Maybe We’re Finally Thawing Out

Like most of you, we’ve had a lot of snow and ice lately.  I know “a lot” is relative when it comes to snow and ice.  But for here, where most of us panic at the mention of snow, and almost none of us can drive in it, what we’ve had is definitely a lot. 

From the first round.  It's mostly ice.  There are icicles on the bird feeders.

Last weekend (January 24^th -25^th), we had some snow, a lot of ice, and freezing rain.  There were widespread power outages.  We were some of the fortunate ones who didn’t lose power.  It flickered so much that we fully expected to lose it, but never did.  Nick’s office was closed for two days, and mine switched us all to telework.

Everything was coated in ice.

We had some warming and melting, but still had ice in several places by Friday.

This past weekend (January 31^st – February 1^st), we had snow and extreme cold.  I think we ended up with around six inches of snow in total.  It’s a little hard to tell because of the way the wind blew it around. 

From this past weekend.  We had more after I took this.  And there's ice from the week before underneath it in some places.

Again, we were fortunate and didn’t lose power.  It did get so cold, though, that the heater wasn’t able to keep up and was running around seven degrees colder than what it was set for. 

We did everything we could to keep the house warmer.  We hung blankets over the blinds in the windows to help insulate the house a little more.  I did some baking and made soups and chili.  We had neighbors over for soup and chili both weekends. 

My job has switched us all to telework again for at least the next day or two, which I’m happy about since I absolutely don’t drive in this kind of weather.   

Things are beginning to thaw out.  

There's still ice under some of this, so I don't trust it.

We are supposed to have highs ranging from 47 to 51 this weekend.  I’m so glad!  I haven’t left the house since January 23^rd, and I’m starting to go a little stir crazy.  I’m looking forward to getting out. 

I hate winter.  I really, really hate winter.  I started off in January trying to have a positive attitude about winter and trying to make the best of the cold, but at this point, I’m just over it.  I’m ready for spring! 

I would much rather be taking pictures of flowers than snow!

So, what about you?  Are you thawing out?  Ready for spring? 

Some More Catching Up

I’m still working on catching up from my blogging break, so here are a few more recent happenings.

Let’s get the not-so-good news out of the way first.  Frankie is having some health problems.  At 14, he’s an older kitty, so it’s concerning.  He had an abdominal ultrasound in January due to some unexplained vomiting.  It showed some minor thickening of his intestinal lining, which could be indicative of lymphoma.  After talking with Dr. D, we chose not to pursue exploratory surgery and biopsies; the outlook for treating cats with lymphoma isn’t great, and we’d rather give Frankie a good quality of life.  Dr. D put him on some different medication, and the vomiting stopped. 

Last month, the excessive vomiting started again, so we took Frankie back to the vet.  Dr. D did some x-rays and a lot of bloodwork and determined that Frankie is in the early stages of kidney disease, lymphoma is still a real possibility, and he also has thyroid disease.  Out of all of those, thyroid disease is the easiest/least invasive to treat, so Frankie is now on thyroid medication.  Dr. D also adjusted his dose of some other medications, and the vomiting has stopped.  Frankie goes back on the 27^th to have his thyroid levels checked again.

He has lost some weight, but he’s eating and seems to be happy.  Frankie still plays and likes to get into things, so as long as he’s happy and has a good quality of life, we’re happy.  We’ll continue to treat his thyroid issues and go from there when he has his appointment later this month.  With any luck, he still has quite a few good years ahead of him.

In other news, it has been cold and insanely windy here.  Everyone at work has been running space heaters, and this morning, there were lots of trashcans blown over when I was leaving for work. 

One of the local animal shelters has been asking for extra blankets since it has been so cold.  It has been nice to see people step up and drop off and/or ship blankets.  It just shows how much people working together can do.

Our local sheriff’s office did a women’s self-defense class last week.  It was a great class!  They did it at a community center, and several female deputies taught it.  It was a good mix of teaching situational awareness and teaching and practicing specific self-defense techniques.  I definitely learned some things. 

One of my coworkers is retiring this month, and we had his going away party last week.  We did a potluck and ended up with tons of food.  I brought macaroni and cheese. 

We’ve also managed to squeeze in some Christmas fun.  One of the churches does a fundraiser event that’s a journey to Bethlehem.  They have people in costume, live animals, and tons of props to recreate walking through Bethlehem.  Nick’s family used to go every year.  I went for the first time last year.  This year, our neighbors went with us.  It was a lot more crowded this year, but we got to listen to Christmas music (which I love) while we waited for our turn.  It was fun going through with a bigger group this time.  We also drove around and looked at Christmas lights.  There’s a subdivision where almost everyone goes all out on the lights and decorations, and it’s so fun to drive through it.  This is a Pixabay picture since I don’t think I’d be able to get good pictures from the car.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this funny picture of Charlie.  He seems to have no concept of his size, and yesterday, he spent quite a while trying to stuff himself into this box.  I don’t think he ever figured out why he couldn’t get in the box.  He definitely looked cute trying!  

It Was Nice While It Lasted

On Thursday we enjoyed temperatures in the mid seventies.  It was sunny and beautiful, and it was wonderful. 

I wanted to enjoy every minute of the beautiful weather, so I ate my lunch outside, and took this picture of these tiny little wild flowers that are blooming in the yard.  I was so happy to see something colorful and blooming.

After work Nick and I loaded the dogs in the car and went to the cemetery to walk.  It’s not as weird as it might sound, I promise!  It’s a really big cemetery; lots of people walk and jog there, and bring their dogs.  It was fairly crowded Thursday evening.  I think a lot of people had the same idea.

We also walked through the neighborhood near the cemetery, and Nick showed me the house his grandparents lived in when he was born.  They moved from that house when he was five, but he still remembers quite a few things from when they lived there.  It was fun to picture a little version of Nick playing in the yard. 

We walked until it started getting dark.  We knew the nice weather wasn’t going to last, so we wanted to take advantage of every minute of it.  I think the dogs enjoyed the long walk, too. 

Yesterday started off sunny and warm, but the temperature started dropping in the afternoon.  It dropped twelve degrees in between the time I went back to work from lunch and the end of the day when I left.  It continued to drop last night.  Today has been cold and rainy.  The temperatures haven’t gotten above the mid forties, and it has been raining all day.

Fortunately, it doesn’t look like we’re going to drop down to freezing, so hopefully the little flowers will survive.  The beautiful weather was so nice while it lasted!

So how about you?  Have you had any warm days?  Any sign that spring might be on its way?

Fire Drill, (Almost) Flaming Cat Tail, Cold Wind & Soup

Are any of you in an area being affected by Hurricane Sandy?  I suppose the more appropriate question would be are any of you NOT in an area being affected by Hurricane Sandy?

We’ve had a VERY windy past few days, and it has been cold; very, very cold.  I realize that we’re fortunate and I shouldn’t complain, but I do miss the warmer weather.  Our area has had some power loss, but we’ve been lucky so far.

The wind has been blowing lots of things around; we’ve lost a Halloween decoration, lost some branches, and gained a bunch of leaves.  I think the branches and leaves are a pretty fair trade, so nothing to complain about there. 

The building I work in lost power yesterday afternoon, so we were able to go home an hour early.  We apparently lost power at home at some point (the digital clocks were flashing when I got home yesterday), but it was back on by the time I came home from work.  Some of the traffic lights were out on way home, but were working again by this morning.  It seems that the utilities people are doing an amazing job keeping things up and running here.

I decided that this was the perfect weather to try a new soup recipe.  Soup is just so perfect for cold nights, and I thought there was a reasonable chance we’d end up with company due to power outages, or end up at my husband’s grandparents’ house if we lost power (they live on the opposite side of town, so we were going with the thought/hope that at least one household would have power).  So a big pot of soup seemed like a good idea.

I found this recipe for Beer & Cheese Soup.  It was delicious!  We didn’t have Dijon Mustard, so I left that out.  I also added one extra cup of cheese.  I thought it was a little on the salty side, but my husband didn’t.  I think I’ll use half the salt the recipe calls for when I make it again, but it was still fabulous.  It makes a lot, so it’s great for a crowd, and re-heats well.  I didn’t serve it with popcorn either, just bread. 

We have turned on the heat in both parts of the house now that it is so cold.  We have a room that’s an add-on, so it’s not part of the central heating and cooling system.  It has a wall heater that is natural gas.  It isn’t pretty, but it keeps that room very warm, and my husband says it will work if we lose power.  We plan to eventually replace it with some sort of gas logs fireplace type thing. 

It turns out that “eventually” may need to come sooner than we thought.  Tara was walking around the heater last night (it’s next to the cabinet we keep their food in) and brushed her tail into it.  Her tail was on the flame!  It was one of those heart-stopping, I can’t believe this is happening moments.  We both just knew she was going to catch on fire.  She scares so easily and always runs when she’s scared, so we were terrified we wouldn’t be able to catch her quickly.  Somehow, she didn’t catch on fire.  Her tail wasn’t even singed.  I think it took some years off both our lives, but she is fine.  We turned it down to the lowest setting, so there was less of a flame, for the rest of the night.  We also locked all of the fur kids out of that room. 

I’ve been emailing my husband various fireplace screens that I’ve found online.  We will probably be ordering one tonight.  I don’t know if we can take another close call like that.  We have to keep the fur kids safe. 

This morning they apparently decided to make us pay for the extra hour off yesterday.  We had a fire drill shortly after 8:30.  I have no idea why they picked a day when it was 34 degrees and windy for the fire drill, but they did.  We spent about 15 minutes standing outside shivering and complaining.  I think we made it back inside in a lot less time than it took us to leave the building!

Here’s wishing for warm, sunny days for everyone.  I hope you’re all staying safe and doing well during the storm.