The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

 

Yesterday, we needed to take a quick run to Happs. I wanted to see what they had for coffee. It is always good to see what they have for dry goods. If you are lucky, you hit in on 'bread day' and pick up your Pepperidge farm bread for $1 a loaf. Since it is sold double wrapped it is good to stock up on a half dozen loaves for the freezer. I like their 16 grain bread.

So, anyways, we got ready to leave. I had just started a load of laundry and was waiting for a loaf of bread to come out of the oven. Tim went out ro warm up the car. 

He came back in. "I can't find the car keys." 

Now this does not make sense necause each vehicle (5, if you are keeping score) has its keys inside. He never brings the keys in the house.

I said, "How can they be missing, though?"

He said, "I don't know."

I said, "did you bring them inside?"

He said, "I don't know."

I said, "They have to be in the car."

He said, "I checked." 

"Did you put them in your coat pocket?"

"I checked," he said.

I got a horrified feeling. "You didn't put them in your pants pocket, did you?"

"I don't know," he said.

I heard an ominous clinking sound, and stopped the washer. I grabbed a tote and began to pull out sopping clothes. No keys. But i did find 60 cents. Probably from  my pocket, truthfully.

While I was sorting through the laundry, he headed to the mailbox remembering that he had parked the car and then walked back to the mailbox. 

I was starting to feel sick. If he dropped the keys, he had plowed that morning. They could be crushed. They could be scooped up and buried in the banks on either side of the drive. Would the sensor even work after being buried in a snowbank? I mean, we bought the car used. It only came with the one key. 

He came back into the house. "I didn't see it. Let's go. We will take your car." 

"But Tim..." I started.

"It will turn up," he snapped.

Now, I knew he was mad at himself. He felt stupid. I did not want him to feel worse but I did want to find that key..

I went outside and opened the car door. He irritably told me that he had already looked, so I shut the door and followed him to my car. He was mad, and I was frustrated too. I sure did not need to exacerbate a situation that we both were already frustrated about. 

The trip to Happs was a wasted trip. I have never seen the shelves so bare. 

We headed back home. He took his metal detector out in the fading light. Nothing.

So. A quiet night. We did find that we could get a key made, but it was kind of pricey. It made the problem a solvable problem, though. Made both of us feel a little bit better.

Last night, I was tired, but for all of that. I kept waking up. I would fret about the key until I fell asleep.  But  when I woke up this morning, I knew exactly what had happened. I had no doubt. I waited for it to warm up and then went out to the car. Slid the seat back and fished the key out between the console and the seat. 

Tim was astonished and very very pleased. 'How did you know?' I said, 'you never take the keys from the car. I just kept coming back to that." 

"I looked though..."

"You looked on the driver side. It got bumped out when we were bringing the groceries in. I figured it out in my sleep."

He understood right away. He problem solves in his sleep too. 

So today is a better day than yesterday.

This Venezuela thing is sickening. Just last fall the heads of the Armed Forces met to discuss the military response to possible unconstitutional orders given by Trump.  And yet...here we are. 

This is pretty awful.

Greenland gave a response to Kate Miller's social media post showing our flag over their country with one word: 'Soon'. 

Trump himself said his next target is Cuba. 

What in the actual fuck is going on here? 

A trump relative has floated the idea for mandatory military service for young men. Easy-peasy. Except not one of the young men will come from their family or their rich friends. Everybody else's sons are expendable.

This is awful.

A smile:

For Marcia

Houdi and Freddie.

Freddie.

Houdi.

As far as bringing snow in for them, gz, not necessary. They go to the door  stick their noses out, and then back away from the door. They have got snow figured out. They have figured out that they don't like it.

I woke up last night and the sky looked like something out of Stranger Things. 

We have 16 inches of snow on the ground but not for long. Temps are supposed to get up to the low 50s this week. This is just the craziest winter. 

The tree comes down tomorrow.

Begin Again

 First of all, I want to say that I am having one heck of a time commenting, on my own blog and everyone else's too. Please know that I am following along on your adventures. Even if I can't leave a comment.

We have a more than foot of snow on the ground and it still falling gently but steadily outside. Fred and Houdi have been fascinated by the big fluffy flakes and sit side by side at the sliding glass doors watching them, one orange and one gray head bobbing alertly as they watch the snow falling.

As for us, we have been snug as two bugs in a rug. Last night, Tim and I curled up to watch the old movie 'Starman' with Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen. Tim had never seen it. I had forgotten what a lovely piece of escapism it was. 

We do have to go out today. That will give me a chance to pick up a bag of onions and some instant yeast. I have a craving for French onion soup.

My aunt died on the first day of the new year, my father's oldest sister. I got my middle name from her.

The holidays are over and this is the last weekend for the tree and lights. We will savor the dregs of the holiday as we eat the holiday left overs: sauerkraut and pork, venison and roasted vegetables or ham and spinach quiche...take your pick.

Last post of 2025

 

Happy New Year, everyone.

 

Happy New Year

 The wind was pretty awful yesterday, whipping the fine snow so wildly that it was like a fog. Some places had zero visibility. Multicar pile ups. A tree came down across our lease road. 

We stayed home. We had no reason to go out. 

Amazingly, we did not lose power. We were snug inside. Tim wandered out to work on his tractor a few times because he can't sit still. I cleaned house, did laundry, talked to my youngest on the phone. 

Last night, something unexpected happened. We lost gas. That was a surprise because that has not happened since we put the new regulator on and so Tim really fretted about that. We do not have the back up woodstove in yet. It was 70° in the house, and there really wasn't anything we could do about it. The regulator is supposed to start itself. It was about 10, so we just went to bed. 

Tim woke up at 3ish, and came out. The gas had reset itself just as it was supposed to. He went down and turned the stove and the water tank back on. The house had dropped 8 degrees, but 62 is a livable temperature. By the time we got up, we had our cozy warm house and plenty of hot water.

I woke up to the very strangest sight. I had a jar of canned beans that had lost its seal, so they were poured out for the crows. I watched a bald eagle circle lower and lower, finally landing and having a snack with the murder of crows. 

Today was breezy and snowy but not horrible. We took my sister and her husband out for lunch for their birthdays. 

My sister messaged me that she wanted to drive separately so that she could go to the Goodwill, and would we mind bringing her husband back home with us.

"I want to go to the Goodwill!" I said. She cautioned me that she was going to be in there a while. I am not sure why she thought this was a bad thing. So today we shopped 'til we dropped. 

I found a ceramic coated cast iron Dutch oven for $14.99. I was more than a little excited about that. I found a very cool paper weight that I knew someone would love, and it will be put away for next Christmas. I got a music box from the Thomas Kinkade collection. It is not to my tastes, but I knew where it needed to go. Two very fancy dresses for the grands, both of them 50% off. They love 'fancy' and when you can give the gift of 'fancy' for $3.50 each, well...a grandma's got to do what a grandma's got to do. I bought myself a nice gray pullover, a sweatshirt, a tee shirt, a pair of jeans and a glittery scarf for my night sky project. A fancy bayberry hand soap and hand lotion from a big box store that we don't even have here in podunk Pennsylvania. New in box with the antitheft sticker on it. I also found a picture that tickled me: "I smile because you're my sister. I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it." That went home with my sister. 

Walked out of there feeling as if every single penny of that $75 had been well spent. Every single minute well spent. 

Tomorrow the weather is going to turn bad again. Anywhere from 6-10 inches. We have some errands that have to be done. We will need to get an early start, and get ourselves home before the storm hits. 

Happy New Year, everyone. It will be spent close to home here.

Not again.....

Our ice storm was bad, but not catastrophic. We did not lose power, although it flickered enough to make it seem likely. 

The following morning, the sleet had stopped, but it was quite icy. The main roads were clear, salted and gritted. We had to go into town. One of the rentals had a kitchen faucet problem.

We also were due at Tim's daughter's to celebrate with his kids and the grandsons and we were worried about being late, but luckily, the repair was small and required just one trip to Lowe's. Nobody fell on the ice, which almost seemed worse in town. We got where we needed to be at the time we were supposed to be there. His son was late. His truck was iced over. 

It was a nice afternoon. The visiting was easy. The meal was nice. Everyone seemed to enjoy their gifts. But we didn't dare to stay long. The temperature was starting to drop once again. 

We did one last quick stop and took advantage of the post Christmas sales. I bought a half dozen rolls of wrapping. I bought 3 boxes of Christmss cards for next year. I bought replacement gift boxes, 25 of them, for the ones that invariably wind up going out the door or getting damaged during the great unwrap. I picked up the mega pack of scotch tape. I spent about $40, but I was picking up about half of that wrap for my sister. What did not occur to me is that she is retired now and was able to do her own post Christmas shopping. I have just bought myself nearly 700 feet of wrapping paper. I told Tim that I probably will not need to buy wrapping paper for 2 or 3 years.

We got home safely and skated the things into the house. It was 31 degrees, but overnight, the temps were supposed to rise. It was supposed to begin raining, 3 inches during the day, the temperatures reaching a startling 55 degrees. 

So far they've been right. The rain has been torrential. Tim's church was canceled due to the ice under all that standing water. 

I am about to head for bed. While we are sleeping. the wind is supposed to pick up considerably, with 65 mph gusts. The winds will last through untul Tuesday night. Coming with that is a 15° temperature drop and a for day snow event event is predicted on top of everything else.

I am grateful for our snug little house and the fact that the regulator Tim installed on the gas seems to have done the trick. We haven't lost heat for nearly 2 weeks. (Andrew, our heating stove works like a radiator. The gas warms ceramic plates which hold the heat and radiate it. It has a thermostat so that the temperature can be adjusted. Once the ambient air reaches the desired temperature, the flames that heats the plates switch off. The pilot will automatically telight them when the house cools down. No electricity is needed, so even if the power goes out, the house stays warm. The stove is in the basement, so the heat radiates through the floor and up the basement stairwell.)

Now, we are just settled in to see what mother nature serves up. It looks like another baddy. I am grateful that our freezer and pantry are well stocked and that we have no place we need to be.

 

Ready

 It has been quite a day. Freezing rain, on and off all day, at times pretty heavy. We noticed that the huge white pine's branches were hanging low with the weight of the ice. Inevitably a large branch snapped off and is laying across an out building, 

I spent the day wrapping for the last Christmas celebration tomorrow. I packed away the extra wrapping paper, boxes, gift bags and tissue paper for next year. I sat down and polished the silver.

The power did not go off during the day. The soup was good and filling. Poor Tim was bored out of his mind.

The long day has finally ended. This is when the power began flickering. I got out my collection of jarred candles out and lit them to be prepared. The power hasn't blinked since.