The First of November

Most of the month of October was quite warm, requiring only that I wear a sweatshirt or light jacket when I went outside. Chilly, blustery, damp weather moved in on Halloween, and today–the first of November–it felt downright wintry. In fact, tonight and tomorrow we have a Winter Weather Advisory with a mix of rain and snow forecast. Brrrr. I am definitely now wearing a winter coat and hat–and I will be getting out my mittens and boots.

The trees finally dressed in their autumn finery, and then the blustery wind blew off the colorful leaves in a shower of color. When the sun hit the aspens (pictured above), the leaves twinkled like golden Christmas lights.

We spent October preparing for Winter. EJ did maintenance on the truck, he removed the window screens and stored them until next Spring when the weather warms again. We got the patio table moved to the porch, the garden hoses put away, and my herb garden covered with straw. For the first time, EJ is working at temporarily enclosing the front porch until spring.

We usually buy extra supplies for the winter so we won’t run out of anything if a snowstorm hits. However, we’ve been buying extra, extra supplies this year because we’ve been hearing of a looming supply chain crisis. We’ve been asking ourselves, “What will we need if the stores’ shelves become empty?” and little by little, paycheck by paycheck, we’ve been buying ahead.

EJ sometimes stops at a merchandise outlet store on his way to work. It sells products that retail stores pull off their shelves–because the items aren’t selling or to get rid of seasonal items like Halloween candy or Christmas decorations. EJ came home one day with 5 lbs of coriander powder, which he bought for only $5. A real find….except neither of us have ever cooked with coriander powder and don’t know exactly what to do with it. I guess we will have to learn. LOL.

In mid-October, my laptop started groaning and wheezing. We weren’t expecting to buy a new computer right now, but “What if we can’t buy one later?” we asked ourselves, took a deep breath, and bought a new one. It’s probably just as well that we did. A couple years ago, Hannah Joy knocked my laptop to the floor a few times. After that, the bottom didn’t fit tightly, the screen wouldn’t stay up (I had to lean it against the wall), and the disk drive no longer worked. It’s actually surprising the laptop lasted as long as it did.

We replaced the laptop with a desktop. We bought only a tower (with keyboard) to save money. EJ stopped in at Goodwill on his way to work and found me a monitor and speakers, both for under $20. The speakers are very good ones. The bass is so powerful that it often startles me with its deep rumble. I splurged a little and bought myself a wireless mouse that looks like a car. Its headlights light up. Cute!

I’ve spent the last week setting up the new computer. I haven’t had a desktop for quite a few years so I have to get used to some differences. One advantage is that I can put the keyboard away when I’m not using it so the cats don’t lay or walk on it. It also is more stable on the end table so Hannah Joy won’t be able to knock it off.

The difficulty has been trying to transfer everything from the old laptop to the new desktop. I was able to successfully sync my bookmarks. I couldn’t figure out how to file share so I’ve had to copy all my photos and documents onto a thumb drive and then copy them from there onto the desktop. I am still working on that. It’s going pretty well.