Murphy is a bully!

I don't think any birds will be visiting my suet feeder today. It's windy, like mad outside, and there's a wind chill! Yeah, I can hardly wait to take the girls for their walk! I'll be bundling up for sure. Thankfully, I do not need to go anywhere once the girls are walked. I have one Zoom class this evening, so I can stay indoors!

Speaking of email woes, this one is a doozy! We have a monitored alarm in our house, which I absolutely hate. If it weren't for insurance, it would NOT be here. We actually had part of it (motion sensors) deactivated because of the annoying low batteries, beeping for warnings, and zero follow-up by the company. What I dislike is that they install the system and never show you how to change the batteries in these things or explain what will happen. 

Last week, I received an email saying the battery at the front door was low. No problem—we have a keyless entry, and I know that the battery has to be changed. I'm good with that. However, I was notified one minute later that the battery was OK. Now that's weird. And then, I proceeded to get the same two emails MANY times until I could call and had a technician come to the house yesterday. 

The ^%$$^ battery in the sensor at the front door was low. OK -- I get that I should have received a notification, but I received THOUSANDS of emails in the last week concerning the issue. First, the battery is low, but OOPS - the battery is not low. So is it low or not? 

What drives me mad is why the emails can't say, "The battery in the front door SENSOR is low," with a link on how to change the darn thing. But why did it have to send THOUSANDS of emails? I'm not kidding—I would get a notification about every 5 minutes—two emails back to back. 

I think they need to change how their system works. Perhaps I'll add that to my list - to write them a note on how the emails should be worded! It would save a lot of time and effort on my part and the company's part. 

Here's the bad battery, which I saved and put in my battery box with a note. 

The dead battery

Once you know what to do, it's easy. But since this has never happened before, how do I know how to fix it? And what needed to be fixed? If the email was more explicit, it would have been a breeze. 

I'm not sure what I did yesterday, but it didn't seem like I got enough done! I have a bit of work to do to get all those presentations together, and well, I'm running out of time, so today, I must focus on that. 

But last night, I wanted to do some embroidery. I've also realized that I CANNOT get the embroidery done for Christmas. I don't have time, as each part takes a long time. I should have started a lot sooner. This is why I never plan on getting things done for Christmas. I'm not sweating it—it was a whim, which I will set aside. I will, however, finish the current project. It's a four-part embroidery, and two of the four are done. 

So, when I went to do the embroidery, I ran into a snag. Good grief—if I'm using this hoop, I need a hoop adapter, and where the heck did I put that? I will say that the new system for attaching the embroidery hoop to the arm is BRILLIANT. I love it. 

Hm - these do NOT go together

I ended up changing the hoop because I didn't have time to find the darn adapter. No big deal. Then, as I sat by my computer doing something, I spied the hoop that the adapter was attached to! I gave myself a scolding because that adapter is supposed to always be left in one spot. 

The missing adapter

It is supposed to be in this box when not being used. I must order a few more to always have one in an "emergency!" OK -- now you can yell at me because I made "fun" of people who lost their keys the other day! Technically, I didn't lose the adapter - it was attached to a hoop, and I knew it was. The question was, which hoop and where did I put it. So I must start remembering when I'm done to remove the adapter! 

The adapter should be in THIS box

I got a customer quilt done. This is Tequila LIme - the paper-pieced quilt we did last year. Choosing the thread color was a challenge on this one. I went with a black thread because it would have muddied the pattern to put a pink thread on the black background. So, while you can see the black thread on the design, it all looks just fine! 

Customer quilt  - done!

I did have to babysit this one a bit, but that's OK. And my long arm FROZE at the end of one row—it just froze! So I had to get out of the stitching program and get back in. But all is good—no one would ever know that happened. 

Oh, I should say that I tried something new with the machine embroidery from the previous night, and I like this method much better. Just because the pattern says one thing does not mean I have to do it that way! I'll be sharing that story with my embroidery group! 

Now that I bought my new running shoes, I'm still getting ads for them. Why did I buy three pairs? They were $50 off, so I saved $150. That's a good enough reason for me to buy three pairs! 

It's so fun to have something to look forward to each day, and right now - it's the EXIT Game Advent Calendar. We finished Day Three last night. I know - we are way behind, but that's OK. We do it when our schedules work. Perhaps I shouldn't say this, but we are three for three! There is no need to look at the clues; as I've said before, we work well as a team on this. I probably would be struggling by myself and DH as well. I'm sure we'll have to look at some point, but I'm OK with that. We give it our all, and I can't wait for dinner! We must wait until Saturday to play again, although DH suggested taking it to the restaurant on Friday. Seriously?? 

I managed to get rid of some paper and answer some emails, so I'm in good shape, but there's still so much to deal with! No wonder my office is such a disaster. The paper comes in faster than I can process it! But any progress is good! I'm happy to celebrate the little things in life and let bygones be bygones. It blows my mind how some people are "happy" when they complain. That's all they seem to do - hold grudges and complain. I complain - get it out of my system and move on! Life is too short to live unhappily!

Murphy is sneaky! We have allowed her on the sofa occasionally, but she usually doesn't stay long and never climbs up when we are around. Imagine my surprise when I came downstairs this morning to find Lexi leaning against the wall in the hall. Yet - I heard someone jump off the furniture. When I checked the sofa, it was warm, and who came around the corner. Yep - that would be Murphy! Why? Did she push Lexi off? Or jump up when Lexi wasn't on the sofa? Lexi was not impressed and said that Murphy was a bully! 

I hope the decluttering is working out OK for you. I know that some of you are diligently working on things like boxes of CDs in the car. We all have these skeletons in our closets, and we know we don't need the stuff, so it's time to get rid of it! We need to be mindful of our stuff, not just living with it but becoming aware of it all. You might be surprised at what you see. If things are around too long, they become invisible. 

On that happy note, I'm out of here. 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!