I miss my old home

I ended up having to move out of the home I lived in for 27 years. Honestly, a 2 story, 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house was way too big for 2 people, but every year I'd hear, "I'll be selling the house," and it never happened, so I never thought the day would come when it finally happened.

I have temporary living arrangements at the moment, but I have to move again... who knows when? Apparently, I have too much stuff for the people I'm living with now, but that's what happens when you move out of a house with 27 years worth of stuff (we did throw out or donate a lot of things, but there was still a lot left) into someone else's house that's full of their stuff already. The situation honestly sucks. I'm still trying to sell what I have.

Where I'm living now is okay, but where I lived before was better. I guess you don't realize what you have until things change.

The things I loved about where I lived before: not much traffic at or anywhere near our freeway exit. Close proximity to Winco Foods - I really miss shopping there! The air seemed clearer than where I am now. Easy for guests to park - we had a huge driveway where people could just park and where I am now it's hard to find any space out on the street since there are so many more cars. We weren't that close to an airport like where I am now - why anyone would choose to live so close to an airport baffles me - the planes fly overhead all the time and they're so close that it's really loud, shakes everything, and makes car alarms go off almost every time.

If I could move back into the other house, I definitely would, or at least somewhere in the vicinity. We never used the facilities like the pool, gym, tennis courts, etc, so the HOA fees that were paid each month were really only for upkeep and maintenance of shared landscaped areas and for the security guards at the gate.

But looking ahead, I'll hopefully end up in Europe, and I really can't wait for that! I'd much rather be there than anywhere in the US.

Knifun Utility Knife review - it sucks, don't buy this!

I purchased the Knifun Utility Knife from Amazon a little while ago. I'm not even going to bother linking the product because it's that bad, but I will include the full product title for anyone who wants to look it up:

Knifun Utility Knife, Multitool Pocket Knife - 10 in 1 Multi-Purpose Heavy Duty Box Cutter Pocket Utility Cutter, Lightweight Aluminum Keychain Bottle Opener, Wrench, Screw Driver for Everyday Carry

 Here's some pics of what I received - I took the blade out completely because it's so hard to get out and I wanted to use it in a different knife that uses utility blades.

Knifun Utility Knife, Multitool Pocket Knife - 10 in 1 Multi-Purpose Heavy Duty Box Cutter

First thing I noticed, I paid for a new item and this thing looks like it might have been used already. The logo on it is faded and the finish on it looks kind of dull and dirty - I'm not sure if the pictures show it that well.

It feels heavy for it's size - I'm not sure I'd carry this around due to the weight.

I got it mainly to use as a box cutter, but it's incredibly hard to get the blade out - while that's a plus for safety, it's terrible for functionality.

The button to release the blade is so hard to press and hurts whatever finger/thumb I use to press it. It's days later and my thumb still hurts from this. It's definitely not a one-handed operation, so if you're looking for something that you can easily use with one hand, this isn't it.

The blade only seems to be able to be used in one position. If it's not locked to that position, then the blade can move around a lot.

I haven't tried the other features of it like the bottle opener, wrench, or the hex bit holder. Like I said, I mainly got this to use as a box cutter. It came with 2 spare blades and 1 blade already inside - at least I can use them in other products that use standard utility blades.

$12.99 regular price for this Knifun Utility Knife doesn't seem worth it at all. I should've gone with my gut and bought Ron's Utility Knife 3.0 from Screwpop Tool instead.

November 14, 2018 UPDATE: I contacted the seller about the issues I had, including one that I didn't post about here, which was that the blade sticks out a few mm when it's supposed to be in the closed/locked position. They sent out a replacement and I received it. It has all of the same issues as the first one I got. I give them credit for their great customer support, but the product itself is still terrible.

Dollar Tree display easel as a DIY tablet/phone stand

My HiSense Sero 7 Pro tablet died, so I recently picked a Fire HD 8 (2017) 32 GB from Amazon since they were discounted due to the new 2018 models that are available now. I also gave one to my mom for her birthday to replace her aging Galaxy Tab 2 7.0".

With my old tablet, I had a folio case that also doubled as a stand, which was good for landscape mode only.

I'm not planning on getting a case for the Fire HD 8. It doesn't really seem necessary. I did want a way to have it stand, so I went out to my local Dollar Tree to check out their electronics aisle for any tablet stands. They had none... not even the two I saw YouTube videos for (ones actually sold as a "tablet stand"). So I looked for the next best thing... the display easels in the picture frame aisle.

They come in small, medium, and large sizes - and in gold, silver, or black colors.

I didn't really care about the color, I cared more about the quality of it. So I tested out each one to see which one was the least crooked and picked the two of the small ones that I liked best (one for me, one for my mom).

I left the cardboard on it so that it hopefully wouldn't scratch my Fire HD and also looked for things that I could add to it that would leave the least amount of scratches - I covered it with an old sock for some padding, but despite my efforts, it still left some scratches on the back. Some people might not care about scratches since it's the back of the tablet, but it bothers me. I haven't been able to completely buff them out.

I looked around the house some more and found a drink koozie that I wasn't using and it fit over the easel (with the sock on) perfectly.

Dollar Tree display easel tablet stand

I'm confident that there won't be any new scratches now.

I also went to WalMart today to look for another koozie for my mom's easel and found one on clearance for 25 cents. So for a total of $1.75 for my mom's easel ($1), 1 sock that I don't wear anymore (also from Dollar Tree - pair of socks $1, 1 sock = 50 cents), and 25 cents for the koozie for a tablet stand that won't scratch our tablets. My stand only cost me $1.50 since the koozie I used was free.

Dollar Tree find: snack containers as small storage boxes

These are sold at Dollar Tree as 3 pack of Plastic Snack Containers with Lock-Top Lids. I haven't actually used them for that purpose though. I think they wouldn't be so great as a snack container because if you want to fill them up completely, when you open them up, it's possible that some of your snack will come spilling out of it, due to the way that the lid makes up about the top 1/3 of the container.

What I use them for, so far, are storage boxes, mostly for tiny electronic items, such as batteries, memory cards, and cables.

As you can see, they can fit quite a bit of stuff in them. I'd probably be able to fit in more memory cards if I took each card out of their individual cases, but since I don't actually have many more than that and they still fit inside, I kept them in their cases. In total, there are 10 memory cards/adapters of various sizes, two micro SD card readers, and one USB wifi adapter. The one in the middle has 10 AA and 2 AAA batteries, with room for a little bit more. The one on the right has a USB power bank, a USB car charger, 1 micro USB cable, and 2 lightning cables.

There were 3 packs of 3 at the time I bought these, but I only bought 2 of them since I didn't know how many I'd need or what they might be good for. I haven't seen them in the store since then, so maybe I should've bought them all because I have plenty more cables to store.

If you're actually looking for something that'd be good as a snack container, I'd probably get these instead because of their flip top lids. I've only seen them in store with Disney's Frozen characters on them and none of the plain ones. They're also only sold individually, so $1 each. If I could find the 2 packs of those in stores, I'd probably at least pick up one of them because they seem like they'd be perfect for snacking.