Hurry up and Wait.....

So, I am in full on packing mode and have been all weekend.  I made a list on Friday so I would not lose track of what I needed and wanted to get done.  It has helped a lot.  I am not stressed in the least, although that might change by the end of the day.  

I am currently at L C Autobody getting the oil changed.  I brought her here as it was too far to head into Downingtown to go to the Hyundai dealer.  They would also tag me to do the 30,000 mile maintenance and I have just hit that mark last week, so I will wait on that for when I get back.  I arrived to get the oil changed on time and it should not take too long.

Clothes are packed and I have Winston's stuff gathered.  Sewing stuff is next and I need to go through the travel snacks and motel food as I think I was planning to be gone for a year, looking at the bags in the kitchen.  Bills are paid and the two new pieces to the home alarm arrive today, so that will take time away from packing.  But I will be able to read the temperature inside the house if it works correctly.  

Update.... I am sitting in my bed at the Red Roof Inn in Elyria, OH.  My car has fresh oil, I think I have packed everything and then some.  Winston has been an excellent traveler. But I cannot seem to get the local Internet to connect to my computer.  That could prove to be a bad thing as I cannot update my web site for this trip.  I will not worry about it until I get to either Linda's house and try it there or land at Brian's house.  Hopefully it is just a sucky motel system and not my computer.

The trip was relatively uneventful. There has been some sort of significant accident on the PA turnpike near Bedford and all along there were warnings that it was closed in that area.  The turnpike AM warning station was repeating directions for a detour that added up to close to 150 miles.  But fortunately it was cleared before I got to the area.  I did crawl in traffic resulting from the emergency road repair, but it only set me back about 45 minutes.

Today I am setting out for Linda Mehnert's lake house in Lake Villa, IL.  I will keep trying the Internet as I travel and update the website as soon as I can.  

4:30 AM and sleep is not coming.....

I hate nights like this.  I work all day long, even until way past where I should be relaxing before bed, tired, ready to sleep, but I lay there and nothing happens.  I move in different directions.  Not comfy.  Toss and turn, still no sleep.  I watch all manner of boring shows on TV and Netflix... nada.  Can't wait to see what my Fitbit has to say about this night.

Yesterday was a busy day.  I have been working to get all of the clutter off the floors in the living room and dining room.  Because Winston is a digger dog, the carpet which is 30+ years old and looking it's age,had gotten to look really dirty and flat.  I know that the carpet had not been shampooed since well before Rudy died.... and he has been dead for over 4 years now.  It was way past due.

I finished up getting the last of the stuff put away or moved out of the way, dug out the carpet shampoo machine and went to town.  I started in the dining room and tankful by tankful of warm, soapy water, I cleaned the carpet.  The areas most walked by myself and Winston were horrible.  I put down the cleaning solution and then let it soak in well.  Then I would suck up the dirty... and it was really bad let me tell you.... water, dumping the waste water tank into the toilet.  After the first couple of passes, there was actually mud that settled into the bottom of the waste tank.  Gotta love my digger dog.

Took me most of the day to complete as the spray, soak and suck process took more time than just spraying as it sucked.  The good thing is that this shampoo machine really does a nice job of sucking.  So, while damp, the carpet had pretty well dried in the area first cleaned by the time I was done.  And when I got up Thursday morning, it was dry.  The color is back to the soft brown with areas of lighter yellow/tan.  The loft is back, to a degree with 30+ year old carpet, so is much nicer on bare feet and my white socks did not get dirty just paddling around the house.  It is something I have been trying to get to since I brought all of the stuff here from the Maryland House.

Thursday (yesterday as I write early Friday morning) I did some shopping.  I am in full on prep mode for the Minnesota trip.  I had my list from Brian on hings he and Matt and Janice wanted from Pennsylvania.  So to the beer store for two cases of Yuengling Black & Tan Beer.  Then to Hoe Depot to get a couple of security latches for the basement door (there has been an increase in burglaries in the area and that door was the least secure) plus some 3M hook and loop hangers for the little shelves I am adding to the sewing room basically to give the new camera a higher perch.  The to Walmart for Herr's BBQ chips for Matt, some Tasty Cake Peanut Butter Kandy Cakes for Janice and bread for me.

I had also called the SimpliSafe folks and asked them to bill me for the extra entry sensor.  I am going to put it on the inside door to the sewing room.  I will probably have it open when I am home. but when I am away it will be a fail safe sensor for anyone who might try to break in through the basement.  They are also going to send me a Freeze Sensor, designed to be mounted by the thermostat and will send out an alert if the temperature falls to 41 degrees, giving plenty of time to get a heat source going so pipes do not freeze, as well as a panic button for the bedroom.  The freeze sensor will let me monitor the current temperature inside the house so while I am away, I can see what the internal temperature is to know if the air conditioning or furnace are working inside the house.

So after a snack which eventually served as dinner, I headed to the basement.  I installed the three little cube shelves (pictures will follow someday soon)  and got the camera temporarily set up on tip of one of them with a nice long shot of the room.  The I tacked installing the two extra latches on the door.  One is a ball and loop thing like most hotels have on their doors and one is just a straight latch through a loop.  Since the door is really just a hollow interior door, neither one will hold back a determined thief, but it will slow down one who wants to be quick and quiet about getting in and will make me feel better about leaving the house for long lengths of time when I travel.

Finally, I took the old sensor from the basement door and installed it on the interior door to the sewing room.  The came the "adding a component" to my alarm system process.  The instructions from SimpliSafe had two methods of doing that, one through the Keypad, the other using the remote and my PC.  I opted for the remote/PC combination as it seemed easier.  I followed the directions, the system found the "new/old" sensor which has been named Sewing Room but it was listing the Basement Door sensor as 'open'.  I fussed with the basement door, opening it and closing it to make sure the correct number of flashes were happening on the sensor, but it was still showing 'open' when I decided to call it a day and head to bed.

I went in the kitchen to set the alarm and after pushing the HOME key, nothing happened, except the keypad was now reading that the keypad was out of range.  I found this mildly amusing as the keypad and the base station are now only 7 feet apart so I doubted that they were out of range.  I tried all sorts of things to get the system to work.  Finally I unplugged the base station, counted to ten and plugged it back in.  Suddenly all was working just fine as far as setting the alarm. But it did mention that there was an open door somewhere in the system

Since I am now up, but fading fast I might add at 20 minutes after 5 in the morning, I checked the system, via my PC.  I refreshed the settings by syncing the system and all sensors are showing properly, including the Basement Door which is now showing closed as is the Sewing Room door, so I am feeling all warm and fuzzy, here is my safe house.  Perhaps I can sleep now!

It is the tiny things that foul you up.....

So, yesterday I dug into the moving of entry sensor and web camera in the sewing room, better known as Camp Parkesburg!

I took down the camera first and then removed the entry sensor from the door.  Easy Peasy!

I studied the door.  Because we had covered the electrical wiring in metal to give the basement a more industrial look, and because there is a metal beam in the ceiling between the top of the door and getting a signal to the base station, I decided to mount the sensor on the side of the door about a foot or so from the bottom.  It gives the sensor a more direct line up the steps to the base station without too much interference..... hopefully.

I decided that I would mount both the main sensor part and the tiny magnet part using screws.  Not a problem with the big part.  It was attached to the door with screws already so the two parts separated easily.  The tiny magnet was a whole other story.  I pushed and pulled... and pushed and pulled.  I inserted a regular screwdriver into the tiny end and tried to move the small piece that would attach to the door with screws.  Nope, not moving.  I kept at it, feeling like an idiot but nothing worked.  I called SimpliSafe only to be told that removing that piece was the hardest one with even the SimpliSafe folks having trouble.  Feeling like less of an idiot!  I struggled for a total of an hour and a half before digging out a tiny screwdriver from one of my sewing machine toolboxes.  And even then it was moving by teeny tiny amounts... but I won and it finally came apart.  So I installed it on the bottom side of the door.  So far, so good.  The sensor is communicating with the base station.  But it also did that with the original location for a couple of days.  Time will tell.

I moved the camera to the entry door and mounted it.  But, hard as I tried, I could not get a good field of vision.  So, for now, it is on top of the shelf where I have my coffee cups are stored, but it is not high enough.  So it will be fine for now, but I will be looking for an alternative to get it higher.

I was sleeping very well last night until my weather radio went off at 4:30ish in the morning.  It was a warning of heavy lightening and wind.  So I got up, shut down the work computer (it is the one that streams the cameras), gathered Winston and headed to the basement.  I flipped off the main power and we sat in the dark waiting for the storm to pass.  The thunder rolled and rolled and rolled.  One clap of lightening was very close by and the rain pelted for several minutes.  It was over in about 20 minutes but by now, I am awake.  Flipped the power back on, restarted the computer and went back to bed.  Did not fall asleep until after 6:00 AM and up again by 8:30 AM.  Going to be a long day!!!

Moving things today

I woke up this morning to a notification that the new sensor in the basement was no longer communicating with the base station.  Drat.... I had such high hopes.

So, now that I have showered and dressed, I will be heading to the sewing room, cordless drill in hand.  I am going to move the sensor to the middle of the door and move the web camera to a new location.  I will keep trying until I get this done.  It is not their equipment, it is the makeup of my house.  I am guessing that 100 years old is not all that tech friendly.

Troubles and Progress....

You should know by now that if you do not hear from me either things are going along really well or not so much.  This time it is a little of both.

I have been busy and not busy.  There are days when I have things to do and I am up and down, in and out, and by the end of the day I am too tired to post.  Then there are days when I am just down and do not feel like posting.  It is called life as a widow.  There are days when I really miss having someone in the house to help take the burden of the normal chores.  And then there are days when I say, why bother, as there is not anyone in the house who would care if the bed is not made, the dishes in the sink are piling up or I have not planned for dinner, so I do not eat and just snack.

The alarm system arrived.  I was able to install it.  The entry sensors are in the same places as the other company's entry sensors.  The one motion detector is located on the shelves in the same area as the motion detector in the living room but not attached to the wall.  Will make changing the battery in a few years much, much easier.  The basement motion detector is midway up the steps and attached to a wooden box that once kept my potatoes in the dark and cool in the basement.  The different thing about this system is the keypad (located in the kitchen so as to cover the hole made by the old company in my kitchen wall) must communicate with the base station which is now separate from the keypad.  The old company had the keypad and the base station together and that is the part that fried.  I had placed the base station near the window in the dining room so it was farther from the basement sensor than the old system base station.

It had been in for close to a week without an issue.  Last Sunday I went to a cookout at Nancy & Jeff's house in Delaware.  While Winston and I were there, I got an email about the basement door entry sensor no longer communicating with the base station.  When I got home I logged into the web site and began to follow the troubleshooting list.  First, go to the door and open and close it a couple of times to see if it reset.  It did not.  Next, was to move the base station closer to the door sensor.  So I relocated it to the sewing machine table at the end of the wall in the dining room. Still no difference.  Next was to check the battery.  Since it was only 6+ days old, I doubted that, but stranger things had happened.  I did not want to undo a working sensor that late at night, so I set the "home" alarm which sets the entry sensors to armed but not motion detectors.

I could not sleep.  Kept thinking about what might be wrong and liking the fact that I had 60 days to try out the system where I could return the components and get my money back.  Then I remembered that I might have the special battery for the entry sensor, so I got up and sure enough, I had several of the special sized battery.  I grabbed one and headed to the basement.  Took the sensor down, took the original battery out and put the new one in.  Placed the refreshed unit back on the door and then opened and closed it  a couple of times, hearing the base station twiddle which told me it was communicating with the base station.  I closed and had just locked the door when the siren began screaming.  I had forgotten to turn of the alarm!!!  I race upstairs, enter my code and just as the last number went in, my phone is ringing.  It is the monitoring station asking if I am alright.  I explained my plight, gave them my safeword and reset the alarm before going to bed.

The next day the sensor stopped communicating again but by now I have called the SimpliSafe people and they had already shipped out a replacement sensor.  But then the keypad was giving me fits.  It would not acknowledge the pin number entry or it would take multiple entries to get things shut off.  When the new sensor arrived, I again called the SimpliSafe technical support people and had a lovely young woman helping me.  She diagnosed the keypad issue as not communicating with the base station.  I moved it back to the dining room window and the keypad issue was gone.  The door sensor was installed and the serial number changed for the base station but still not recognized by the base station.... but I now understood that my plaster and lathe walls along with cinder block in my almost 100 year old house make modern, wireless communication difficult.  I have now moved the base station to the top of the bookcase in the dining room so is easily communicating with the keypad and also in closer to and communicating with the basement door.  If it loses communication with the door again, I will need to move the web camera and perhaps relocate the sensor to the center of the door, away from the metal enclosure for the electrical lines.  But I have great confidence that I will get everything set up to communicate with the base station and have a really nice security system that I can expand piece by piece over the next couple of months.

I did run into a problem with my home phone.  When I replaced the security system, I had to unplug the base station from the kitchen wall.  It was two wires (power) and a plug (I had no idea).  I did this on a Monday afternoon.  Tuesday morning I needed to call someone and discovered that I had no dial tome.  I called Verizon and finally got a young woman who, when she checked my line said she was reading that I had a receiver off the hook.  It was then that I realized that the plug I had removed was part of the communication system for the old system and I had essentially left an open circuit thus looking like a receiver off the hook.  So I scheduled a repair person and by the time he had arrived, I had located the line from the old system and could tell him exactly what was needed.  The only issue he created was that he had to make sure the signal was coming to the house before he came in.  Bees had built a nest inside the box outside so he sprayed it to not get stung.  After he left, I was on the phone with Marji and the phone kept hanging up on me.  I called the tech (I had his number in my cell phone from when he called to let me know he was on his way) and he came back and dried out the box outside which solved the problem.  I am hoping, fingers crossed, that this is all finally taken care of and settled.

We had another Sew Much Love session.  Each time we do better and better at making the pillowcases and other projects.  This time we had to relearn how to do the pillowcases.  The lady at Piece By Piece had returned some to us that were not up to her standards.  So we took time to show all of the places that needed to be watched.  Then we ripped up seams, restitched pillowcases and helped one of our sewers (who preferred doing her pillowcases on her serger) learn how to do the french seam with a regular machine.  We had decided that everyone should learn how to do the pillowcases the same way.  We also found that one of the other sewers had used the wrong bobbin in her machine and had bad seams in her pillowcases.  So we got her back on track as well.  It was a good day all the way around.

I am now getting ready to head out to visit Brian in Minneapolis.  I leave here on the 12th and will not return until the 28th.  I will stay just outside of Cleveland and then stop near Chicago to stay with my cousin for two nights and one full day before heading to Minneapolis.  I will leave Minneapolis on the 24th and back to my cousin's for three nights and two days before heading back to the Cleveland area on the 27th and get home on the 28th.

I have an embroidery job to do before I leave and a quilt that I have agreed to make for a dear friend.  She currently is living in Belgium so I must wait on the box of tee shirts to arrive from her.  If they get here before I head to Minneapolis I will take them with me so I can work on it while I am in Minneapolis.  If they do not get here, then I have another project to take to Brian's house and I will jump into the tee shirt quilt when I get back.  I find it amazing that people think I am good enough to make a quilt for them.  I just think of myself as a novice sewer.  Perhaps I am selling myself short.  But I will be getting very busy over the next several days.  I will be packed up and heading out in 9 days!  Yikes, I better get off my tush and get busy!!