Tuesday - Separate or consolidate?

[Lady Maverick]

I just read a note I wrote a year ago about separating my way of organizing notes. At the time, I was overwhelmed with having them all together so needed to do something. Fast forward a year later and I'm pleased to realize that decision to separate is working very well for me.

Are your cards or lists or organization method working for you? Do you need to separate them? Or maybe consolidate some?

[BookSaver]

Good morning, villagers ~
Thanks for opening the thread, LadyMaverick.

It's going to be a scorcher here today, and might have a storm late this afternoon.

This afternoon DMom will be discharged from the hospital to go back to her own apartment. I will go up after lunch to help. DSis gets off work at 2:30 so that is when we are hoping the doctor will let DMom go. DSis has a key to DMom's apartment and has already stocked her kitchen with lots of food. There is a store close by where I can pick up anything else DMom wants.

This morning I need to work on 3Ds and find some pictures for tomorrow's LEGO Club.
2 loads of laundry, 2 piles of dishes. I'm going to try a Salad in a Jar BLT recipe for supper so it will be ready in case DMom's move is delayed.

So far:
* I just spent an hour with Emails and deleted a few hundred.
* Dishes are already soaking in the sink.
* 1st load of laundry needs 20 more minutes in the dryer.
* I will turn on the dryer, grab a cup of iced coffee, and search for LEGO pictures until the dryer buzzes.

BBL.

[Twins' Mom]

Thanks for opening for today, LM, care to share more on how you organize your notes? I think you use OneNote and I use Evernote.

Yesterday I went AWOL. Found a snarky online forum about DIY/lifestyle blogs that I read at times, and spent the afternoon, evening and early morning to 1 a.m. reading. Deliciously snarky and addictive. Need to limit my time there severely if I go there at all! So my day was much like Kathryn's:

I didn't get anything accomplished today except refill the vitamin dispenser.

Before I do anything else I need to walk the dogs. It is hot and humid already.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Neither consolidating nor separating is working for me right now.

I appear to be in crisis mode, moving from crisis to crisis and not attending to the basics.

A lot of this is due to being overwhelmed. After finishing most of the unpacking, I went into holiday mode. After all, if I'm in an urban apartment that is slightly strange to me, I must me traveling! I'm used to tidying and maintaining the kitchen when on the road as well as doing laundry so at first my attitude didn't matter. But after a couple of weeks, no hotel made came, and we didn't pack up and move on to the next clean apartment and I realize I'm having trouble with a number of things.

1. Paperwork has been in crisis mode since April
2. I'm doing the bare minimum to keep this place clean and usually my motivation to work is a crisis (spilled drink or note a think layer of dust on something, for example, leading to a mopped floor or a dusted room.)
3. My regular busy life continues and is a struggle with my physical limitations and focus on healing (which means times for biking and physio.)

My current financial crisis is to find the money for another month's rent. Thankfully, most of the bills for the house (taxes, insurance) have been paid up and it doesn't cost a lot to run. My yard work bill will be over $1000 and I still owe $13K for the septic. In September I have a huge bill for the next cruise. So all of the bonus money from the company is spoken for, plus some. Time to call my financial guy and start drawing down investments. I had really hoped to avoid doing that for another 6 months or so but we are going to have to.

Maybe that's why I'm so paralyzed to get anything done. The house sale falling through twice has messed up our finances greatly and I'm afraid to look at just how badly.

[Nancy]

I am up have done hens chores.
I need to take my a.m. pill having coffee black now.bs was okay today could have been better. Have not had breakfast. Dpc to make in a bit to docs office.

Drivers Lisc. Is up in price bc of motor cycle endorsement so I will get that off they are open Sat. So glad I checked hrs. Yesterday.

I separated out the craft stuff from donations and put fabrics in the sewing room.

I consolodated the books. So that made for progress around here and it looks better.

I need a plan for today it is cooler yea t-showers tomorrow.

Read that one of the fiber optic cables has been cut & wondering if tco that is why the weather ch. Is cutting in and out. I can live with out that it is freeing actually.

[Lilac]

I am still kicking. I remember posting on July 3. We were going to dgd18 birthday party that evening. And THEN............

Dh came home from work and told me he had bought the RV that he had lowballed a bid on. They had rejected that, so he upped it $3000.00. The guy emailed him to call him. The guy told him that the only way he could sell it for that price was to take it off ebay and save those fees. This business had this RV listed on multiple sites. Anyway, dh was suppose to wire them the money and they would deliver it to Wichita. I told dh that if he wired that money and they were dishonest and he lost the money and had no RV, that was his chance and we don't have the money for another one. So dh called them and told them that he would fly down and pick it up. With the holiday, he had to wait until Saturday to get a cashiers check to take. He flew to Chattanooga on Sunday. The RV was in Georgia, so they picked him up at his hotel and took him to their business. They did an inspection and fixed anything that needed done, showed him how to do everything and he left there at 4 in the afternoon. He was on the road for almost 26 hours and slept 2 of those. Once he was home he told me that for the first 50 - 100 miles, he was ready to get out, leave it along side the road and fly home. He was on interstate and the semis flying past him on both sides were un-nerving at first. So now we are the proud owners of an RV. He has spent a lot of time washing it, waxing it, cleaning the inside which was clean but needed his attention to detail. Now he is working on the chrome wheels and has 1 left. We have rented a space to store it. A local car dealership has a large fence area that they rent space to store anything with wheels. It is not covered but our space is between 2 RVs, so that should help protect it from the sun.

We are hoping the title arrives soon because the temporary tag expires August 6. Dh leaves July 30 and will be gone until at least August 10. on his Pacific NW motorcycle trip. The RV will need to be inspected before we can get a tag, but it can't be inspected without the title.

Dd2 and her dh closed on the sale of their house on Thursday. On Friday, dd2 noticed a rash on her stomach and back that hurt. Yep, she was diagnosed with shingles. Her life is constant stress, most of it self-induced, so it is no wonder that she was hit with the shingles.

Even though I wasn't posting, I managed to keep cuop until last Thursday. So last night I read 5 days of posts and told myself that I had to post today.

Thursday when I came in from watching the girls while dd2 and her dh were closing, I noticed that dhs older dsis had called. I called her back and asked what she knew. Her answer was "nothing good'. I said, "it's younger dsis, isn't it?" She said yes and asked how I knew. I told her that I had been having a bad feeling about younger dsis's health and had not even voiced it to anyone, praying that I was wrong. She has ovarian cancer. She had a hysterectomy, in her 20's and they had left 1 ovary. She has an appointment with a surgeon this Friday. Her dr. said she will need surgery and 6 months of chemo. At the time she was diagnosed it hadn't spread. I hope they get on the surgery before it does. So now each of dh's dsisters have had 2 bouts of cancer. Each cancer was different and their dm died of pancreatic cancer. Even though I had had the bad feeling, I was reeling after the news. This dsisil is widowed and lives with her dd, dsil and 2 dgds. Her dd is a nurse and a very caring dd.

Db called today. He is about at his wit's end, with the war dm has declared on his dw. He is irritated at both of them. Last night dm went to their house. Db was going to dig potatoes for dm. She is going on an almost 2 week trip with her db. He will be in an archery tournament. They are taking his camper and according to her she will fix their supper and the rest of the time, she will be relaxing. Anyway db's dgd asked dm if she was eating with them and dm said she hadn't been asked. Dsisil told her they had plenty and she had already set the table with a plate for her, so she ate with them. Later while they were at the garden, dm asked db if he had a trailer she could borrow. He told her he did and that he could pick it up each day and haul it to the dump. She had a fit, she doesn't want anyone going thru her stuff. He told her if it made her happy, he would bring it to his house and burn it. She didn't agree to that either. We don't think she has any intention of doing anything with her mess. Ugghhhh

So that is my story.

As I read 5 days of posts, I had all kinds of comments and can not think of a single one right now. Imagine that..........

[Lilac]

Last week our weather was wonderful. It was cloudy for 3 days with some rain, with temps in the 60's and 70's. Now it is in the 100's again.

[Lady Maverick]

share more on how you organize your notes?

Over the past couple of years I have slowly migrated my data to OneNote. It is available on all my devices. I had been storing notes & pictures but a couple months ago I realized excel was available within OneNote and that has made a big change in how I store data. I have been testing Excel inside of OneNote to make sure it really works on all devices. I haven't had a problem so am slowly converting my excel spreadsheets to be used inside of OneNote. The beauty of this change in the way I keep things is the ability to group & find everything in one spot but it is stored in individual notebooks.

example - one of my OneNote notebooks is called "Journal"
Within that Notebook are 12 sections - one for each month.
Within each section are 31 pages for the day of the month. Each of these pages contain the important yearly events (birthdays/anniversary/etc)
Each 1-31 daily pages have multiple sub-pages underneath them.
For example today is July 22 and their are 6 subpages underneath it. The subpages are...
2014_07_22
2013_07_22
2012_07_22
2011_07_22
2010_07_22
2002_07_22
I am enjoying reading what I was doing on this date years ago as well as look at the pictures taken on this date over the years.

I have about a dozen notebooks in OneNote for different subjects. I just keep adding information to them. This is a work in progress. The thing that I REALLY like is that now that I've decided on a structure for my information, that decision doesn't have to be made over and over, so each time I come across some information it is easy to put it where it belongs. Will I every get past years of information buried in various folders on backup devices/old laptops into the right place? Probably not. I just do a little at a time. Even with only 5 years (or so) of information I am finding my OneNote notebooks have become invaluable as the information grows.

[Harriet]

Good consolidating decision for me was going to grouped tasks on cards.

Good separating decision for me was making an additional 4x6 "cardfile" in a mini photo album.

Another good decision (is this separating?) was creating a laundry card for each month with all my usual loads printed, so I can see "where I am" am make sure to keep up with everything.

Hi, Lilac. Sorry for your db, caught between mother and wife fuss. Wish your instincts about dsil's health could have been wrong, but hoping she will get the best of care.

The friend who was going to spend the night with dd tonight arrived before 10:00 a.m. So she will be going along on errands and helping clean the house, I guess.

[Lady Maverick]

Chatted with DH. We made the decision to "pull the plug" on appraiser the bank president recommended. I called another appraiser (recommended by chemical supplier) and have verbally hired him. He can start next week. (conversation with appraiser detailed information has been added to MPB Notebook in OneNote)

I'm not feeling my best so am going to go take a break outside with a bottle of water. IMHO, time in the garden can usually improve and/or cure most anything.