Settle in—this is a long list, and will take awhile.

This first one actually took place in August but that month’s Learned List was also very full. With my 6′-6″ tall friend, we figured out how to get the spider webs out of the extremely high windows on our A-frame church.

2. The website and blog: I spent a ton of time on the phone, and then had to buy a subscription to a service that helps people with their WordPress.org blogs. Now I have to think very hard about every possible thing that I might get some help with and then spend another ton of time on the phone. What did I learn? That if a thing isn’t working on the website, call for help because something got changed, and gird your loins, because it will take many calls to get answers and help.

3. I have such excellent friends in our little town. When I locked my keys in the car (dropped the working one in the trunk while spare was in my purse inside the locked car …ARRRGHHHHH) a friend used his phone to call another friend to come get me, take me home for (thank goodness) a third key and then back to my car. So embarrassing to be so dumb, and so very grateful for helpful friends.

4. An excellent piece of wisdom came from my wise friend Elisabeth: “The stewing is worse than the doing”. (She credits Gretchen Rubin).

5. My new scanner is getting easier to manage. Although it is unnecessarily complicated, I’m gradually learning to work it. It allows me to scan pencil drawings and small paintings, both at a higher quality than the old scanner or using a camera.

6. Apple has changed iTunes to a subscription process; rather than buying one song or album at a time, you pay for access to any and all music. I’m guessing that when your subscription lapses, you lose all your tunes. It is also unnecessarily complicated. It is probably not called “iTunes” anymore.

7. Did you know that the button on the gearshift lever in an automatic transmission car can spontaneously fall off? This is a nuisance. It’s a long story, full of little learnings. We got through it with masking tape, epoxy, then a flathead screwdriver and an exacto knife, until the part came in and the mechanic fixed it. No such thing as a free car (or as a friend told me, a free horse either.)

8. My friend in Gilroy (Gnat) enlightened me that there are 2 sports I had never heard of: parkour (running and leaping and jumping and climbing on stuff in a city) and slackline (tightrope walking). She was a PE major and a PE teacher; I abhor most sports, and yet we remain astonishingly compatible.

9. Quordle wooden puzzles—completely new to me, challenging, and extravagantly priced. Never heard of them before. The company might be going out of business, or something scammy is happening, so if you are interested, it’s less risky to buy them second-hand.

10. The downtown area of Capitola, a California beach town, has every parking space numbered. If you want to park, it requires an app and a credit card (and probably a username and a password too.) No thanks.

11. This article is about following up on conversations; it is something I often do, but here it is explained more fully: Show Notes for Lifehttps://vanderhacks.substack.com/p/send-show-notes-for-life?publication_id=1930627&post_id=214728329&isFreemail=true&r=5s4x1p&triedRedirect=true

12. More tech troubles: my 37,000 (36.928 due to ruthless deletion sessions) photos aren’t really and truly on my computer. They must be repaired. “Repaired? I haven’t learned how to do this and feel exceptionally skeptical about the Apple robot’s ability to walk me through this correctly, in spite of sounding shockingly real. What have I learned? That while my photos appear to be on the laptop, they aren’t truly there for purposes of exporting or editing or even saving. Is everything “virtual” rather than actual? What the actual flip is going on here??

Did you learn anything in September, perhaps such as how to comment on my blog? Or anything else you wish to share with my tens of readers…