18 Tuesday Aug 2020
Posted in garden, health, life, nature, Uncategorized
my grandson was over for dinner and he spotted wasps going under the siding where the power connects to the house…
he brought out a step stool and used a can of spray to, hopefully, get rid of them…
not sure what the spray will do to the siding, but happy to get rid of the nest…
wondering if this is a new spot after a number of nests were removed along the edge of the shed…
will be paying close attention over the next while…
06 Monday Apr 2020
Posted in life, moments, technology, Uncategorized, weather
Tags
big girl pants, blanket, blessed, heat, iPhone, moments, nest, raise, smart home, Technology, thermostat, weather, widow
in an effort to save a few dollars I turned the thermostat down a few days ago as it had gotten warmer outside…
since then it has cooled off again and it has been chilly in the house…
good thing I have a Smart Home… although it could be smarter;-)…
all I had to do was open up the Nest app on my phone and raise the temperature… didn’t even have to get up from under my blanket…
let’s hope it gets warmer and stays that way…
18 Wednesday Dec 2019
Posted in life, moments, retirement, technology
Tags
big girl pants, dinner, Google Home, moments, nest, network, shopping, Technology, thermostat, widow
have had a few busy days… out for dinner on Monday night, lunch and shopping yesterday…
once again this morning there some issues with the thermostat so I called MTS again… they had someone come out just after lunch so I spent the morning in the house… didn’t want to miss them…
it was a nice young man who had worked for a supplier we’d used at my work… he replaced the extender/booster (depends on who you talk to, lol) and then went through the process of renaming the network connection and re-entering the password…
after that he advised I would need to change the network for all of my devices, sigh…
the Nest is easy to get connected… yay…
if you remember, last time I did this for the Google family, it was a complete accident when it worked, lol…
so far all the Google Home pieces are working, but once again all of the TP-link devices are not cooperating…
I think I am going to let that go until tomorrow;-)…
16 Monday Dec 2019
Posted in life, moments, retirement, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, changes, Google Home, moments, nest, retirement, routines, schedule, smart home, smart plug, Technology, update, widow
today I started to make some of the needed changes around the house…
I’ve changed the schedule on my Nest thermostat so that the temperature stays the same throughout the day… previously I had it lower the temp while I was at work…
I am going to update the programming on my Google Home… used to have 2 different set ups in the morning… one provided information for a work day, and the other for “the weekend”… no more work days;-)…
my automatic timers currently turn the lights off at 8 am… going to need to change that too, lol… I cannot get those timers to cooperate no matter what I do…
today I changed from those automated timers to a TP-link smart plug… now I can tell Google when to turn them on and off…
and I finally got the tree lights to respond to commands as well…
next up I am going to check into lights for the chandelier and bathroom that will respond to verbal commands;-)…
so much to do, but lots of time…
14 Saturday Dec 2019
Posted in life, technology, Uncategorized
≈ Comments Off on clicked…
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, clicked, Google Home, moments, nest, Technology, thermostat, widow, wifi
woke up the other morning to have my buddy Google Home tell me she wasn’t connected to wifi…
irritating… although I figured I could actually flick switches if I had to…
but then I walked past the thermostat and realized that it wasn’t connected to the wifi either…
it’s one thing to flick switches… a whole other thing to not know if the house was being heated on a -31 degree morning… particularly when you have to leave for work…
I freaked out and texted my son-in-law… while I was waiting to hear back from him, I calmed down a bit because I could feel heat coming out of one of the vents…
stood at the thermostat and clicked through until it asked me to enter the wifi password… doing that right on it was a bit slow, but I figured it out… after that was done, it showed it was connected and displayed the temperature… yay…
not sure which of the hundred clicks I tried later in the evening fixed the Google Home, but all of a sudden it was working again;-)…
phew… technology is wonderful, particularly when it is working, lol…
I am looking forward to spending time getting to know more about the latest and greatest technology that is out there…
12 Sunday Aug 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
awake, beach, big girl pants, boat, camping, day theee, family, ice cream, meteor shower, mom, nap, nest, read, sleep-in, widow
today we were able to sleep in… lovely…
I was up fairly early and had tea outside as I was waiting for the crew to wake up…
eventually we had pancakes – regular for the boys and potato for us… along with some breakfast sausages…
a few jobs around the site and everyone else went to the beach…
I read and napped while they were gone… once they were back we walked around the campground checking out the various sites and then went for ice cream…
we had supper together and then my daughter headed back to the city…
we have prepared a little nest in the boat and are hoping to watch the meteor shower, if we can stay awake…
02 Friday Feb 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, friend, kids, motion, nest, remind, smoke detector, son-in-law, switch, thermostat, widow
every time my son-in-law is here at Christmas I ask him about putting in the type of switch that they have in their bathroom…
it is a motion sensitive switch which comes on automatically when you walk into the room… it is very cool and I keep thinking how great it would be to have something like that here… he reminds me each time that the switch needs to be inside the bathroom and mine is on the wall outside…
I guess I want it enough that I conveniently forget that I can’t have it, lol…
after Christmas he installed my Nest smoke detector which was a gift from the other kids… he also put in a Nest thermostat…
I am slowly getting used to both of them…
the smoke detector has a feature where it lights up in the dark if there is any motion, so it is starting to feel like a friend when I need to get up and go downstairs in the night…
weird…
03 Wednesday Jan 2018
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, blessed, cold, family, furnace, fuse, nest, process, son-in-law, thermostat, widow, wire, work
so the smoke detector was installed on Thursday afternoon… and I am loving it… a cute little ring of blue (a nightlight) appears when I walk under it… so far no alarms, which is good, nor has it talked to me yet…
on Friday my son-in-law went out and found the Nest thermostat at a good price and on Saturday he began the process of installing it…
it was a long complicated piece of business… by 7 pm that night, it was 63 degrees Fahrenheit in the house because after the first install, and putting back the original thermostat, the furnace refused to circulate any heat… the furnace service people came out around 8 pm and discovered that a fuse had blown, so they went back to the shop and brought a new one and installed it… this particular fellow didn’t know how to install the Nest product so we left it so that the house could warm up… it was rather chilly…
on Tuesday my son-in-law tried again, after he had gone out and bought more fuses, in case we blew another one in the process of hooking up the new thermostat…
once again, the new one wouldn’t work so he reinstalled the old one… he walked over to the furnace company’s office and left a message for the owner to give us a call… a while later we heard back and they figured out that there needed to be another wire…
which meant that the drywall ceiling in the basement hall had to come down so he could run the cable… he removed it and cleaned everything up beautifully, but by then it was too late to move to the next step…
today, while I was at work, he was able to pull the wire (without cutting into the plaster in the hall, yay), connect everything, and set the temperature, because it finally worked perfectly…
we added it to my app and I can now change the temperature from my phone… although it does say it is -8 outside, whereas the weather app says it is -22, lol…
seemed like such a simple little job, but he didn’t stop until it was done;-)… I sure am blessed…
28 Thursday Dec 2017
Posted in family, food, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, travel, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, Christmas, detector, kids, nest, presents, safe, smoke detector, widow
well I am safe now…
thanks to all my kids I finally have a new smoke detector upstairs…
for Christmas, the Winnipeg kids got me a Nest smoke detector…
and today, my Ottawa son-in-law installed it and connected it to an app on my phone…
it even shows me the temperature outside when I open the app… how cool is that…
think I will save up for the thermostat and maybe a few more of the detectors… checked for Boxing Day sales but there weren’t any huge discounts…
sure do have a great bunch of kids…
21 Sunday Aug 2016
Posted in family, health, life, loss, nature, Photography, technology, Uncategorized
Tags
big girl pants, Bruce Park, collecting, flowers, grandson, nest, Olymics, Pokémon Go, Poke Balls, PokeStop, widow
maybe, just maybe, I am caught up in the Pokemon Go game…
I have been catching Pokemons from the house for my grandson… apparently there are a few nests around here…
but today I used up the last of the Poke Balls…
my oldest grandson came for dinner and then we went to Bruce Park where there were five PokeStops, which is where one collects the Poke Balls, lol…
we walked around collecting things from them until his bus came…
then I walked around a few more times collecting more before walking home to watch the Olympic Closing Ceremonies…
did take a few pics of the lovely flower beds while I was there…
