Category Archives: doing it wrong

This isn’t really fixing something as much as using something old to do something new.

This is my old phone holder. I wanted a way to keep my phone around my neck since women’s clothes often have no pockets and there are situations, mostly involving soccer games, where I don’t carry a purse.

My new phone is much bigger. I looked around and couldn’t find a new strappy thing that I liked and this strap still looks great so I had an idea.

I can’t say enough how much I love Sugru. I have given it away to tons of people and no one seems as excited about it as I am. It’s a putty-like substance that you use to fix things. Once it hardens it’s water proof and really strong. I’ve fixed a drawer, a freezer basket, a lamp switch, a tea ball and many more things.

If you watch the videos at the link you will get tons of ideas. You can buy it at Target. It’s not expensive. Try some. (Disclosure: I am not connected with this company or product in any way other than liking to use it.)

Here I am getting ready to fix things.

And, ta da! Sure it doesn’t “match” but I don’t care about matching things. It’s very sturdy and now I can wear my new phone around my neck.

I noticed I’ve been getting mixed up with homonyms. I suspect my brain is starting to get dry and curl up around the edges.

For awhile I was keeping a list of some of the words I mixed up:

airfairs
reigndeer
scene / seen
chord for the alarm clock
staff infection joke
peek peak pique — Every time I want to use one of these I have to sit there and think it through to make sure I’m using the right one.
stalked up / stocked up
profit prophet

I know I’ve written before about my thing with gas stations. I prefer to use the same ones over and over.

If I were driving around and low on gas it would never occur to me to stop at the first gas station I saw. I keep an eye on my gas level and fill up at my usual spot as soon as it gets close to 1/4 tank. Or, sometimes my sweetheart tanks it for me.

When the grocery store tells me I have a bunch of points and I can get cheap gas at their station, I’m like, who cares? I’m never going to go there.

You’d think this would be more problematic for me than it is. I’ve gotten so good at managing my anxieties.

On trips to Orleans, I always stop at the same places.

One of my favorites was a gas station in Roseburg. The last time I was there the attendant very chatty and charming. In case anyone reading this doesn’t know, in Oregon you can’t pump your own gas. He told me he was 83 and lived his whole life in the area and didn’t travel much because he cared for his 83 year old blind wife.

You can imagine how awful I felt when my next trip, barely a couple months later, the gas station was closed.

When I had my last eye exam I mentioned that I have trouble with my eyes being dry. This isn’t a new situation but it bothers me when I spend a lot of time at the computer. (Surprise.)

He did some horrible test which I would describe as scraping a wooden stick around my eye.

He suggested that every night I put a warm pack on my eyes for 20 minutes and then wash my eyes with baby soap and massage around my eyelids. That might not be the exact instructions because I put the sheet at the bottom of my bathroom drawer when I got home that night and haven’t looked at it since.

Twenty minutes to sit with an eye pack? Every night? Yeah, sure, if he told me my eyeballs would fall out if I didn’t do this I would probably be motivated to make the time. But I’m already brushing and flossing and cleansing and moisturizing and fluffing my neck pillow and getting all my stuff ready for the next day because I get up at such an ungodly hour. I can’t bear the thought of adding 20 minutes with an eye pack to the equation.

Raise your hand if you had a bright white poncho to go with your denim pantsuit when you were a girl.

It’s finally happened. I was in a hip diner having lunch the other day and I leaned over to my dining companion and said, “This music sounds awful.” It was modern music and I’m no expert, but I don’t think that girl could sing.

This is a swimming hole on the Salmon River in N. California. The water was low and the skies smokey when we visited this year. I’m not a great swimmer but we brought a floaty cushion and paddled down to see a waterfall. While we were out, some people came to swim a big long lap back and forth. It’s a good swimming hole.

This is Dad’s dog fence.

There are neighbor dogs who used to come into the garage and pee on things. There was a construction project and Dad saw this netting and had an idea. There were some steps involved to get Dad the netting. It involved a former federal highways employee and a tribal official. We are related to these people.

I wish I got a better picture because Dad rigged this so it will attach to the existing garage door frame. Then roll back for storage.

And, keeps the dogs out.