I WILL conquer the technology woes!

Some people posted interesting comments about the furniture on the side of the streets, ready to be crushed in the garbage trucks. 

Some thrift stores will take that furniture, but you must deliver or pay for delivery. A friend's daughter was getting rid of a bedroom suite. It would cost $200 to have it delivered. She paid for the delivery! Thank you! And some family will thank her! But most of the furniture, sadly, goes into the landfill. 

And I see someone had a rare family dining set valued at $12K US several years ago. Today? She sold it for $375. 

That's the thing -- something might be valued at a specific price, but if there is NO BUYER, the item is worthless. And if the market is gutted with similar items, the items lose their value. As much as it hurts, we just have to face the fact that most of that furniture will end up in the landfill. 

I have a round wooden table that belonged to a great-grandparent. They bought the set from Eaton's - the tag is still on the back. The set is worth NOTHING except sentimental to me while I'm alive. When I'm gone -- it'll go in the dumpster. Sad but true. I'm OK with that as I get lots of use out of it in the office. I'm using it to store things, so I guess that counts as use! I plan on making it a working space one day this year as I vow to finish clearing the office (two surfaces) by the end of the year. At the rate I'm going, that will happen! 

I'm back home now -- that was a short and fast retreat, but our minds were so blown by all the possibilities that we could not have done another day! I asked many questions, took notes, and hope to putter around with some stuff on my own. The theme was journal-making, in case you forgot! More on that in a bit. 

I have a love/hate relationship with my printer. It's in another room, but that's OK -- I get bonus steps having to walk from the desk to the printer. As you know, my computer recognizes it to scan, but not to print. That is the weirdest thing. There are times when the printer gets hung up and won't print. I try to turn it off and back on again, but sometimes, my impatience takes over, and I unplug it. Then I plug it back in. 

I then get a message saying the printer was shut down incorrectly, which could cause damage. OK -- but then shut down in a reasonable amount of time. So this morning, I turned it off, using the POWER switch, and then back on, and got the same silly message. See what I mean? Love/hate!!!

I need to take control of my computer and all those files. I was so focused on the distribution lists that I didn't get a chance to do a lot of cleanup on the files. However, look what I saw this morning. 

NOOOOOOO -- not again!

Seriously?? My storage is BACK in the red? How can that be -- I swear I turned off the backup sync with OneDrive. 

Well, no worries -- I attempted to MOVE, but the command got changed to COPY, a bunch of files in the OneDrive backup on my computer to my external hard drive. 

Copying, NOT moving files

Then, I deleted the files that I just copied (very important). But unless I was prepared to turn the computer off, that really didn't free up any space, so I emptied that temporary file, and now look -- I have almost 40 GB of space!!!!!! WOW -- power to me for taking charge of my computer and cleaning up this mess so things will work properly. 

Lots of free space

I'm still working on it -- I have more files from that OneDrive backup to move, and I need to delete many files from my email. Then, I need to figure out why I lost so much disk space so quickly. I suspect the OneDrive is still connected, but it said it wasn't. 

But, I'm on top of it -- I CANNOT let this happen again. This whole mess with distribution lists was insane. I think I now have everything I was working on in good shape. I didn't get a single email yesterday saying they didn't have the correct information. YEAH!!!!! 

I still have to update two lists - and only keep the people who paid to stay in digital cutter and out of the box; then there is one list to recreate TODAY, which is for the Heartfelt quilt, which is happening tomorrow. 

I think I'll print a copy of each list -- just in case. I still have a lot of cleaning up to do in that contact list. MANY email contacts need to be deleted as they are years old. I am double-checking the most current email for many people- it's a horror show, to be sure. But I'm working through it; the most critical stuff is done. Whenever someone sends me an email, I automatically save them to my contact list. 

Now, to get that Outlook book out and make sure there aren't some tricks that can help me. 

Let me share some of the stuff we worked on this week. On my way there and back, I debated what to do about the FOUR week-long retreats I had booked for 2025. Should I keep that many? I seriously debated canceling one of them. But then I thought I could do one as three days of journal-making and four days of quilting. You can come to one or the other or both!!! 

So, if you are interested in a journal-making retreat, send me a note! I'll put you on the list. 

I forgot to take pictures of my journal, but these are some of what the others did and some of the instructor's work. I asked permission but decided to leave their names off. They know who they are. 

The covers are made in numerous ways, and this one is "plain," but they can be decorated with anything. 

A journal cover

But look at all the fun stuff on the inside., Some people write in these "junk" journals; others simply fill them with pretty things. Or photos, or whatever you want. I'm more about the process -- I love playing with everything and am not so good at writing in them. That is partly because my handwriting sucks! SO I need to get over that and pretend these are my china tea mugs. Let the paint fade because I put them in the dishwasher. Enjoy them EVERY DAY, not just the day I  make my junk journal. 

Some inside pages of the junk journal

They are absolutely stunning!!!! This one had a predominant rabbit theme going through it. 

Here's the cover of another of the instructor's books. I think that is modeling clay on it and then tied with a sari silk ribbon. 

Another junk journal cover

And this is a page in that journal. Note the pockets and stitching along the edges. Anything goes! 

Journal pages

This is the center collage page from one of the attendees. Oh my --- it's so artfully done, but this person has a LOT of photo/art/collage background, and it shows. 

Art collage page

This is the center collage of someone else. It's a bit simpler, but still very beautiful and done with paints, decoupage, stickers, and I'm not sure what else. But what fun!!!!

Another art collage page

My center collage piece is very linear. I'll take a picture tomorrow! I struggle with this stuff, and yet I love it, so I'd better start putting in my 10,000 hours!!!!

Here's the cover of someone else's journal from the workshop. So fun to find bits and bobs of stuff and put it together. 

A journal cover by a participant

What can I say -- we had a blast, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. So that's why one retreat will be sacrificed for this in 2025. I'm the retreat organizer and can do whatever I want- well, I ask the group first! Trust me, we discussed this yesterday, and it's a nice break from quilting. 

Although I wanted to stop at a store along the way to get some supplies, there was no time, as I had a meeting at 3 PM. That meeting was for work, and now I have many things to prepare for February 2024. But part of that getting ready is dealing with ALL the presentations from previous years. I need to cull them. I  need to ensure I keep the sample pages, but I do NOT need 10 copies of the same thing. So that should be a joy, and I'll try to do one subject or something every day. But there is a lot of duplication, and let's not forget my laptop has some files and a few copies on USB sticks. That should all be placed on the data drive (into appropriate folders). It's not a job for the faint of heart, but it'll save time - eventually! Yippeee!!!!! I can't wait to start on that mess. 

On that note, I'm out of here. It's a busy day- nothing on the agenda, but prep work for classes on the weekend and starting to work on sorting those files, and I have writing blog posts to do!!

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!!!!