Less Hustle More Coffee

What a lovely lazy day! Slept later than I normally do. George had already started the coffee. I worked on the last bit of laundry. And I finished the food storage containers (with what I had). I’m going to need more of them though. I need some more of the bigger size to be able to put the various kinds of flours in there: all purpose, almond flour, wheat flour and so forth. I decided to wait til next weekend as I already ordered a few things this weekend. I think these are good and much better than the storage bags I’ve been using as these are airtight containers. They are Chef’s Path from Amazon. I am happy to get this done and was happy it came with chalkboard stickers and the chalkboard pen.

The Big Sur Download and Playing in the Aftermath

Happy to say that the iMac back up is complete now, before the planned download of Big Sur. If I didn’t already say that yesterday. I think I did.

The back up drive (to the right of the little Maisy dog) fits perfectly there. You hardly notice it. It updates every hour. I didn’t quite have that frequency in mind, but I guess I’ll take it.

So yay! Big Sur is downloaded. It was no big deal quite honestly. The reason I waited so long (3 months or so) was so the bugs could be worked out. Already there was a big update the last few days fixing some things, particularly with security, so I am glad I waited longer than I thought I would. I watched some YouTubes to revisit what all was different so I could take advantage of the new update. From first glance you could hardly tell anything was different with the iMac at all which some users appreciate. But for me I like to see the changes! So I YouTubed some videos explaining what all had changed and spent the afternoon playing, editing, and adjusting to my preferences.

Right away I was encouraged to go back to Safari and leave Chrome alone. Safari is supposed to be 50% faster as well. Significant updates have been made to Safari. Chrome was beginning to annoy me with it’s security breach notifications, making me feel like I should not be there. While that may have been a good thing to let me know, it scared me. Safari can track all the applications that are putting a track on you and it now shows it for each website in the little icon that sits next to the left of the website address box. So I reset up everything on Safari. It automatically had my favorite sites from where I had used it before. And you could change the theme in the background, which I quickly changed to a shoreline scene. And Safari has extensions like Chrome does now. Here is my Safari Home Screen.

I’m pretty happy with it. It’s a little different getting used to not having everything at the top for my “stationed bookmarks” – but then I discovered you could add the small tab icons for the website and that works just as well. So I have all of my favorites ALSO up at the top as small little tabs as seen in the middle of the pic here.

I also set up “widgets” as it has those available, kinda like the phone and iPad does now.

Big Sur has increased functionality for editing video and photos. It has intensity levels (sliding bar) for each element so you can adjust accordingly. Pretty amazing. I hate I waited so long. But I was trying to be careful.

I’ve checked out the new Maps and it has Guide capability. I’ve added a guide for our Valentine excursion just to see how it works. I think it mainly pin points certain things. You can share it. So if we had a group going, we could share this with the group and they would have the list on a map of all the places we’d be going, or places of interest. Families can use this to plan their vacations. I can’t wait to use it! We need a vacation first though. LOL. I keep longingly looking at Amelia Island. Never did get my vacation there.

I’ve opened up iMovie and it loaded the last movie in as it was on the timeline. So I guess that is a good sign. I think there are some improvements with it too but I’ll have to experiment. One is a fix for shaky video. Well good! I might need it. So I’m happy the update is done and over. And so far no problems.

Roger Dog, My Buddy today

I’ve had a little buddy with me for a chunk of the day. He has slept better with me NOT in bed, as he sleeps longer and I sleep better without him on my end too. George said he’s anxious to see what he does when I move back in there. But I’m not ready to just yet. I’m enjoying my quiet and calm bed. I hope it does not hurt his feelings. The quality of sleep is improving for me. I have a deeper sleep. And last night I only woke up a couple of times but was in bed for a long time. I think I need to catch up on some missed sleep for a while before going back into the other bed “with the jungle crew”. And George’s snores are going to have to be a little less interesting and more subdued. Right now it’s like sleeping with a chainsaw. It comes and goes. It’s not always so horribly loud but lately I guess he’s been tired or something and it’s just very loud.

Super Bowl Grub

So George fixed up some good beef short ribs for dinner. He served it over pearl couscous with a Chimichuri type sauce and feta cheese. We also had a Caesar salad with it. All very delicious.

So it’s been a great productive day but what I have not done is iron my work pants. I spent too much time playing in here. I hope I have something to wear tomorrow so I can just iron Monday night.

Big Ole To Do List and How I Keep up with My Goals

So Next UP in the list of things to do on the list are these things. And it goes out for 2-4 years! ha. Here’s the To Do list with each section being a different color.

Upcoming projects:

Then more into Spring time frame is this to do list. I may remove Hair Salon as I just cut my hair and I’m happy with it.

Then waaaaaaaay on down the line I’ll think about doing these things. I just needed to park them somewhere:

And years later maybe these. Having the neighbors over could come sooner but I guess we need to get out of Covid first. So I parked it on the last list.

None of these are particularly in order within each time frame of list. But I like having this type of to do list where you can place them in a “sector” of priority. As I complete some, I move some more over into the number one slot. Some of these items have been on here for a long time. Like Windows. That’s been on my list for years! LOL

I don’t pay much attention to the titles it’s just Block 1 is more urgent than 2 and Block 4 is some long time frame away. That works great for me. This is the best list I’ve ever used. It’s an app called “Focus Matrix”. I bought it – not to bad of a price, and it is working for phone and iMac. Best I remember I had to pay to have each device. I think it was a one time fee. Unless something had changed. That way I can access it on the go and add to it or see it on my iPhone or iMac. It helps me remember what I want to do! Other than that I also use my weekly/daily planner. I keep it beside me at work and when I think of something I write it down. It fits easily in purse or work bag. I transfer it to my home desk on the weekends. It’s mostly things I want to do on the weekend. Some things are smaller detailed than what is on this colorful list you saw. Things like laundry, putting my vitamins in the Sunday thru Saturday weekly system, remembering to get more hand sanitizer, adding things to the grocery list and so forth.

So those two systems keep me on track. I hardly use the calendar planner for a calendar anymore. We don’t plan much or have anywhere to be other than work. That said, I do have a dental appointment coming in early March. We do have dinner reservations this weekend. But not much else going on. I am going to plan some time with Mom coming up probably the last part of Feb – that way if we catch Covid while we are out Valentining it’ll rear it’s ugly head before heading to her house. Speaking of the Covid – we had two more out with it in our office, but one is back and the other comes back soon. We have had a couple have it earlier and I’m sure more people have had it than even knew about it. You just have to wonder b/c for sure none of us really know. Any times we’ve been tired or had the slightest sniffle or cough – did we have it? Who knows. The symptoms can be anywhere from your normal everyday thing to not being able to breathe so…..unless you are having some issues on the rough end, you wouldn’t know. Enough on that. I like pretending all this mess didn’t exist. All my projects keep me focused off of it usually.

And that was the story of my Sunday! I pretty much did what I said I was going to do. And I’m looking forward to bed already. That is kind sad isn’t it? But I feel in the next two and a half weeks or so, we are going to get a taste of warm spring weather. I can just feel it. I have hope. I might have prayed for some relief from winter. I know spring is a long way off but I’m ready for it. It’ll be flip flop weather in the sense of it all flip flopping back from winter to spring until summer finally pops and then we wish for cooler air again. I love the seasons. So it is fun to get ready for all of them. I want to plan some walks and outings for sure. I want to shop some more and get out. But I am content and happy to be where we are right now as we have been enjoying our hibernate February that we didn’t get much of in January. Matter of fact going to go get ready for bed and read!

I was glad to hear that Katy and Cody and the baby got out to go eat yesterday. Katy said it was a lot of work. Yes I remember the days. You CAREFULLY pack that diaper day bag with everything you could possibly need and then some. And then just being as careful as you can about everything. He’s in his little “tent” and she was happy = look at that face! She is so happy to get out of the house. I can tell. I’ve been worried about her. No particular reason that she gave me, but just knowing how I am myself. Being cooped in for too long I figured she was ready to get out. So I’m happy to see her face and to see it smiling. She sent some cute videos today. I love that little River. I miss him so much. These videos mean so much. One is of him sucking his Paci and it’s so cute!

Ok, if you made it this far you have to let me know. Some of my blog posts are long for the weekend posts. I cram it all in.

Take care. See you in a few days, whenever I have something interesting to blog about, lol.