Monday, January 22, 2024

My life

This is an edited version of comment I left on a blog. Sometimes I spend too much time writing comments on blogs and I think this may have been one such occasion. 

I think back to the late nineties when we had the www and I still gardened, maintained things, was very social with friends and family and worked shift work, yet I found plenty of time for www. I would chat to people around the world, when such a thing was easy, explore the internet, hook up to put it bluntly and just enjoyed what it had to offer. As self taught about computers, I had a lot to learn too and I then became an advisor to friends who were new to the www. Then the same happened with mobile phones, where I was on the cutting edge and educated others. Now I know nuffin' and I'm often too busy being a retired person to do some very basic things. 

I rise at 7, watch YouTube clips on my tablet until 8. Shower etc and at 8.30 I turn on the pc. I answer blog comments from the day before, check spam, then start going through the rss feed of blogs I read where I make comments, then blogs where I don't generally make comments.  

R will appear at some point, usually after 9 and I don't like t\o type much then, so if the blogging isn't finished, too bad but there are usually only blogs to read by then. Then it is a quick look at Face Book followed by the electric newspapers. I may return to the pc for various reasons during the day, but normally briefly. At about 5.30 with my pre dinner wine at hand, I look at blogs again and make more comments and perhaps start a construction of a post for the next day. Break for dinner at 7 and back at the pc, like now as I type this. I will generally be here until bedtime at sometime between 10 and 11 unless a tv show really grabs me and I want to give it full attention (like the final series of Total Control). 

As Dr Alban sang at Fernsehgarten, It's My Life. 

43 comments:

  1. You sound very organised. My days are much more haphazard.

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    1. JB, my days could be described as boringly repetitive.

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  2. No video. You are indeed organised. I am up before you (and in bed at the end of the day earlier too). I read and comment on blogs until first light or so, feed the cats, deal with their skitty litter and the garbage. After that? Who knows. Too often medical appointments.
    Welcome back. I do miss your eclectic posts and comments while you are away.

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    1. EC, there is link to watch the video on YouTube. In 2023 I certainly had my share of medical appointments. Hopefully not so many this year. Thank you.

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  3. It's fairly organized. I recognize that partnering can be a little more structured as I hit the keyboard infrequently but do follow my favourite blogs twice a day (usually) fit in a good read, knitting, a walk when I'm up for it and just organizing my absolutely packed life-sustaining stuff like meds (huge amount of time) and med appts and on line grocery ordering and oh yes, keep up old fashioned correspondence, zoom calls and regular phone calls (I know lol!) with distant friends. And PS let me know how Total Control is. Loved the first two. Complex characters and great script.
    XO
    WWW

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    1. WWW, our days are quite structed and more time than I like is spent visiting doctors, etc. I heard today how many years social interaction can add to your life. We must. I don't know how many series there are of Total Control, but we are now watching the last series. Still, nothing is simple.

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  4. I find it quite hard to keep up as the number of blogs I follow has gradually increased, so I will often leave no comment. I've also realised that if I don't switch on the computer first thing, I can get so much more done. Some days I don't look at it at all, by which time the most prolific bloggers have moved on.

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    1. I understand that Tasker and it is probably a better way to live than my addictive behaviour. I do appreciate your occasional comments.

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  5. More important than blogging, tv, videos or YouTube for retired people are human contacts. I try to ensure that 5 days a week I meet family or a friend for coffee at 12 noon. Otherwise your memory and social skills go to mush.

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    1. Love your comment. My memory has already gone to mush. Social skills still okay. We have a lot of social interaction in the village.

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    2. I've never had social skills so I don't feel the need to get out much.

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    3. Your lifestyle is great Hels. I don't have much social connection as you describe and I am probably poorer for that. My large family is pretty well enough, beyond a few good friends who we don't see that often.

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    4. Diane, I am sure your memory is still good. I wonder how much poorer we are for the lack of social connection we have compared to you.

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    5. River, there is someone I've known for many years. We only saw him when a late friend had a gathering. He is so difficult to talk to when he hasn't had a drink. When he has, he is the life of the party. I communicate with him now using Whatsapp and I, and I think he, really like our connection using that method. He doesn't live far away from us and it would be easy to see him but it could spoil what we already have.

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  6. I wake up, faff on my phone, go to work, come home and faff some more, cook, eat, wash up and then who knows. Social media is destroying my brain and I know it but I struggle to drag myself away.
    Thank you for recommending Total Control, I'm loving it

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    1. Faff is a good word Kylie. I do a lot of faffing, even though it seems important at the time. I am pleased you like Total Control.

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  7. Your day sounds a bit like mine. Except I don't read blogs or blog posts everyday, as you have probably noticed. After breakfast I play brain games or do jigsaws on my ipad. Then shower and face the day. Do the boring housework and help Bill cook the main meal at lunchtime. In the afternoon I get to the computer and either scan photos, or write next chapter of my memoirs, or wish I could keep up with the Family History that I started years ago And maybe write a post and read blogs. This is often interrupted by visits to doctors, chemist, dentist, hearing aide place, Spec Savers- such fun. But also with lunch outings, afternoon teas with neighbours and any one of the loads of activities one can join in the village. Like cards, yoga, art, darts, Mahjong, Rumicub, happy hour, movie night, Pizza night, Craft and chat, workshop, line dancing, book club, singing group, ukulale and carpet bowls as well as bus trips, theatre outings and dinners.

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    1. Diane, Chemist Warehouse visit this morning, dentist this afternoon. I know all about being busy with medical matters, hopefully less this year. You certainly have lots of entertainment options in your village.

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  8. I remember working and gardenong and blogging, now that I'm retired I have very little time somehow and my garden often goes unwatered. Luckily it isn't a veggie patch.
    I usually get up around 7.30-8am then there's the washing/dressing half hour and then I walk to the shops for my newspaper or a bigger shop if I need more things. I get home skim the newspaper headlines, read the "letters to the editor" page and then spend an hour doing most of the puzzles, there's a double page spread of them, but I don't even attempt the cryptic. After that the laptop gets turned on, I read and answer emails, read and comment on blogs, spend an hour at real estate sites, just in case my "dream house" materialises, then it's time for dinner, washing up dishes and then the TV goes on. Somewhere in the day I feed the cat and clean the litter tray and maybe run the washing machine a couple of times a week.

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    1. River, it is amazing how busy we retired people are. There is not enough time in the day. I don't get cryptic crosswords, and it seems you don't either. I was a high achiever today after a week away from home. I got two loads of washing done before R arose from his slumber. I spent some time considering the next washing loads, Wednesday, towels and then socks and jocks.

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    2. Sometimes I manage a few of the cryptic clues but not often and I don't like to spend an entire day on just one puzzle.

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    3. Today's cryptic has this clue: "press screen was a Soviet barrier", that's an easy one "Iron Curtain"; "Kick start computer" is "Boot" but the rest are beyond me.

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    4. Blah, I get the second one but not the first. My brain must work differently.

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    5. Press=Iron; Soviet barrier= Curtain

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  9. My mornings tend to be my own. I have my coffee and read on the computer, unless I'm working with Tim. I don't really feel guilty about it, although I do know that I'm not nearly as productive as I should be. But isn't that what retirement is all about? I like my rut...

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    1. You've got it one Debby. That is what retirement is about. Gosh, I just remembered some of your posts when you were working girl, well not that kind of working girl, a working woman then.

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  10. I was like you at the beginning, I used to help people with their English and loved it and of course it was so much easier back then to chat to anyone and most were lovely people. I still have a couple of friends from way back then that stay in touch.
    Spent a lot of time in the past during the afternoons being retited doing graphics, but don't anymore.
    Daily routine these days is - wake up, now that's the best thing then I know I'm alive. Shower, breakfast, look at news on phone for about 1 hours, tidy up as in housework, out shopping if needed, maybe a couple of visitors for lunch here at home, if not sit outside, play games on phone, come inside mid afternoon read blogs and comment, might do another post for my blog, then it's time to prepare dinner, tidy up and come and watch tennis if not on watch Netflix or Youtube, crochect sometimes, then late to bed...that's my normal day. Sometimes we go for a drive, friends most are now dead and buried.

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    1. Margaret, yes I did some immigrant volunteer English help. It was a good experience. We do much the same, and like for you, our friends have either died or moved on to pastures new.

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    2. Housework? Damn! I knew I was forgetting something!

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  11. I'm finding I have to spend less time on the computer, otherwise I don't do much around the house, plus working part-time and other interests like furniture painting, researching my family tree, meeting friends...

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    1. Sami, that's not a bad thing. I get stressed if I don't have enough computer time and I know I am wrong. Of course you can't create blog fodder if you don't do anything.

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  12. Once upon a time I liked to live to timed events, but these days being retorted not so. I blog jumped and found you, and read back on your blog. I have visited Australia twice and could live in Melbourne, lucky you. The second time, my cousin arranged for us to stay in Queenscliff and I can honestly say I had the most awful salted caramel ice cream there, so won't ever have one again, not even here in UK!

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    1. Good to hear from you Chris. What part of the UK do you live? I can be so miserly that I won't risk a couple of dollars trying salted caramel anything, in case I don't like and I've wasted money.

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  13. I had to juggle the blogging time and life errands. I usually tried to squeeze the blog commenting time before work every morning. I actually had to recite Buddhism scrolls every morning as well. I also run insta, X, main website and flickr. Also wordpress. I think I am getting mad.

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    1. At times I get like that too Roentare. It all seems overwhelming. At least I don't have to recite religion.

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  14. Things expand to fill the time available.

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  15. It's funny how we develop routines. I remember those days of the new and magical www and how innocent and novel it all seemed! I don't remember encountering the same level of malice we do with today's Internet. (There was no Twitter, for one thing!)

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    1. Steve, perhaps our memories are dim at remembering how fragile systems were back then. Only once did I experience the blue screen of death but there were heaps of problems that just aren't there nowadays. I can't say I've ever really been trolled. Maybe it is the online company we keep.

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  16. Back when I aspired to be a published author it was important to have a set schedule. ~nods~ I'm frenetic now, as for when I go to bed and rise. My computer time is often spent while my husband naps. lol Best wishes!

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    1. Darla, my getting up time is one of the few disciplines I follow in life.

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