Subj : Posts To : Nancy Backus From : Barry Martin Date : Tue Dec 03 2019 08:59:00 Hi Nancy! BM>> Breaks and pauses are good. :) NB>> And it seems that sometimes you take advantage of such as well... :) BM>> More only when I'm out of town. There have been a few times when no BM>> messages to download, so generally nothing for me to respond to and BM>> upload! NB>> Yes, we do miss Daryl... ;0 And I've been having exceptionally NB>> busy days lately, myself.... BM> He does seems inundated by the whole thing at times. I try to remind BM> him and give examples of how to just do a small project at a time: BM> just clean out a drawer at a time, rest and do a small 'celebration'and BM> soon the whole dresser is done. NB> Like my tagline of days attacking at once, it seems weeks have NB> ganged up on him to attack all at once... Sometimes a small NB> project at a time just doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything NB> those times... Right. Daryl seemed to be overwhelmed by the large project (I have to clean the room) so I tried suggesting to take it as a bunch of small projects. A dresser drawer may be too small, up to him. Idea was to attack the job differently so less overwhelming. BM>>> Same here. The various adults don't really need anything, just nice BM>>> to give (and get) a little something. Daughters semi-hinted at winter/ BM>>> Christmas-themed solar lights for outside so they're getting those. BM>>> (A little hard to disguise when wrapping!) NB>>> If they are boxed, they'd still be not too hard to wrap, though... BM>> These were sold without cartons. Have seen (and received) boxed solar BM>> lights. NB>> So find boxes for them, and make your wrapping easier... or stuff them NB>> in a large Christmas-themed shopping bag with lots of tissue paper to NB>> cover them... ;) BM> Yes, I'll figure out something. Or since it's a requested gift and BM> they know what they're getting other than the specific style just put BM> something fun/festive/holiday-weird-but-appropriate over the solar BM> light head. NB> That could work, too... :) Since then haven't even thought of packaging ideas. BM> (Hmm: lost the DSL while writing that. No power glitch I'm aware of; BM> Central Office is a few blocks down the hill from the house. Two BM> nights ago was constantly dropping and speeds were all over the place: BM> at one time the upload speed was about a quarter of what the usual was. BM> ...Checked the Gateway: back to my normal-and-customary connect speed.) NB> Maybe it's just the holidaze attacking.... ;) Good news is no problems (noted) since. I'd guess an update on their end that didn't quite work as expected. ...Just checked and still at my usual speeds. Signal to Noise, etc., numbers are good to excellent (the gateway displays a numeric value which I have seen change and compared to a chart from an unaffiliated source.) BM>> Makes sense: after a few additions gift-giving can become unwieldy and BM>> a chore. Might make more sense to give a family gift or two to share: BM>> promote family togetherness and something better at $20 than four BM>> gifts at $5. As you said, all depends on a bunch of circumstances and BM>> details. NB>> Yup.... The younger generation has pretty much taken over the running NB>> of the gifting part of the celebration... I used to be pretty good at NB>> finding individual gifts for a dollar or less that would be greatly NB>> appreciated by the recipient... and nice family gifts for under $10... BM> Now they don't use pencils so those and pencil sharpeners are out, as BM> probably pens, paper -- except printer paper..... NB> You might be surprised... even the kids appreciate pens, pencils, NB> etc... always some use for them.... :) Autumn is into drawing and I somewhat expect her to continue as her mother is artistic, so pens, pencile, coloured pens and pencils, supplies, etc., will probably be easy gifts. I have a holder with a variety of coloured pens, markers and highlighters -- yes, slightly colourblind but I still colour code! Autumn uses those when she brings up her sketch pad. BM>> Right. I've had to update our cell phones: our current ones are quite NB> Wizard thinks it's more likely something with the service NB> provider (maybe Sprint?) that TracFone is using in your area for NB> your phones.... and explained that to have VoLTE, I'd have to be NB> getting my voice calls over data, which my phone can't do at all NB> anyway... I do regularly check my texts (the message that I have NB> them pops up on the little screen and has to be dealt with before NB> I can do anything else with the phone), and I know I've received NB> no such message.... Oh, and my provider is AT&T... OK, seems like you've got things checked out and won't need to update. Here the TracFones piggyback on Verizon and they are dropping -- whatever the old is. NB>>> Maybe they've experienced other overflow times, like when people are NB>>> getting supplies for their gardens in the spring...? Or figuring that NB>>> some people need more than one cart when getting all the supplies NB>>> needed for some household project...? (You are talking Lowe's NB>>> hardware-type stores, not the grocery type?) BM>> Actually in this instance specifically Lowe's. NB>> Reason I asked was that apparently there are Lowe's grocery stores down NB>> in NC where friends of mine live.... BM> That could be confusing! Lowe's the hardware store or Lowe's the BM> grocery store?! NB> Exactly... :) All we have around here is also just the hardware NB> store Lowe's... Not all that unusual for the same name to be for to different stores; local people probably have some sort of phrasing, or just sentence structure: "Lowe's has pork roast on sale" - not going to go to the one selling hardware. BM> ...The old Menard's (hardware chain store) here had a tiny food/snack BM> section and sold large containers of pretzels which were quite good BM> -- almost was worthwhile to make a special trip. NB> One can find interesting things in odd places... :) Yes - I do like to wander a bit; one never knows what one will find! And clearance is fun -- 99% of the time nothing worthwhile but.... ¯ ® ¯ Barry_Martin_3@ ® ¯ @Q.COM ® ¯ ® .... Hobby overload! 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