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 thatmtickled 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 $7/5 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.
I was at Goodwill today and had a similarly positive shopping experience! It was a good way to close out the year.
ReplyDeleteGlad the gas came back on. Do you need to figure out what caused it to go out, or was it just a fluke thing?
This is the first year in a long time I won't be in the living room on New Year's Eve. I'll be on an airplane. Pretty sure that's worse. :/
Your fas is acting like ours did at first. Very flaky! I hope it sorts itself out and quickly! It's good that your new house stays so snug and warm That self-resetting regulator sounds pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteOne other thing about gas: if the pressure drops too low, it will go off. There is a thingie under the porch that has to be flipped to get it flowing again. We haven't had to do that since the leak at the well was fixed, thank goodness.
I love a GW trip like that! We did well yesterday at our local store, and I feel like my money was well spent.
Tomorrow will be housecleaning day for me. It's one of my superstitions which I prefer to think of as a tradition, to go into the new year with a clean house and all bills paid.
.
I'm glad your heating system figured itself out! My favorite thing to do in bad weather is stay indoors. Glad you could get out today and what a great trip to Goodwill! We are supposed to get 2" tomorrow but my daughter thinks we can go to the movie theater out of town if we go to the 10 am showing. I might pick up another 1/2 gallon of milk on the way home. We are supposed to get 6-10" overnight so we are staying in (we never go out for New Years, lol, snow or no snow)
ReplyDeleteYou've inspired me to check out my local GW store. Gas going off and on sounds scary to me. You've got new clothes; that's what you can wear for New Year's Eve at the Living Room! Linda in Kansas
ReplyDelete