There were several things I wanted to remember to do today, so I made a list. The first thing on the list was to remember to water the plants that need it, but it rained last night, enough that I had to close the windows, so I crossed “watering” off my list when I woke this morning. Instead, I went out to pull weeds because, as I’ve learned, they come out so much easier when the ground is sodden. I pulled the first fistful. Then pulled and pulled. And nothing budged. Except me. I almost fell backward from all that pulling. It turns out the clay soil was so dry adobe bricks could have been cut out of ground to build some sort of structure, but since I didn’t need any adobe bricks (and had no way of cutting them out anyway), I gave up on pulling weeds and decided I better water my poor desiccated plants.
Apparently, it only rained inside my house. (Raindrops blown through my windows caused a bit of a puddle.) I have no idea what happened to the rest of the moisture — I’m fairly sure it couldn’t have been vaporized by all that sheet lightning keeping me awake last night. If any rain did fall, it certainly didn’t do the plants any good. The storm cooled things down, though, which did me good. It’s 66 degrees Fahrenheit (18.9 C) right now. Temperatures are expected to climb back into the hundreds by tomorrow, but I prefer not to think about that and simply enjoy the cool.
Other things on my to do list were to call my mechanic and reschedule an appointment to get my brakes fixed (they were supposed to be done last Friday, but he took that day off) and to call my contractor to see if he’d forgotten me (he was supposed to send one of his guys to work here starting last week, but except for a few hours, the guy was a no-show).
The last thing on my list was to get ready for work. Since this isn’t my regular day, I had to make a note to make sure I got there when I was supposed to. Because I am neither a mechanic nor a contractor with more business than I can handle, I need to honor my obligations.
I have a clean slate now, with nothing on my list, and I hope to keep it that way because the problem with a list is that it’s only good if you remember to read it. Luckily, today I did remember.
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What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?
A fun book for not-so-fun times.
Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.
haps I should care about the near future, but I don’t, at least not yet. I suppose it will be a different matter when the house is sold and I have to scramble for a place to live, but that is not a problem for today.
Bertram's Blog 
Doing the To-Dos
January 15, 2021 — Pat BertramIt’s amazing how light one feels when everything is wiped off the to-do list, at least temporarily. Yesterday I finally published my new website with no problems — yeah! (You can check it out here: https://patbertram.com) I decided to stick with my current car insurance because of lower deductibles and accident forgiveness, so I paid that bill as well as several others. I cleaned out the file of old bills. I’m sure there were several other small chores done, too. What a great feeling!
I carried that feeling over into this day until I was scared half out of my mind by a loud screeching noise. It turns out my phone was screaming at me about a dangerous dust storm in the area. As if I didn’t know. All I had to do was look out the window. Or, if I didn’t look out the window, all I had to do was open the door, see all the blowing dust, and quickly shut the door on the outside world.
I hadn’t been able to locate the permissions for that alert app so I could turn off the notifications. If an alert goes off in the night, it would probably scare me into a heart attack. Luckily, I finally managed to turn off all notifications. If I ever feel the need, I can always turn them on again, but for now, it’s more of an annoyance than a lifesaver. When I go out, I check the weather anyway, otherwise, it doesn’t matter. Besides, I can’t do anything about the weather, war, riots, whatever, so it’s better if I slept through it.
Because of my finally finding that permission setting, I hunted once more for the photo editor permissions. I have no idea why the default setting was “no permissions” because with no permissions, the app wouldn’t work. I’d never been able to find the permissions before, and even though I didn’t find them today, I did something in the search for that setting that turned on the photo editor.
Now I just have to figure out how to turn off the “Find my phone” app. It keeps telling me . . . something. Maybe that I need to sign up for it. Apparently, I can’t turn off the notifications they keep sending me to sign up for the app unless I sign up for app, which makes no sense to me, but that’s a conundrum for a different day. (And I wondered why I was so hesitant to fiddle with my website!)
Speaking of conundrums: for some reason, WordPress held the comments of some long-time commenters for moderation. If this happened to you, or happens sometime in the future, please do not take it personally. It’s merely a blip in the program. I would never require moderation for those of you who come here frequently.
So, that’s my day. How is yours?
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator