The tip of the iceberg

As promised, I'm going to show you what came in that small box. See that small box on top? It came from Amazon. Not ordered by myself.

What's in the small box?

I opened it and I had a great laugh. Thanks so much - I'm not sure I say who sent it to me. Oh, what the heck! I'll name the culprit - it was Ronda!!!


This is what was in the box. It's an echo dot!!  You may know her by her name - Alexa!!!

echo dot

I know - this is just the tip of the iceberg. I'll explain in a minute. First - why did she send me this? Well, when we were on our road trip to Nashville back in February, I drove the others crazy by constantly saying "Alexa, what does XYV mean?" and various other questions. Of course, Ronda does not have Alexa in the car. My intent was for someone in the car to look up the information, but no one did!

So, now I have my own Alexa to pester. Now in a way, I could say that I won the lottery and now I have a personal assistant. Because she will do things for you - set timers, reminders, call people, etc.

I set Alexa up in Studio U. Looks like a small unobtrusive little thing.

Alexa

But when you say "Alexa" - she gets excited and lights up - waiting for my silly questions.

Alexa waiting for my question

It wasn't that difficult to set up after I installed the app on my phone. It appears there is an app for pretty much anything. We need to take very good care of our phones. There are so many apps attached to our Smartphones. Actually, I don't have many, but the phone has become an appendage.

But here's the thing about Alexa. Essentially it's a listening device in my house. Who is listening? What's crazy is that for several years, Canadians were not allowed to appear on Jeopardy. Why? Because of Canadian privacy laws! I don't know the whole story or why that would be an issue. But how can Amazon get away with listening in my house 24/7? Isn't that an invasion of privacy?

Does that mean if I make a major sewing mistake and get ticked off and start yelling, that Alexa will calm me down with soothing music? That would be totally creepy. I know she isn't supposed to do anything until I say "Alexa", but that doesn't mean she isn't listening ALWAYS.

The other part of Alexa is that when you see all that Alexa can do, you want to buy doorbells, TVs, and other devices that are Smart so you can control everything with Alexa. I asked Alexa to turn on my audiobook and she told me that I didn't have anything in Audible which is what Amazon uses for audiobooks. Yep, and Audible is being advertised on the radio - no mention that it belongs to Amazon or affiliated with Amazon. Audible reminds me of Double Day book publishing - remember that? Well, Audible sounds the same, just digital, not an actual book.

Let's just say that the folks at Amazon are pretty clever. They have found a way to completely dictate and control our lives! And I just opened the door a crack! Well - Ronda did!

I have ZERO plans to buy a smart radio or I suppose I could have Alexa play the radio for me. No plans to make any changes in the house because of her. I only want her to answer my questions. After I got her set up, DH had to run up to test it out! He could use one as well.

But hasn't life changed? Everything seems to be connected. Oh - I connected my calendar to Alexa via the app on my Smartphone. Hey - if she can check my calendar or keep me on track - why not? My calendar is already on the internet and therefore not private. I've had that set up for years. 

All this leads me to another story - the technology in my car. That'll have to wait for a couple of weeks. It's a nightmare. OK - so perhaps I'm exaggerating, but I'm not happy. For the moment, I ran out of data on my phone for the remainder of the month and have to wait until the end of the month before I can do anything about the car. It's a long story.

I have a priority list of three things to do today. One is already done. Yeah! One will be to call about my phone and see if I can get some more data to end the month. Not that it's a huge deal, but when you don't have it? You miss it big time!!!

I went back to Lens Mill yesterday to pick up a couple of things that I didn't have time for the previous day. Between the two days, I spent less than $100!!!  That's awesome.

Here are the Northcott labels from the Colorworks Concept collection. I know some of my UFO group was looking for them. I have three panels available if anyone wants them. I run these labels through the inkjet printer to get a nice label to put on a quilt. Here's a link to the tutorial for that. If anyone wants panels, please let me know. Cost of $11 for one panel with about 24 labels. There were a few more panels left on the bolt. Anyone want them????

Labels for quilts

I also got a ¼ meter of these two fabrics. I have a plan for these which I hope to get to work on this weekend. But only ¼ meter of each. That's restraint! Honestly, I didn't feel like buying more. What would I do with it??? A ¼ meter is actually loads! Way too much in fact, but that's OK. 

Two 1/4 meter pieces of fabric

I did get a few more things, but I'll share those with you another day.

Back to physio yesterday. After the stretching and some manipulation of my shoulder/neck muscles, the physiotherapist tried acupuncture again. Yikes - this time they hit the knotted muscle and made it twitch! That was a weird sensation, but you know what? I think it helped a lot. I feel the knot is almost gone, but my neck is still stiff as heck in one direction. Apparently, muscles need to contract and relax. It appears that one (or several) of my shoulder muscles was stuck and could not relax. Hopefully, it's getting looser and will at some point be able to relax.

I thought I did quite well on the posture thing yesterday and thanks to the people who provided me with suggestions. My upper back was super tired at the end of the day, but that was from holding my posture. Those upper back muscles have been slacking off for years - time to get them fired up and work for a change!

On that note, I'm out of here. Loads to do, but I'm taking things at a very slow pace and I'm good with that. I'm trying to tidy up a wee bit and it takes longer than you think. But all is good - a very quiet weekend and I can't wait!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!