Hi everyone! I know I dropped off for nearly the whole month of February. But I have been reading your comments all along to keep up with your lives. So many of you have been dealing with ice and snow as well as winter colds, flu and other illnesses, and I am glad you seem to be recovering.
So I survived my first-world tragedy of not having a personal computer in my home. This episode has made me appreciate how much I depend on a home computer and home internet access to run my life. Seems like whenever I’m on a frugality website, someone will chirp up, “Cancel your internet and use the computers at the public library!” OK that is a horrible frugality tip. If you only use public computers to surf the net, fine, but using a public computer to take care of your personal business will most likely lead to your getting robbed and getting your identity stolen. I realize many people run their lives from a smart phone or iPad, but I’m not dexterous enough to do serious work on a small screen. I am thankful to have a laptop again with a nice-sized screen, keyboard and mouse.
I finally got my budget laptop and it works fine. It was horribly packaged for shipment and I thought it might not even start. Some dope put the small laptop box inside a huge cardboard shipping box, tossed in a strip of bubble wrap, and that was that. So the laptop box was thrown around and around inside the shipment box like clothes in a dryer. Plus there was a fist-sized hole punched through the shipment box. Oh, and it sat at my local post office for six days. It is amazing this laptop actually works. It does have a 1 year warranty in case it dies. If I buy a laptop again, I will buy it in person at a store, not order it online!
I am caught up on grad school homework and striving now to keep up. My classes are so boring this semester I can hardly stand them. I am churning out one boring paper after another, about 2 papers a week. I am having a hard time focusing and have to stop myself from procrastinating. Oh well, the semester ends April 15. One class is so boring the professor himself doesn’t seem to want to teach it; he has failed to show up for half the classes.
Haven’t done any more work on the Portal to Hell hall closet. All the tools and supplies are just lying on the floor of my living room in an unattractive pile. I will re-attack the closet after the semester ends. I want to get my 3 closets sorted out in order to really make progress on the decluttering. I have a storage locker that I ardently want to give up, but that means throwing stuff out and fitting what’s necessary into my apartment closets. The bulkier items include storm windows and a window air conditioner. I believe with careful pruning and arrangement I can fit the necessary stuff into my closets and give up the storage locker (and stop paying the storage fee!). I love it when people tell me I have clutter. There’s nuthin’ like being lectured about clutter by someone who lives in a 2,500 sq ft house with an attic, basement, 2 car garage and shed in the backyard.
Winter weather here in NYC has not been bad, in my opinion. I think it’s been an ok winter. It snowed a couple inches last night and will snow this week, but it is absolutely nothing compared to what some of you are going through. I am in awe of those of you surviving and thriving in such snowy climates.
In recent excitement: Last nite around 3am, as it was snowing, there was an electrical fire erupting like a geyser from a manhole on the street behind my building. It sounded like explosion after explosion. A house on that street has gaslight lamps lining the sidewalk and driveway, and they were flaring wildly. The electric lights inside that house, plus the lights inside the house next to it, were flaring on and off wildly. It looked like a horror movie. Finally the electricity went completely out in both houses with an explosion of noise. I imagine it might have wrecked their house electrical wiring and they might have to rewire their houses. Fire dept and electric company people were everywhere and stopped the manhole fire. So no parked cars blew up, and the fire did not spread, in fact, neither house went on fire. I and most of the people in my building were awake and dressed and milling around in case we had to flee. I didn’t get to sleep till 6am. So that was my almost-bug-out experience.
So that’s my update. I hope to post more frequently in March.