Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Do you receive catalogs?
I don't live in a city; I'm a rural shopper.
I receive catalogs.
About 100 different kinds, with all their varied mailing schedules, dribble in by threes and fours every mail day.
When I'm shopping I either drive in to find it in town first, or, if it's not locally carried merchandise, go online and find the item/latest specials instead. When no store carries it, and I request lots of items online, well, over time that activity generated lots of CATALOGS!

One Step Forward:
Lately when I get a catalog, I think, "What a waste of paper. What a waste of time -- I don't even look at catalogs, even when I think I will, and set one aside just for that purpose. I need to get on my computer and end this madness."

Just before Christmas, I'd taken off the back page off every catalog we received, to efficiently prepare for a change. Furthermore, I'd alphabetized the label pages to get ready. (How else do you think I knew I had 100 catalogs?)

The technologically-challenged believe they can write one email and put every single catalog's www. name in the "To" space. That's me.
It didn't work. You can't just take the catalog web address and send out an email to www.catalogname.com.
You have to mail someone, or some department, with "@" in their address.

So, I figured there would be time-consuming steps involved.
I would have to go to each individual catalog's website Contact area and ask them to stop sending out their catalog to whatever variation of my name and my address they happened to be sending it to now.
And I would have to type or cut and paste that name/address-variation information into my request. Penance for all those material purchases, probably deserved.

I started the online process Friday morning. No more waiting for me. No more evading technological solutions in 2007. I thought, "I'm getting on that computer, and getting results."

After the first twenty emails or so went out, confidence-eroding hints started rolling back in. Levenger wrote "If you do not wish to receive unsolicited mail of any sort, may we suggest that you submit all the mailing labels from your unwanted mail to:
DMA Mail Preference File
Direct Marketing Association
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-6700
The Direct Marketing Association will take care to add all the different spellings and address variations represented on the labels to its database. (It usually takes a few months to become effective.) All responsible mailers, such as Levenger, take care not to send mailings to those on this list. We are concerned with our valued customers' well-being and try very hard to comply with such requests as quickly as possible."

Well.
My technological clarity begin to waver...
But... AHA! I already had all the catalog labels removed! I could bundle them off to New York! Piece of cake!

And... not only that, (Second Step Forward), this package would not fit in the Outgoing slot on my post office provided rural mailbox, so I COULD FIGURE OUT THE USPS AT-HOME LABELMAKING POSTAGEPURCHASING SYSTEM TO DO IT! What an opportunity for double bonus technology-learning advancement.

The usps approach to mail is if you simply have a postal scale at home, you can pay for postage and print out a label for your packages. I'd bought the postal scale, and then -- I admit it -- avoided usps online altogether.

No more. I figured out the usps piece also Friday morning, packaged the catalog labels, wrote up an enclosure note, weighed the package, set up a usps account, printed out the postage, prepared everything.

(Mental dusting of hands)


With the most recent catalogs tossed and my antidote -- knitting -- in place, and several knitting projects, like Lucie's scarf (with matching scarf for her doll, LuLu), and Cayden's newborn hat, on the positive side of things,








and the ongoing challenge of fixing Barry's handmade ski hat (which had not "snugged up" during washer agitation for a closer fit as planned, but transformed into a veritable Lake, fitting droopily loose instead), listing toward the negative side,

I drove into town with the "Stop Catalogs" package

and found I'd inadvertently left the prepaid postage label at home.

Drat.
Deflated, I returned home to more company email responses for "EndCatalogs," ones that provided proof for my One technological Step Back. Anthropologie said "To ensure that you will no longer receive unwanted mailings from other companies, please visit the Direct Marketing Association’s website, http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.html and fill out the Mail Preference Service Form."

Drat.
There was a simpler solution online.
I taped the label printout on my package.
My brain fogged over and I went and had a snack.

I have yet to go online and look at the Mail Preference Form.

I guess I'll do that, just to check on how many address variations I'd have to type in, right after I take my package with that postage I paid for online back to town and pop it in a usps mailbox so it will go to New York.

Bibbitty Bobbitty Blog

In the past week I have forgotten how to blog, lost my Yahoo gmail password to sign on to blog, got that password reset, went cross country skiing at Crater Lake, tried to repair the Fair Isle sweater vest back and found out it needed to be ripped back to the ribbing for a second go, and got the bank to fix the posting error made to our online account so we weren't charged a fee after all.

Only the skiing worked out well. I had begun to feel like this:




So I'm going to Bend today, with my friend, Debi, and returning tomorrow afternoon.

(Never Fear, I'm taking some Mac reading along and will be launching into some new territory in the next few days.)

doubts about being plastic

Sifting through the parts of the day that are still technology-avoidance moments, I'm happy to report that the tabs have been mastered, with the help of a trip to Staples, Avery label pack purchase (self-adhesive tab shape that doesn't tear or need a plastic encasement), and an Avery label file download once back home. Computer technology rules!


However, have I traded in goldfish awareness for the green robot?


Though over the past few days I've managed to blog, acquire podcasts from iTunes, look at the NY Times daily videos, use my scanner, survive online banking mysteries, and change my local newspaper delivery to an online format, these technological achievements have required the help and support of a cast of thousands...(James, Angelyn, David, Ruth, Barry, and Stephanie you know who you are). And during my struggles, I've found it's important not to be plastic about it all. Solace and comfort have come unexpectedly from low-tech things like knitting my fuschia sweater


starting Barry's Fair Isle Vest



finishing Bethany's hat



starting Bethany's spiral scarf



and picking out baby hat yarn for a friend's new grandbaby twins



Have I veered hard? Finishing the tabs Sunday, I was quickly challenged by three online banking phone calls today (their posting problems)... and although I haven't dropped any of my new hardwon technology skills, I've noticed that my knitting activities have exploded as though it's some sort of antidote.

I've decided to accept it all. Though I sometimes feel all wound up, like the dancing, plastic, robot, there seems to be integrated learning going on.


After all, I'm using the computer to email in the photos that will get my new yarn winder fixed...

It's a Techno World

It was dark and raining Wednesday night at 5:30. I drove our '95 jeep down the hill to get the mail at our community mail box and back up the hill toward home, and decided to load up our empty garbage roller bins on the return trip up the driveway. Since the two smaller rollerbins fit in the back hatch (stuffed in on top of the recycling, stuffed in on top of items for Good Will), that left the biggest one. I rolled it alongside the car with one arm stuck out the open driver door in the rain. My purple felted mittens were already sopped with rain water from dumping out the garbage cans before I loaded them up/rolled home. The left one got wetter. It was like camping. I was having an outdoor adventure, in the elements, in the real world.

When I came into the house and, eventually, opened up the mail, I got reminded that it's a techno world.



New mail/old mail. The envelope I opened proved that I'd skipped the November mortgage payment and now was almost late with December's. Forget about the fact that I'd gone over everything carefully December 22nd just before family arrived for the holidays. I'd subsequently ignored the mail for a week. I'd previously incorrectly interpreted the bank's automatic escrow tax payment as a paid mortgage payment in November and not set up the right online payment date for December. I freaked out about what else I might have misinterpreted in my online banking.

I glanced over at my office file tabs. They aren't printed out via a computer-generated list on those perforated labels that come with the plastic holders in the hanging file box like a kit. The file tabs are hand printed. In the techno world my hiding my head in the sand about computer generated setups for tabs has gone on for years -- and look what that's led to! Online banking deficiencies! Challenges to Credit rating! Credit instability!



I went to bed determined to be more aggressive about it all and not settle for techno mysteries any more. Thursday morning I faced the first challenge, ready to program my Christmas pedometer. I cut right through lingering anxiety with my favorite blue handled scissors and peeled back the harshly uncooperative molded plastic packaging.



Who knew that the pedometer's 10,000 steps would just run if you held the reset button for two seconds, or that all information was hidden on the back of the two cardboard flaps encased in molded plastic, along with the slim little instruction booklet I'd just cut in half?

I got out the scotch tape and taped everything back together so I could read about how to begin.

My pedometer is working fine. I found out I walk 5,600+ steps just getting myself in town and doing the usual errands I do there. I ran into a little techno world challenge with the mirror settings on the jeep though. No longer willing to reset the mirrors with the toggle tabs again and hope that my random stabs at "1,2,Set" on the driver door panel would make them stay that way for the next time I started up the engine, I ended a year of haphazard strategy and read the manual.

Well...nuh-uh...

Christmas and New Years may be over, but blogging efforts continue out here in Oregon.

I don't have cross country skiing pictures to post from the West Rim of Crater Lake,

or any Candy Cane/2006 ornaments to officially share just yet,

or even candid shots of Spa Day for the Bylo family, the Knox family, the Homrighaus family, the Merle family, or the Voelker family -- but that event really did happen, and all survived. So far.

Other unrecorded events include a buck walked through the front yard.

The soaking tub is working.

And we still remember how to play Peanuts.

More later as I learn how to post photos and 20 second long new ideas to a Blog.

B

Never Make a Vat of Macaroni just to be on the Safe Side

Time passing too fast during vacation
Angelyn knitting
Ruth knitting
My fuschia sweater stalled out because I waited to order yarn I might need, and my yarn is now back-ordered
Goldfish news:
Never make a vat of macaroni just to be safe!
and Never wait to order more yarn

Oregon Christmas 2006

Sunset at home
David reading, with Barry's glass Christmas tree "Joy" in the window, my tumbleweed Christmas tree decorated with Christmas cards, and kringla on the table from Barb and Duane Brodie
Ruth cooking, Wine Bible on the counter
James and David setting up telescope
Angelyn online
Barry and David hooking up scanner