Monday, September 29, 2014

A Winner & An Apology

So I may be the worst blogger ever.  My deepest apologies.  All I have to say for myself is that the summer just got away from me.  I can’t believe we’re already officially a week into fall.
The winner of my June Is Adopt A Cat Month feature is PAWS.  You can read more about them at Animal Shelter Volunteer Life.  The check is finally in the mail.  I am so sorry it is so late!  Thank you to everyone who participated.
Our summer was crazy and busy; some bad stuff, some good stuff, mostly just life. 
Nick’s grandfather, who has always been incredibly healthy and active, was hospitalized, and now has a major heart problem.  I’ll try to make a long story short.  He was initially hospitalized for pneumonia, after Urgent Care sent him to the Emergency Room and the Emergency Room sent him to ICU, largely as a precaution due to his age.  Less than 12 hours later he was on a ventilator.  Things were very up and down, and he ended up being moved to a different hospital.  He’s home now, and will be going back for major heart surgery later this week.  If optimism counts for anything, he should be just fine.
This has been the summer of appliances for us.  We finally bought a small chest freezer after talking about it for years.  We planted a much bigger garden this year, and everything lived, so it was nice to be able to freeze so many things.  The CSA boxes have also been very full most weeks.  I had mixed feelings about adding a second freezer when it’s just the two of us, but I think it’s a good thing.  Using our own homegrown produce this winter instead of paying outrageous prices for it in the grocery store should help make up a lot of the cost of the freezer.  And I’ve been able to freeze things like home-made chicken broth that we just didn’t have room for before. 
Our HVAC finally gave up.  We’ve known for a while that we would be replacing it sooner rather than later.  No one is sure when our old one was put in, but everyone who ever came to work on it said you just didn’t see those anymore.  There’s a chance it was as old (or older) than we are, so it did its time.  “Sooner” became “now” in July, though it took until August to get everything together to get it done.  The new unit is great.  It doesn’t run all of the time like the old one did, and we’ve noticed a difference in the power bills.  I’m very excited about the heat working better this winter! Hopefully no more mornings of waking up to ice crystals on windows. 
I’ve often heard that things happen in threes, and that proved to be the case for buying appliances for us when the washing machine died/flooded. I was doing laundry before my sister came to visit, and when I went to move it from the washer to the dryer I walked through standing water. That’s never a good sign.  We thought we had it fixed and it flooded again. We finally determined that fixing it properly was going to cost about as much as a new washing machine, so we opted to get a new one.  I’m mildly obsessed with doing laundry, so I’m still really excited about the new one. It’s High Efficiency, and it’s huge.  It can handle a dog bed, which is a big deal in our house.
No summer would be complete without something involving pets.  We fostered two adorable little kittens for about a month.  More on them later, because that much cute has to have a separate post.  We also officially adopted Duke (we’re currently at about a 50% “fail” rate as foster parents).  More on that later as well.  Duke’s journey has been long and intense. 
The garden did better than it ever has before.  We put in two raised beds, and (mostly) maintained what we had before.  We ended up with lots and lots of squash, zucchini, peppers, basil, and tomatoes.  We shared quite a bit, and froze quite a bit to enjoy later.  I think we would have had more, but I hurt my back and the garden was left largely untended for nearly three weeks.  The cherry tomatoes are still going strong, though; last year they made it almost to the end of October.  The basil is still holding on, though it’s no longer thriving.  Now I just need to get out there and pull out all of the dead plants. 
So what about you?  How was your summer?  I’m looking forward to catching up and seeing what I missed. 

6 comments:

  1. Wise to buy the freezer, I think. We have one too and it is good for overflow when there is a good sale on meat, etc. It will pay for itself. I think you are righ tabout the rule of 3's. Good thing is these won't have to be replaced for a bit now. Sorry to hear about Nick's grandfather. Glad they caught the problem sooner than later and hope that he makes a quick recovery from the surgery! I don't know how it happened, but summer went by incredibly fast this year and we did nothing. Amazing we are starting October tomorrow!

    betty

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  2. I did wonder where you were! We bought a chest freezer last year and it made me feel I'd finally grown up. I hate the way appliances all seem to die at the same time. Must be built in to them and I guess we tend to buy them around the same time.Looking forward to more posts!

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  3. What a summer you had! We are sorry to hear about Nick's grandfather, and are sending purrs, prayers and good thoughts for a successful surgery.

    Thank you for helping PAWS, and for the shout out. We'll let the folks there know to be on the lookout for your check. :)

    Big hugs!

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  4. Oh wow what a summer! How scary about his granddad. Hope the procedure goes well!

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  5. It looks like you had an eventful month! It's great that you had one of the better experiences in replacing their HVAC units, as you seemed quite satisfied with the new ones. These newer models are more energy efficient, so that makes for cheaper power bills. We'll have to see how good they are though, once it gets really cold. Thanks for sharing!

    Shelley Coday @ C&C Heating & Air Conditioning

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  6. What a busy summer, Danielle! Life is a combination of good and bad things, and it's good to know that you can handle everything. By the way, it's great that you were able to replace your HVAC unit as soon as it broke down. I love the fact that you’ve prepared yourself for the purchases that you made, and now you’re enjoying lower bills and a cozy house. Well, I do hope you’ll have a warm home this coming winter. Have a great day!

    Tommy Hopkins @ AccuTemp

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