Calling out Epson

Epson.com engages in extortion. Period. My Epson WF 2860 was working just fine with after market cartridges until the latest firmware update. Now it won’t recognise them.

 At all.

 I’m furious because now I have perfectly good cartridges that are at least half full and the bloody printer won’t work. If I want to print I’m going to have to go to Office Depot, pay through the nose for Epson’s ridiculously expensive cartridges THAT DON’T LAST AT ALL!! I have too much to do for this crap.

Yes, I realise that is how printer companies actually make their money on these cheap printers, but it’s extortion, plain and simple. I wouldn’t mind so much if the cartridges actually lasted, but they don’t. You print a few things and they’re suddenly only half full.

Capitalist games. Fuck you epson.

Another delaying tact.......erm, I mean blog post

Today's task:  Clearing this

My tip of a kitchen table atm.

so I can finally combine my mother's ashes with those of her German Shepherd and two cats, Xanth and Q.

I'm flying up to stay with my brother next month and we're finally going to take care of setting her ashes to rest. She loved Missouri. Even though she was born in Texas, she always said she was from Missouri because she spent her first nine years there, in the farmhouse built by her ancestors. My grandfather lost it in the Great Depression  and they set out in a 1936 pick up with a top on the back, headed to California, but made it as far as Colorado, I think. But that farm was always 'home' for her. The house is derelict now, if it's even still standing, and Mike and I probably couldn't find it anyway.  But she also loved the Lake of the Ozarks. Her brother, my uncle was born in a cabin which is now at the bottom of the lake. My grandfather was the medical officer for the company that built the Bagnell Dam, which "impounds the Osage River."

So...Mike and I are driving down there and will set an urn that's designed to float for a bit, then "gracefully" sink, and finally disintegrate in the water, returning the ashes to the ecosystem.

Opening the box the ashes are contained in is going to be hard for me; I've literally put it off for two years, but it has to be done. I'm also setting aside a very small bit to take to England and Ireland with me in March. She never got to go....

Where our heroine beats up on herself...again.

Pretty sure I’d started a blog post somewhere (on my iPad, perhaps?), but not fussed to find it at the moment. Something about some project or other that I’ll probably never finish *sighs*

I see You-Tubers having existential meltdowns and wonder how they manage to do what they do. I have all sorts of ideas about videos and even do my work as if I’m narrating a video—don’t you laugh, you all know you do it, too—and have the tripod, the clamps, the ring light….but know fucking good and well I’ll probably never put myself in front of the camera. I’ve put a couple of really lame videos up and one that’s not too bad, and maybe…

But that’s not why I’m here. Today is a rant about something kind of related, and I think I’ve ranted on this before (no, not the moron in the White House; don’t get me started), but it’s reaching a ‘fever pitch’ asAdele sings….

The rant is this: why do I continue to deny myself the things I love to do by not digging in and getting rid of the clutter and getting things organised? That song is more relevant than you might think. I could have had it all…but I’m my own worst enemy. I know I can do anything once I put my mind to it. Moving cross-country and getting my degree despite the odds and nay-sayers proves that.

So why on earth do I look at the mounds of my art supplies, fabric, and my yard that needs work, and just say, I need to get X done so I can do the things I like?  Is it a kind of self-punishment? I know I’ve suffered from extreme lack of self-worth all my life, but extending that to self-denial (as in denying myself the things I want to do) is a tad OTT.

I make lists. I make plans. I make promises to myself. But all I do is sit and watch YT videos of other people keeping them.

Planner Envy and other bits of boringness.

PLANNER ENVY.

You know, back in the day, guys used planners. My dad used Day-Timers for YEARS. He called it his brain. Women tended to use desk diaries, but the more women came into the business workforce, you saw Day-Timer offering femmed-up versions and planner purses, etc. I had Day-Timers and planners long before it became the huge THING it is now. Soccer moms, Sunday School teachers, people who think they’re really busy but aren’t, teenagers, have all gotten on the planner bandwagon. There’s been a proliferation of planners like Erin Condren, Plum Paper, Happy, you name it. If you came across this post because of the hashtags, then you probably know all the brands better than I, and all the stickers, pens, tapes, subscriptions, pantookas, and gorbnobbles available.

Nine tenths of which are solely designed to separate you from your money.

With the BOOM in planning popularity, planners are in every shape, form, colour, design, and have gotten really pricey. Plus, Acco Brands now owns most of the well-known names in planners except Erin Condren (not including ones like Leuchtturm1917, etc):  Mead, At-a-Glance, Day-Runner, Calendar Express, Five Star; they’ve even bought up Day-Timer, for fuck’s sake!

Some grand goal-planning for 2019 includes writing more. In my little box mind, I was thinking on the novel, but writing here and in my character blog are also writing, yes? I’ve added “W-writing” to my habit tracker (cue raucous, derisive laughing here). Before you asphyxiate laughing, the habit tracker is not keeping track of daily habits (except taking blood glucose readings), but just a general, keeping track of how often I do things.

Speaking of the tracker, I have:

M—Morning glucose;

P—Post prandial glucose;

BP—Blood Pressure (I don’t have an issue with this, but sometimes when I go to a doctor, it’s slightly elevated, more than likely from just getting out in traffic, etc.);

J—did I work in my Studio Art Journal? https://www.jamieridlerstudios.ca/the-studio-yearbook/ or any other Journal?;

A—Art;

W—Writing;

L—Learn:  my Irish lessons or any kind of research;
E—Exercise or work out, including my PT exercises;

H—House:  work on painting, repair, decluttering, etc.

LV—bLog and/or Video

F—Family projects like the ass-ton of photos from my mother’s place, or her letters, or all the stuff from my grandfather’s effects, boxes of books and chotskies to be sorted, sent to people or donated.

Again, these are not only a reminder to do certain things, but to keep track of just how often.

At this time I think well, I’m not working anymore, why do I even need more than a simple little “old man pocket calendar”?  I swear, you can’t even find the ones I’m talking about anymore, they were about 2”x3” and literally fit into a man’s shirt pocket.

Back to my planner planning. I’ve tried the big Erin Condren and Plum Paper planners (virtually the same, by the way) and I don’t think I actually finished a year in either, even though I used them for several years (I put all my planners from work in the big shred bin when I retired, but I think I finished out several of those all the way). But those are just too big to carry around and too much space goes wasted in them for me. If I just wanted to keep track of appointments, a simple month-at-a-glance would suffice, but there are other things that go in a planner…isn’t that why they’re called p-l-a-n-n-e-r-s?

I’ve tried starting DIY planners before and I think I got rolled up because there were too many future dates for work. 

But….I don’t have to bloody include job-related shit in my planner any longer HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!

I’ve been watching a couple “bullet journalers” on YT and random others if they pop up and look interesting.

AmandaRachLee https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk9aeo2A6a1fg3VeRueTn9w

Cindy Guentert-Baldo https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZSl2jCSort1fHUI8oeNOuQ

Everyone has such slick, pretty layouts and lettering. Anything but plain printing or a version of this

ends up looking like a 2^nd grader did them. They have this pretty script lettering, that…yeah.. *eye roll*

https://bit.ly/2rYk7TP like I could do that. Not.

Updated:

I was going to use the Lemome bullet planner (the one I have has been discontinued), but decided to finish out my ‘notebook from hell.’ I got it a couple years ago from Office Depot for about $6, I think. It has graph-ruled paper in it and is roughly A5 size. It has everything in it:  Notes on my novel, notes on my blog character, designs and plans for things like my studio and the reno of my pantry, mind maps, DIY calendar pages, to-do lists, travel plans and lists…you name it. I’ve covered the cover, front, back, and inside with various stickers. I’d do a flip of it on YT, but it would be the most boring flip-through video ever.

There are quite a few (about ¼-inch thick) pages left, so I’d just rather use it for now. When full, it will not be thrown away as it will still be a valuable reference.

 

Front Cover

Back Cover

Notes for the pantry reno

Year forward

395th version of the studio/living room plan

 So a whole lot of what I previously wrote might go by the wayside, just sayin’.

As for updates, I had the ‘dreaded scope’ this past Monday, nothing alarming, but the doc did take three biopsies; keep your fingers crossed.

And I’m finally getting the bunion on the right side done. They’ve been giving me grief for a loooong time. Got the left done probably 15 years ago, maybe a bit more. They did the big one on the inside, the little one on the outside and I had a four-inch steel rod in my second toe to straighten it. This time, just the big one on the inside.

Any Questions?

...letters and a ...what?

So. As per usual, I’ve had all sorts of ideas to write about and have completely forgotten all of them. #stateoflife 

I’ve been wanting to start a YT channel. Well, I have a channel, it’s called “Murf’s Mess,” but there’s only a couple of random things on it. Two things keep delaying me. First, I look like Jabba the Hut’s old maiden auntie on camera (bad enough IRL, but on camera OMG!!! nooooo), second, the husbeast is almost always around and I feel self-conscious about doing a video whilst he’s home. He’s doing his own thing and does most of it away from the house. He’s gotten all into people who travel/live in RVs and their YT channels. He wants nothing more than to buy a high-roof Transit, fit it out for a 6’4” guy and go around the country, seeing the US.

Ugh.

As much as I’d like to see a lot of the US before I cack it, hotels are my preferred accommodations, tyvm.

So, what would be on my YT channel, you ask.  The title should be a clue. There are a kabillion and one videos out there about decluttering, the different methods to do so, people who think they’re hoarders (hahahahaha…even with my extreme clutter, I’m not a hoarder), people touting minimalism as a life-style, etc, etc, etc.

The methods I’m using are konmari from Marie Kondo’s TheLife-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering andOrganizing; Fly Lady; The Gentle Art of SwedishDeath Cleaning (here is one blogger’s recap in a nutshell but you can always find the book on Amazon), and various methods I learned from an online summit where they had 26 different “experts” talking about decluttering, getting healthy, managing finances, decorating, and personal style.  Plus…you know, I’m not exactly without brains….I think….

 

A couple of notes on the methods. Konmari focuses not on what to throw away, but what to keep, what "brings you joy" and what is useful. She has you proceed by categories. For instance you drag out all your clothes and go thru them one at a time, deciding if it brings you joy. If it doesn't, thank it for its service and give it a new life somewhere else. I added the "what is useful," because none of my clothes, for instance, give me joy, but giving them all away might be slightly problematic. I doubt if I will do a category at a time the first or even second pass through things, more like, a table top will be a category. Anyone who knows me, knows flat surfaces are not safe...just. not. safe.

The Fly Lady, Marla Cilly, has some very useful techniques for decluttering, like the 27-fling boogie. I extracted what I needed from her approach and left the rest behind. A lot of the email prompts and verbiage I really don't care for and now it seems more that she's all about selling her calendars, control journal kits, and cleaning tools than she really is about helping people. Your mileage may vary.

 

Reading further will tell you all you need to know about why I'm using the Swedish Death Cleaning thing. 

I can probably film any time, as the husbeast is usually back in his mancave, watching TV or videos. Then on Fridays when I’m off work, I can edit and do voice-overs. I might get in front of the camera just so I can tell the haters to fuck off.

I mean, yo, dudes, I have enough self-loathing for a couple dozen people, I don’t need any assistance, tyvm.

I have 28 years of accumulated crap, and not as if I didn’t have a shit ton before we moved into the house, and I was working on it, getting someplace, then my mum passed away in September.

To get a little perspective on why she was like she was—marginally a hoarder—you have to consider her history. Her dad lost the family farm in Missouri during the Depression, they lost everything, packed up what they had in a 1936 Dodge (I think) pick-up with a cover on the back. Either like a box or a sort of canvas affair…I forget and of course she’s not here to ask.  Then, in the early 70s, Daddy decided to live on a yacht. And all of her stuff was either given to me or put in storage. So then, he changed jobs and they moved to Cleveland…and basically she only had her personal things, papers, writing, knick-knacks, books, etc. They rented their furniture,  In about 1974, they declared bankruptcy, and she lost her cool car (which later in life she couldn’t even remember the make. FYI it was a 1969 Dodge Dart with a 440-4 barrel like this

I drove it a lot during my senior year in HS. 

Then…in 2005, Katrina hit and she lost everything that was on the first floor of her house. Books, artwork, furniture, clothing, and favoured items. Fortunately, all the photos and papers were upstairs. And bags of clothing, which my brother dutifully brought to her…except they were all the stuff she was getting ready to donate. *sigh*

A few folders of her papers were fairly well-organised. But only a few. My daughter and I went thru I don’t know how many little boxes and totes and baskets of bills, years old, paid, AND the envelopes they came in, along with flyers, receipts, years of monthly activity calendars from her senior apartment complex (not that she ever went to any of the activities, “they don’t like me, because I’m different,” well, yeah, Mum you are, but that doesn’t mean they don’t like you, they fuckin’ don’t KNOW you LOL). One plastic tub had those benefits books you get from insurance companies, you know, the ones when you get this year’s you throw out last year’s? Seventeen years of them….

I have been tasked by my uncle to find her genealogy notes and send to him. He’s been diagnosed with colon cancer and he wants to write his memoir, and would like all the info he can get on his family. I had one box of stuff set aside already because his grandson (my cousin’s kid) wanted to work on it and I was going to send it to him; but I know there’s more here and there in her stuff. I was going thru a plastic file box, filled with mostly letters, writing, memorabilia. Just to kind of outline the task, in one folder, about an inch thick, there’s her writing, my grandfather’s writing (often you can’t differentiate), letters, clippings, a greetings card or two….and the instruction manual for a lawnmower.

Right.

Now, to be fair, if I cacked it tomorrow, I would leave no less of a confusing legacy of mish mash crap.

That outlines the quest. My crap and her crap. I’ve been trying to get three rooms mostly decluttered, organised, and decorated so they will be havens while I’m doing the rest of it. The kitchen, my bathroom, and my bedroom. I’m almost there on my room and the bathroom. There’s still quite a bit of painting to do in the kitchen, but I’ve done a LOT of decluttering and have developed the habit of doing the washing up (almost) every night. The counters are clutter free, and it’s so bloody wonderful to wake up to and come home to a clean kitchen. I actually feel like cooking!

The other aim in all of this, besides finally getting everything painted and decluttered, is I’m moving my studio into the dining portion of the great room, and the half of the garage that’s closed in and is now my studio will become storage. When it’s just the two of us, we never eat at the table; if and when we get to the point where we can have anyone over, well, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. There are several drawbacks to having my studio out in the garage: even though I had an AC vent dropped in, it’s too bloody hot for 6 months out of the year (hellooo, Texas), and too cold for about 2-3 months; there’s very little natural light; spiders love to nest in my fabric and art supplies; I’m too far from the kitchen sink (I wish I had one in the laundry area, but I don’t), and I’ll just have more room in the great room. The big Roughnecks of fabric I have in the actual garage will go in the storage area, along with a lot of other supplies and things I still need to go thru, and the family antique chairs and table my daughter wants. I used them for decades and just don’t want them anymore.

Enough for tonight. Eeeenuff already.

xxx

177 days and a wake-up.

That’s until my last day at my job. I’m retiring. I’ve had enough. More than enough, since I could have retired literally 6 years ago! But I’m also retiring in the nick of time before the right-wing state government fucks with our pensions (again). We’re one of the few states without an income tax, so any educational, health, and social programs are vulnerable  If you want to wade through this little jewel and figure out where most of the revenue stream comes from, be my guest. I mean, like, if you have nothing better to do with your time. (Education is already at major risk here, subject to the Right doing things like takingThomas Jefferson out and putting the likes of Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmeticsand Phyllis Schaffly in senior high history textbooks. 

A couple-three years ago, they changed the ratio of who pays what. I seem to remember when I first came to work, the state matched the individual’s contribution, but it seems it’s been going up and for the last two years it’s been 7.7% for the employee and 6.8% for the state. And it’s all pre-tax. I really wish they’d just gone ahead and taxed it so it would not be subject to the vagaries and whims of whichever party has us strapped over a barrel to be shafted at any given time. I hoping any subsequent changes to either the pension or Social Security have those of us over a certain age ‘grandfathered’ as it were.

I really, really need to start carrying a little notebook with me all the time. I keep thinking of things I’d like to write about and then when I go to write…*POOF* uh…what was I saying? Things like total rants about our current administration and the rich, white, male members of Congress who think they have the right to tell women what to do with their bodies, to cut all social programs for the poor and elderly….I mean, what the fuck do they expect people to do? Pretty sure their retirement plan for anyone worth less than $10M is to loan us a pistol, award an engraved, gold-plated bullet, and tell us to get on with it. At least we’d be able to take our retirement gift with us.

Another rant I have is against the likes of Paul Ryan. Yes, our esteemed (not) Speaker of the House, who used social security funds that were not his to pay for his college and ever since has been out to kill the program. You got yours, eh Paul, and fuck the rest of us. In addition, they give a huge tax break to people/corporations who already don’t pay their fair share, then suddenly it occurs to them they military budget can’t be funded, so they propose taking $266 BILLION from Medicare.

If you are old, of colour, Hispanic, Gay, female and/or a recent immigrant and voted for Trump or any one of his ilk, you seriously need to cop onto yourselves. Seriously.

I should be keeping up with Stonekettle Station. Jim Wright writes what is probably the most well-researched, knowledgeable, and cogent blogs about the political scene in the US 

The man can write.

I just tend to rant and fume and imagine shouting SHUT THE FUCK UP a lot at them. In the end, I don’t think they can really comprehend what either one of us is saying, but it feels good to scream FUCK YOU at an imaginary Mike Pence or Paul Ryan. Trump would take it as an invitation, I believe, so I don’t shout at him.