open the file. I've been using .log for my weight record.
With my new computer due to arrive today — if the roads are passable — I DuckDucked to see whether that feature was in Windows 11. I learned that the programmers said "Hey, the wonderful feature of this program is that it's simple and doesn't have any features — so let's gussy it up and add a lot of features!"
First feature I learned is that it has tabs: if you doubleclick on a text file when Notepad is already running, it opens in the same window, hiding your current file in a tab. If I open two text files, it's because I want to view them side-by-side, glancing from one to the other, or copying text in one and pasting it into the other. The post does say that one can turn that feature off. Other hits headlined how to find a copy of Notepad that doesn't have tabs.
9:36 AM 1/14/2025 — I'd best leave reading the rest of the post for later and go eat breakfast.
11:20 AM 1/14/2025
It's ".LOG"!
I put elastic into the neck of my other flowered shirt. Now I need to iron my white leaving-the-house shirt.
12:05 PM 1/14/2025 — the new computer is here.
1:46 PM 1/15/2025
We got thunderbird running, and I copied the important messages to a text file, but we haven't tried to restore the old messages and the Banner mailing list yet.
I rode to Kroger for milk and a few perishables th
5:33 PM 1/16/2025
I wonder what I meant to say. I spent all of this morning getting ready for the home helper to come at one, and about noon got a call saying that she'd had an emergency and couldn't come. Another phone call later we were re-scheduled for Saturday, 11:00 - 3:00, neatly obliterating all the events I'd hoped to attend, but Weather Underground says that it's going to be a lousy day for going out anyway.
9:13 PM 1/16/2025
I need only three hours of help, but have to take four. I gather that it's not worth while to drive from where the current batch of helpers are for less. Miranda did imply that they are trying to recruit locally, but Firefly took on Winona Lake quite recently.
Finding useful ways to expend that extra hour has been a strain. I'd thought that today I could wash the top blanket of the mattress pad in the morning, and have her make the bed from the mattress up in the afternoon. I can't tuck the fitted sheet in properly, and have to crawl around and around the bed trying, so that would be useful.
But I had the newly-washed blanket on the bed and the shaken-out blankets on top of it when I got the phone call, that being as easy a place to put them as any.
Bedmaking can't wait until Saturday, so I had to do the job myself — and now I'm short of chores for Saturday.
Further grumbles: for the last day or two, my fingernails have been chipping like piecrust. I haven't been doing anything unusual to break them.
Thunderbird is working on the new computer, but all my saved e-mails are lost — MozBack said "restoring e-mails", but not one of them is anywhere to be found. And the Banner mailing list is gone.
11:12 AM 1/17/2025
Waiting to be picked up at one, all ready except for changing my shirt. And eating lunch. And I have to put a Mini-Mate of energy drink into the car, and Dave has to put in his walker.
Part of the preparation was printing out another calendar page, and that required re-doing some of the hours of work that were lost when XP died.
We have two scanners now. The old one didn't work when Dave moved it to his computer because he didn't know I used an icon on the desktop to turn it on, and I hadn't told him because I didn't know it had buttons. Well, I knew, but I'd long since forgotten, and they are black-on-black so they didn't remind me.
1:03 AM 1/18/2025
The trip to Fort Wayne took longer and was less encouraging than we hoped.
Then I discovered that the UPS was beeping and had to close down everything in the sewing room. I hope this works out better than the previous UPS change. At least I'm pretty sure that all my work is on BACKUP1.
7:50 PM 1/20/2025
It's really, really urgent that I copy a bunch of endangered files to the new computer, but I never have time except when I'm too tired to trust myself to do it.
I did a major grocery shopping today, and we have two medical appointments tomorrow.
6:23 PM 1/22/2025
Closed down Vista today. Hope I find time tomorrow to move Windows 11 to its place so I can stop typing with my hands under my chin and my back bent.
We stopped at Jimmy-John's on the way back from yesterday morning's appointment, and had a toasted beef-and-cheddar submarine for lunch. Yummy — there was barely enough for my bedtime snack left over.
Went to Zale's to pick up two prescriptions for Dave this morning.
Then I spent a couple of hours updating the chore list for tomorrow, and printed a copy. I'm still trying to find my way around Libre Office.
I made a start at restoring my bookmarks, and archive-binged the Alex comic strip.
9:48 AM 1/23/2025
It's a relief not to have to prepare for a nurse visit this morning — but now we have four appointments in three days next week.
But this improves my chances of being able to move my computer to the sewing room before JaiCe gets here. That will make it easier for us to keep out of each other's way.
I've figured out why Explorer won't back up Agent on a disk that has been used to back up Agent before — it calculates how much space is needed before it notices that it is over-writing a folder. So all I need to do is to make Agent1 and Agent2 — and remember which was used last. Ah, I can delete the older as soon as the newer is made.
12:43 PM 1/23/2025
<Ado Annie> It's usable after a fashion</Ado>:
But my feet dangle three inches off the floor.
1:40 PM 1/23/2025
I didn't notice until I was sweeping snow today that the broom has a steel handle.
I've been planning to buy a stiffer broom for outdoors; I'll make sure the handle is wood.
5:14 AM 1/25/2025
So I brought my ratty old keyboard stand back, and now I can sit on a chair that fits. We intend to try to put my old monitors on the new computer before I go for my ride today. Supposed to be windy, but not as windy as the rest of the week, and most of the route is sheltered from a west wind.
12:34 PM 1/26/2025
I noticed on the way home that the sign on the former WLCC now says "Grace". The last time I noticed, they hadn't even turned off the old sign. I recall writing speculation as to why, but the Banner is in at least three places and the speculation may not make it into the published version.
I had to fend off three people who wanted to drive me home. If Dave can't grasp that I need to walk, how can I get through to new acquaintances?
Yesterday's ride went well. I haven't lost as much muscle as I feared; climbing McKinley Street was easier than I remembered. I was gone only a little over three hours. About an hour and a quarter in Meijer, and nine minutes in Zales. I bought a package of Hobnobs, which we both like better than digestive biscuits.
9:56 AM 1/27/2025
Dave bought three tennis balls for one of the exercises his foot doctor prescribed, but they didn't work. Come spring, we will throw them into the tennis courts in the park.
He said "what I need is a dowel about the size of a rolling pin" and I gave him my larger rolling pin, he tried it this morning, and it works.
I've no idea how I came to have two rolling pins and two pastry cloths. I haven't used either since we moved. The pastry cloths were to provide a clean surface for making noodles on. You make a well in the top of a pile of flour and crack an egg into it. Mom also added a dipper of broth, to make lots of noodles. I used one of the half-size eggs my game chickens laid.
I think that I bought the miniature pin, probably meant to be a child's toy, to make pizza with. The wooden brayer, with a roller the size of the toy pin and a small one on the other end, was definitely for making pizza. I used the large end to roll the dough out in the pan, and the small end to neaten up the edge.
I discovered, when putting the pins away, that there is a slot in the shelf just wide enough for the toy pin to fall through. The shelf was cut to fit flush against the door frame, and the space is a board-width wider than the frame.
Two loads of wash today, and I plan to wash the mattress pad in the morning, before Irma comes at one o'clock to make the bed.
10:41 AM 1/28/2025
Lovely sunny day, calm, and I didn't mind combing my hair outside. I thought I heard high winds in the night, and the doormat wasn't where I left it. The limbs that fell on the clothesline haven't moved. The ice on the lake is mostly blue instead of white, and there is snow on the paths that I shoveled and swept.
But only on the lake side. On the street side, The remaining ice is melting.
8:48 AM 1/29/2025
As I was putting the baby scale back under the kitchen commode, I reflected that we don't get enough use out of it to pay back the trouble of moving it every time the floor is mopped. Are any of you pregnant?
End of Vista notes.
On Friday, I think it was, Dave discovered that he could read the hard drive from the dead computer. I've been salvaging things that I'd thought lost ever since.
Jeanie took me to the library again yesterday evening. The knitting class is going to meet again in March, but isn't scheduled yet.
⁂
The Home Helper unexpectedly appeared, which used up one of the two no-nap days I can tolerate in a week. I'm too stupid now (19:19:50) to proofread and send. Penny tried to find out when our next appointment is, but they went home for the day before she could get through the telephone tree.
Dr. King is out sick, so I may get this off today. Pretty much un-edited, but incoherence goes with the theme.
The new appointment works out better for Dave, but I worry when someone I depend on is ill.
Yesterday I had Penny take everything out of the container cupboard so I could sort it. Still making decisions. Canning jars come in boxes of twelve, so how is it that there is exactly one pint-and-a-half can-or-freeze jar in the house? I may have to buy some; they are perfect for freezing soup. Most of my can-or-freeze half pints have pickles in them. Perhaps I should buy some of those too; they are excellent serving dishes.
⁂
I wanted to edit a photograph -- and found that I can't click on GIMP because it hasn't been installed yet. I might be able to use the copy on Drive G, but I'm not going to look into it today.