Keep Smiling with Rosie Preston: Quirkiness in the past few weeks

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Did you ever spend weeks trying to find how to solve a problem, and no matter how difficult it became or how you just seemed to miss it, you wouldn’t give up? That has happened to me so many times.

I spent the last three weeks learning how to unlock a Samsung A11 phone. I first called every number I could think of, and no one had any answers except to take the device to a Samsung phone office. Knowing it would cost money, I looked up so many YouTube videos on how to unlock my phone. I finally found a way to get past a password in order to contend but none of the instructions worked. Day after day, I would not give up, because I had another phone to use while I continued to get rid of a password. Basically, I was lost in leftfield!

As a last resort, I finally looked up AT&T’s website, the company that I have my service with. Guess what? The answer to my problem was there! Within minutes, I had unlocked my phone. And because I did not give up, I saved some money by doing it myself. I could not believe the employees at the AT&T store did not know how to make these three moves to unlock a phone.

The second incident happ-ened when I was looking for potatoes to cook, I found three of them that had sprouted roots. A couple of the flowers I was trying to root had died, so I had two extra five-gallon buckets filled with potting soil. Perhaps I could use these to plant the potatoes. It was exciting, because I’ve had several gardens and planted many things, but I’ve never planted potatoes. I found my small tools and root-on powder to put on the bottom of each potato. I then covered them with soil and watered them. Within a few days, leaves were coming up! I wondered if it was really from the potatoes. I looked around to see if I could find any leaves that looked like those, but I did not.

I now was very interested in growing more vegetables, so I went to Lowes Home and Garden Store and bought cucumbers and tomato plants. I looked around for something to use to pot the vegetables and found the containers sold everywhere a few years ago. Each container has two pieces, the top for the soil and plants and the bottom for draining. I was able to put three in each container and then found two more five-gallon buckets and put one in each. Yesterday, after all this rain, I couldn’t believe my eyes, because everything I planted tripled in size!

Because my home is surrounded by woods, I turned a 10×10 portable dog fence into a garden center. I had tried to put my regular flowers out in the yard, but between the rabbits and feral cats, many plants did not survive. I finally bought chicken wire, which protected most of the plants.

I guess I can say the COVID-19 virus brought many newfound hobbies to my life. During the pan-demic, I was too busy and often depressed to think about anything doing much except for what had to be done.

One last incident I will share with you. Trying to save a few bucks on dish detergent (which had become so expensive), I took some Clorox bleach and mixed it with clothes-washing detergent (they are compatible) in another container that had a push handle, I then washed some dishes using it. To my surprise, it worked better than the Mr. Clean sponges. I cleaned my countertops and a few pieces of stainless-steel cookware that had what looked like baked-on food. To my surprise, they were sparkling clean after soaking for a few minutes! That led me to clean my kitchen sinks and stove before I became completely exhausted.

Many years ago as a young girl, I learned the hard way not to ever mix Clorox and dishwashing de-tergent. I used this mixture to clean my parent’s old-fashioned bathtub. The fumes took my breath away and made a small hole in the bathtub, which of course was a constant re-minder to me that Clorox and dishwashing detergent are NOT compatible!

So remember, if you try this for any type of cleaning, use clothes-washing-detergent.

In sharing my quirky find-ings with you, I hope you smiled!

Keep smiling, Rosie

Rosie Preston may be contacted at rosie.preston@yahoo.com.

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