Small adjustments

Greetings, all.  Hope this week is off to a good start!

Are you one of those people who have to have things a certain way and will do most anything to ensure that they are right?  Or are you a good improviser, finding ways to bend circumstances into how you want them to me?

I like things just so myself, but at the same time, I think I’m pretty adept at making things work within what’s available.  Been thinking of a few examples of that lately.

For example……as a man of “maturity,” shall we say, I like to look reasonably professional for work.  Our dress code for my position is “business casual,” which is a term that needs to go away, as so many people, particularly those under 40, seem to think that as long as you’re wearing a shirt with some kind of collar that you’re properly attired.  I see lots of men in pants that look like sweatpants with pockets and loose ankles, which I detest.

I still wear dress slacks for work most days, and if not those, I wear khakis made from a good twill fabric.  And as I’ve detailed here, I’m a big guy, so sometimes my slacks come back from the cleaners on undersized hangers.  Nothing more frustrating than paying good money for dry cleaning a nice pair of wool trousers and having them bunched up in the ends of the hanger, wrinkling the knees and other parts.

I told my wife that I remembered the men’s store where I used to shop, before the owner retired and closed, and all of his trousers were displayed on these nice metal hangers with a rubberized material covering the bar where the pants fold over.  Decided I wanted these, to preserve and prolong the life of my investment (and I lost some weight over the past few months, so had to replace or alter most of the slacks I owned).  Ordered one set, they were way too short.  Did some measuring and came up with an optimal length that bar needed to be to neatly store my britches.

The solution was a set of hangers designed for curtains, not clothing.  But they’re perfect.  Heavyweight metal, not hollow, with a grippy material around the bar.  Just perfect.

Here’s another one for you…..we have experienced a lot of rain in the spring and even through some of the summer months and as a result, we’ve had one crop of weeds in the lawn after another.  I bought some Weed B Gon in a gallon jug and it had the completely manual sprayer, like a bottle of window cleaner.  I was not excited to spray for weeds the last time, or the most recent.

Then I remembered that I bought a jug of Roundup for the areas where weeds grow but there’s no grass.  I checked and it came with a power sprayer and the Roundup sprayer fit the Weed B Gon!

I know, nerdy to get excited about something like this, but the prospect of hand cramps for hours afterward was enough to make me explore some options!

My wife expressed some concern about our neighborhood and relative security, as there seem to be a lot more groups of teens walking through the area late at night than there once were, even during the school year.  We also had a rental car that someone got into and rifled through a briefcase and some other containers, but nothing was missing.  I travel a lot, so thought about what might give my wife a little more peace of mind.

We bought a Ring doorbell three or four years ago and it’s been really good to know who’s at the door since then.  So I did a little research and found the Ring Garage Cam, with two bright floodlights that are motion activated.  My son has this on the front of his garage as well.

Bought it, wired it up in the same spot where we had an ancient fixture that needed replacing anyway, and we have been pleased to know what’s happening out front.  Occasionally a stray cat or dog will set it off, but not excessively.

One more….when I remodeled my home office, with new furniture courtesy of a work bonus and the sale of my old furniture, I moved a corrugated metal shelf unit from an upstairs room to the corner of my office.  I liked that look, along with the antique brass drawer pulls and the two-tone wood finish of the desk I now have.  So I shopped around and found a corrugated baking pan that was about double the size of your average letter tray, plopped it down on the desk to the left of where I sit, and now that pan holds a pair of full-size headphones, a journal, pens, my cellphone holster and quite a bit more.  Plus it’s a good repository for anything that still needs my attention.

I’m sure I could bore you with more “stuff” that I have addressed, conventionally or not.  Have a great evening!