Experimenting with my phone
Feb. 5th, 2026 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutSome months ago, I finally got rid of our (VoIP) land line, and the relief from unwanted calls was remarkable. However, as we embark on what will surely be a vigorous election season, I’ve decided I need to do a bit more filtering. Also, I’m getting a lot of calls trying to sell me roofing (and some of those people are verbally abusive) and/or purchase real estate that I own or the timeshare I own (yes, I realize some or all of those are scams).
So I’m exploring settings to require unknown numbers to supply an explanation before I pick up. I may ultimately just go all the way to silence / voicemail. But at least some of the candidates are being very well behaved and I’d like to help those folks have a good day, even if I say no to them on the basis that I only give money to women candidates. I’ll say no and thank them for running anyway; they’ve got a difficult job and I’m happy to see people willing to step up and do it.
I’m still trying to figure out how I want to relate to the news. I currently have a lot of subscriptions and I don’t use them consistently at all. I also pay for a fair amount of TV / streaming, and I’m not sure how much of that any of us are using. On the one hand, I think I’d like to make more use of some of it. On the other hand, it might be better if I consciously stepped away from almost all of it in favor of focusing on writing in a more consistent and organized way.
I’ve been working pretty hard to keep at least Thursday mostly free of all appointments / scheduled things (beyond the daily walk with M. and getting A. to and from school), with mixed success. Tuesday is construction site day, and I have my Dutch lesson and a phone call on Fridays. Getting Wednesday back is surreal; that 2 hours in the middle of the day that I often dreaded, and R. says I almost always needed some amount of assistance recovering from, was far more of an impact on my time resources than I had really realized.
I’m also really looking forward to getting closer to spring, and being able to walk more consistently. Of course, there will be ramping up of commitments towards the house, in all likelihood.
So I’m exploring settings to require unknown numbers to supply an explanation before I pick up. I may ultimately just go all the way to silence / voicemail. But at least some of the candidates are being very well behaved and I’d like to help those folks have a good day, even if I say no to them on the basis that I only give money to women candidates. I’ll say no and thank them for running anyway; they’ve got a difficult job and I’m happy to see people willing to step up and do it.
I’m still trying to figure out how I want to relate to the news. I currently have a lot of subscriptions and I don’t use them consistently at all. I also pay for a fair amount of TV / streaming, and I’m not sure how much of that any of us are using. On the one hand, I think I’d like to make more use of some of it. On the other hand, it might be better if I consciously stepped away from almost all of it in favor of focusing on writing in a more consistent and organized way.
I’ve been working pretty hard to keep at least Thursday mostly free of all appointments / scheduled things (beyond the daily walk with M. and getting A. to and from school), with mixed success. Tuesday is construction site day, and I have my Dutch lesson and a phone call on Fridays. Getting Wednesday back is surreal; that 2 hours in the middle of the day that I often dreaded, and R. says I almost always needed some amount of assistance recovering from, was far more of an impact on my time resources than I had really realized.
I’m also really looking forward to getting closer to spring, and being able to walk more consistently. Of course, there will be ramping up of commitments towards the house, in all likelihood.