Lights etc al

[bill_schubert]

I put up the Christmas lights today.  Picture to follow once it is dark.  I have them all in a box and we've gotten four + years out of the light strings we have.  Part of putting them up is setting up is replacing the porch light that has been dead for a while now.  It is high which requires a ladder so I put it off until I did the lights.  Fixed the light which turned out to be a dead Phillips Hue wireless bulb.  I had a bunch of Senglet bulbs and threw them all out.  I'd kept them for a long time thinking I might use them but when I went to set one up it wanted me to download a app and the app had all one star reviews with a lot of 'I threw them all out' reviews.  I have less and less patience with crappy tech and no longer want to deal with it so I threw all my Sengled lights out.  I had a couple of Hue bulbs and one of them worked.  Done.

I also found two managed plugs that worked so was able to complete the string light set up and they will turn on/off with the rest of the front lights on schedule or manually if I want.    I'll write myself a note and put them all back in a box for next year when we're done with Christmas in a few weeks. Generally satisfying to have the lights, have them all work for another year, have them all wrapped up so they were not tangled, and be able to get them set up with few problems.  

We don't do much for Christmas and it costs us nothing year to year.

Speaking of which I changed over my personal finance tracking.  I've been using Tiller for maybe three years now but got tired of the spreadsheet.  I ran across a recommendation for Monarch finance and did a week trial of it and now am in my first year.  Where Tiller is a huge and sophisticated set of spreadsheet functions and programming Monarch is a full up application.  It also has a phone version app which Tiller does not.  So I can sit in the waiting room and do a little analysis with my phone.  And the desktop version is pretty good too.  It has a built in AI that makes things better ('how much do I spend per month on my pets?' kind of thing).  Plus it cost less for the first year.  

I've got it set up so it shows 80% of what I want to know about my finances in the front screen. 

We've got two coming over for Thanksgiving and I need to make up the cooking schedule.  We'll be eating early.  Late lunch, very early dinner.  Both coming over do not require much and have already seen all our warts so not like we're having to do much to make things pretty.

Comments

[susandennis]

don't forget to cancel your tiller - i'm pretty sure it auto renews

[bill_schubert]

Thank you. I had until Feb but probably would have forgotten before then. All done.

[beautiful_dreamer_02]

Guests for whom to be thankful, then.

While I think of it, have a happy, safe, and blessed Thanksgiving celebration.

[bill_schubert]

Thank you. Same to you. Happy turkey.

[beautiful_dreamer_02]

Thanks to you, too! :^)