Frustrating Observations and the Creep of AI

I happened to remark that my blog posts seem to be getting more and more readers. I wondered who is starting to read my blatherings . . . and our middle son who was visiting said, "AI." 

 

Oh. Of course. The "spiders" of early internet have developed into monsters of seeking input to spew out their own machine "learning" of content. Ew. I know some people rave about the wonders of artificial intelligence; others say it has its place. I personally despise how we rely more and more on it as a society. I'd rather be less reliant on technology (she says as she types on her laptop which is connected to the internet . . . ).

 

Oh well. It's not as though I'm blogging for any specific human audience. It's mostly for my own gratification. Still, it was nice to think that some humans somewhere were reading my content . . .  

2026 OneThing #27 - Visit Shirley

It may seem like an odd choice for my "OneThing," but sometimes I get too focused on my to-do lists to the detriment of more important things like relationships. As we spend more time at the lake (bliss!), it's too easy to be selfish with our slow time. But being here means we're much closer to many members of the Mohr family. We're not the best at getting together and socializing! But we do try. So I set this as my goal for the week.

 

Louie was waffling (mostly because he really wants to get work done on getting electricity to the pole barn and he was already working MTW) but I was blunt: if you ARE coming with me, I'll go visit on Thursday or Friday. If you're NOT coming with me, I'll go while you're working. Once I asked for a yes or no, he was in. I texted her daughter Susan about the visit, but didn't contact Shirley! (My social graces are a work in progress . . . )

 

We went and surprised her and had a lovely visit! I think she looks fabulous for being 89 years old. She is very happy being in assisted living and was a delight to chat with. She misses Grant (of course), but loves having visitors. She talked about her thirteen grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren. What a blessing. I'm really, really glad we got to visit. 

 

After our visit with Shirley, we had a lovely dinner with Louie's cousin Jim and his daughter Terri. I love the Mohr family so much! 

 

This was a good choice for my One Thing and I'm glad it was a success.
 

Another Random Scrap of Paper - Donations

There was a group at the grocery store one day. They handed me a piece of paper . . . and I took it. Arg! No more pieces of paper!

 

Part of the reason I hung on to it was because it is for Veterans Donor Connect, LLC. Dealing with all of my father-in-law's stuff and him being a veteran, it interested me. I do not have anything to donate for medical equipment now, though. Might I, in the future? Possibly.

 

Since I would love to benefit veterans (and not just get rid of stuff), I'll keep this info here and recycle the piece of paper.

 

VeteransDonorConnect.org

9100 W. Bloomington Freeway South, Bloomington MN 55431

Donations or equipment and money welcome

Virgil Hentz, Director

 

I also have the guy's phone number, the Federal Tax ID #, etc. I think this is enough, though, if I ever have stuff to donate in the future. (walkers, wheelchairs, lift chairs, hospital beds, etc.) 

Random MQ Stuff . . .

In my attempt to get rid of scraps of paper, yet hang on to info, I've decided to just chuck this here.

 

Fall 2025, we had a speaker at Minnesota Quilters who was freakishly productive! She loves Tula Pink fabrics and made lots and lots of quilts. Her talk was interesting and a bit intimidating . . . because she does all this along with a full time job and little kids!

 

What really struck me was . . . the connections I had to her. Her sister Nissa (Boeckman) was helping her. She had been on my speech team back in the New Prague days! And Jessie (her big sister) works at Mackin! I think the actual quilter was named Lori. 

 

Anyhow, I probably have more info somewhere else, but I'm getting rid of this scrap of paper.

 

On the back is info from Laura Nagel. I had asked her about getting rust out of an antique quilt. She recommended a product one can purchase off Amazon. I have a photo of it somewhere . . . and a DIY strategy is to use denture cleaner toothpaste with whitener. 

 

I had been gathering the information for my youngest son's mother-in-law and passed the info on to her promptly (including the aforementioned photo) but thought I might want to access that info myself.

 

Okay, back to breakfast. I just wanted to deal with a scrap of paper. I have so much stuff! 

2026 OneThing #26 - Post Lou's Music

I haven't been stellar about getting rid of stuff lately, but I've also been a bit stymied about how to best move forward. I figured if the goal was "posting," that took the pressure off me to actually get the items gone. Also, it's not as though they're just going to walk off on their own, right?

 

So I laid out Lou's music books and sheet music and posted them to Craisgslist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My post basically said, "My father-in-law loved music and singing!

These are the last of his music books and I'd love for them to find a fellow music lover to go to. Some of them are pretty old.

You may take some or all shown in the pictures. Message me if you want more info, specific titles, etc..

If you're in the southwest Twin Cities, I would consider dropping them off for you."

 

Well, within a day I had a response from Shayla in Montgomery. And a day after that, she came and got them off the porch swing! (I had given her our street address, warned her about Titus, and told her she could get them at her convenience.)

 

It makes me ridiculously happy when I can re-home things. I love that my focus was just to post it, but now it's gone. Yay! 

 

2026 OneThing #25 - Deal with MSRS HCSP

Victory!

 

When I left district 112 in 2017, I had earned a few thousand dollars in the Minnesota State Retirement System from my unused personal days. The money was deposited into a Health Care Savings Plan. 

 

I looked into being able to add money into it but was told that deposits could only come through a school district. So the money has been sitting and growing for nine years.

 

We no longer have dental insurance and I have dental challenges. When a toothache this spring meant I needed a root canal procedure, we knew we would just have to pay for it out of pocket.

 

I started wondering about the HSCP and accessing that money. I looked into what I had to do to get reimbursed a few months ago. I even went on their website and downloaded the necessary forms.

 

Last week, I set this as my One Thing to just finally follow through! Worst case, they won't reimburse the dental expenses. Best case, we'll have $1,500 deposited into our checkbook. 

 

I could post a picture of my sad little tooth stub before the crown was put back, but that's just gross. Instead, here's a picture of the envelope that I was able to take to the post office last week:

 

2026 OneThing #24 - Clean Sofa!

I have been meaning to do this since before Easter! Our dog likes to rub his itchy face on the edge of the sofa in the morning when he wants scritches. Sometimes he leaves some slobber or . . . other face juices. It grosses me out! Plus, we've been less diligent about keeping food out of the living room since Lou lived with us. (The kids used to sit on the vinyl floor looking at the cartoons on TV while eating . . . )

 

 I took before photos and yes, they're gross. The smudges and dirt from use are visible.

I vacuum often, but Titus sheds constantly. It gets thickest under the recliner footrests.  I had to empty the vacuum cleaner's tank quite a few times!

 

After all the vacuuming, I brought up our carpet shampooer and the hose attachment for cleaning furniture. I re-read the directions and got to work.

 

It was hard on my back, but I tried to be thorough in "scrubbing" all the bits and pieces of the sofa, then slowly pulling back to remove as much water as possible. It took quite a while! 

 

As I was cleaning, I realized that the fabric has so many wrinkles in it that it was really difficult to truly clean and pull out moisture. I also realized that some of what I was removing was probably the chemical treatment they used when it was new.

 

It's a microfiber fabric that looks similar to suede, but it's just chemicals treated with other chemicals to make it easy to clean. Ah well.

 

I left it open to finish drying out when we went to the lake. It smells better, even though it's not completely clean. 

 

My last realization was that it is better than before (nowhere near perfect!) and that we've had two sofas in forty years of marriage. I won't be heartbroken if this one goes away when we sell our Jordan house and move up to the lake. When I started talking to Louie about it, he initially thought I was suggesting we buy a new sofa for our Jordan house. No! I'll just be okay with saying goodbye to this furniture when the time comes. 

 

Oh! When I mentioned doing this before we headed up to the lake, my husband said, "It doesn't have to happen this week." I know what he meant, but because I had wanted it DONE in March, and April, and May . . . it was a super high priority for me. And I got it cleaned!