The last time I shopped at Ollie's, I purchased a two-pack of Serta pillows because the MyPillow product did not live up to the hype. While the Serta pillow was better, it still needed improvement. Yesterday, I tried two other brands: Cannon and U.S. Polo Assn.

I also purchased a bottle of glue, two Post-it notes packages, four packs of Oral-B floss picks, and a hairbrush.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Ollie's or any of the products I mentioned.

Jeanette Isabelle

I am overhauling the engine in my shuttle bus. It will pull the camper and carry extra equipment & supplies.

Engne overhaul: $12K+

While I have corded backups for the most critical power tools, keeping my stock of batteries in good shape was one of this week’s small chores. The manuals state that if the batteries stay on the charger for eight hours the cells will be rebalanced. I haven’t taken any of them apart to do my own testing, most of the batteries I have are a decade old and all still hold a great charge. Recently I’ve bought a few more.

The other thing I’ve done is build a small adapter that connects a battery to Anderson Powerpoles. From the Powerpoles I can use the batteries to run any of my ham radio gear, charge USB devices, or connect to darn near anything else that can use it.

Today, I ordered a 700-count bucket of disinfecting wipes. I needed a way to keep my cane disinfected because I touched it after washing my hands.

Jeanette Isabelle

Today, I purchased five 18-count cases of applesauce cups, Vicks VapoRub, and a pack of bath wipes at Walmart.

I use the applesauce to mix with one of my medications every morning. I bought five cases to ensure I have at least a year's supply. The cups are easier to store and don't need refrigeration once opened.

I haven't used Vicks VapoRub since kindergarten, but I decided to get it just in case.

I bought the bath wipes to try them out, and if they work well, I'll purchase more.

Jeanette Isabelle

I ordered three 14-pack D-cell batteries.

Jeanette Isabelle

Extra batteries are good to have. I got these recently:
https://www.amazon.com/DSLRKIT-Parallel-Battery-Convertor-Adapter/dp/B00OUM17AQ/ref=sr_1_5?sr=8-5

I'm finding that I am narrowing down my battery needs to the least number of 'types' and this helps so I can still run D-cell items with the AA cells I've got on hand.

Backups. Oh lordy, have I have been doing backups.

I have one PC that has a cloud backup account -- the service I use permits unlimited backup storage per PC. I'm cheap, so only that PC has the cloud backup account.

The device was running Windows 10, which is going end of support in October 2025. The primary storage drive has been running for seven years nearly continuously...and hard drives tend to fail after five years. Yikes.

There is a way to upgrade the PC to Windows 11 anyway, skipping compatibility checks. That worked. I added more SSD storage, and that worked. I copied all the data from the seven year old HDD, and while that took a long time, that worked. I removed the old HDD, re-labeled the appropriate SSD to have the old drive letter, and that worked too.

So this was tedious, took a lot of careful research and planning, and was worth it. Because a few minutes ago I concluded all functional testing, and everything works the way it's supposed to.

If you have important files, back them up.