This is my last free weekend until June 21.  The next three weekends are booked solid for Pathfinders.

It starts on Friday. We're getting on a bus and heading to Toronto for a province-wide rally all day Saturday. ("All day" means we leave the camp at 7 am and get back at 11 pm - it will be exhausting).

The next weekend is canoe training - 9-5 both Saturday and Sunday.

The weekend after that is canoe camp.

All of these are going to be good events, and I definitely want to  go to all of them, but man I wish there was a free weekend in there.

At one point, my manager was talking about us going to India on June 16 - i.e. the day after canoe camp - and I almost lost my mind. Luckily, that was moved to August.

I spent my last relaxing weekend finishing up the various house projects that I started before Easter. I hung blinds in the second bedroom, made another Roman blind, and put an empty bin downstairs. I even started getting organized for next weekend (although I'm not done by any means).

I also took apart a desk I made in high school.

I like it, but it takes up a lot of space. Wanda wanted the desk part, and it (finally) occurred to me that if I removed the sides, they could be used as separate book shelves.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. Each of the two sides had 2 casters, not four, so they wouldn't stand up without the middle section.  Thirty seconds after I realized that, I was on my way to Rona to buy 4 more casters.

Except, of course, I made the desk 25 years ago, and I suspect the casters were scavenged from somewhere by my dad, so they were even older. Rona had nothing the same size, so I removed 2 casters from one side and put 4 new casters on that side, then moved the 2 from that side onto the other side. Simple to do, and now most of the desk is downstairs (and one side remains upstairs).

It wasn't a super busy day, but I got a lot done.

Wednesday Walk

 

As I've mentioned before, the gym at work has classes at noon. I usually do the classes, but I don't really like the Wednesday class. I used to go anyway, but I don't like it, so I stopped.

That doesn't mean I don't want a break, though, so now that it's (finally) nice, I've decided to start going for walks on Wednesdays.

Today I walked over to Dow's Lake to see the last of the tulips.

  

 

The pictures turned out better than expected, considering that I can hardly see my phone display in the sun. 

The saga continues

Remember the table saga? 

After I got the desk together, I realized that the black futon from the other bedroom would look good in that room. It made sense, too - the newly painted room is bigger than the other room.

Except ... my mom is bringing my nieces and my cousin's two girls this summer. It makes sense to put the three girls in the bigger bedroom. But if I moved the futon, there would be no bed in the smaller room. I'm fine with the girls sleeping on air mattresses, but is didn't think my mom would appreciate it.

Ok, move the futon, and get another bed for the small room.

But before I could put a new bed in that room, I had to paint.

Again.

I spent a couple of nights painting, and then I went back to IKEA. I came home with a day bed. Wanda and I spent a couple of days putting it together.

Next I had to figure out the windows. When I painted the smaller bedroom, I took down some white blinds. They could go back up, so I started hanging the brackets.

One broke.

Did you know Home Depot sells extra brackets? Neither did they, but they helped me find them, anyway. I came home and hung the blinds, then decided to make roman blinds to go over them. I found these instructions: http://jenduncan.typepad.com/whats_new/2008/11/roman-blind-tutorial-in-20-pictures-or-less.html.

I went out and bought fabric, and wood, and the rings for the back, but the fabric wasn't wide enough, so I decided to make a scalloped edge - something like this: http://www.coletterie.com/tutorials-tips-tricks/tutorial-scalloped-hem.

On Sunday, I started making the first set of blinds. At 6:30, I realized I didn't buy eyelet screws. Naturally, this was the day before the holiday.

Tonight I stopped on the way home to buy them, and I finished the first blind.

I can't decide if I like the soft look or if I want more structure on the next one.

A very productive weekend

There is a tree right beside my driveway. Over the years, it has gotten bigger, as trees do, until it reached a point where it was invading the driveway space. 

If I parked the car beside it, Wanda would complain that I parked her in a tree. It made mowing the lawn difficult as well.

Today I cut off the lower branches so that I can now walk under the tree.

 

Wanda came out and helped me cut up and bundle the branches for pickup. 

 

And as you can see, there's still a lot of tree left.

 

Something is afoot

A couple of weeks ago, I went to buy new runners. This is always a challenge. They need to be cross-trainers, not too heavy, with a relatively flat bottom. Oh, and they have to fit.

Let me back up a little.

When I was in grade seven, my mom bought me a pair of size eight runners so that I could grow into them. I never did. I remained size 7, and wore out those too big shoes. In fact, sometimes 6.5 worked just fine.

Anyway, when the salesperson asked what size I wore, I said 7. She suggested that she measure me, which she did. She came up with normal width, size 7.5.

Oddly, that's what happened last summer when I bought shoes for work, so when I ended up with 7.5s again, I actually started to wonder whether shoe companies had randomly changed their sizes.

And then I came home and put the new shoes beside the old ones. They are noticeably bigger.

I don't understand why they both fit.

It started with a table

It started with a table. 

A few years ago, I decided to replace my kitchen table. I wanted a new one, and the chairs that came with the old table were wearing out.

I got the new table, but the charity that came to take the old table & chairs wouldn't take the table because one of the nuts that holds the top to the legs is seized, so the table is hard to transport.

I put the table in the former  spare room (which had been mostly empty since the bed was moved when Wanda moved in) and used it as a sewing table.

As you can see, it was hardly ideal for that purpose, and it takes up a lot of space. About a month ago, I decided it was time to get rid of it. I went online, and discovered that IKEA sells a shelf/desk combo that would be perfect.

Last week, I went and checked it out in person. The model had 8 compartments, but I was able to confirm the larger shelf (with 16 compartments) would work fine. I bought the pieces and brought it home.

That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday, it occurred to me that painting around the desk would be difficult. I'd either have to live with the paint that was on the walls, or paint before I put the desk together.

Since the boxes for the desk were sitting in the middle of the living room, there wasn't much room for procrastinating.  And we were about to go in to a long weekend where stores would be closed two out of three days.

I went on to the Benjamin Moore website and started looking at colours. I found a few I liked and started playing with their sample rooms. Specifically, I looked at how the colours looked on rooms with black furniture, since the desk I just bought was black. 

The winning colour was Tangelo, with French Vanilla trim. I bought the paint Thursday night.

Friday morning, I cleaned out the room and started to paint. I got two coats done on the ceiling and three on the trim (because the trim doesn't meet the ceiling, so I didn't need to wait for the ceiling to dry.)

Saturday morning I started on the walls. I got about 3/4 of a coat of primer done before Wanda got home from her exam. She helped me finish a second coat of primer and two of paint.

Today I cleaned up the newspaper and washed the floor, then I started on the desk. It was surprisingly easy to put together, although I did have to get Wanda to help me again.

I think the room looks pretty good.

Now all that's left is to put the rest of the stuff back in it.

Oh, and to get rid of that table.

Rag quilt

About a year and a half ago, my Pathfinders made pajamas.  There were some leftover flannel scraps, and I also made pajamas for a bunch of people that Christmas, so I had enough flannel that I needed to do something with it - but nothing big, because the pieces I had weren't big enough to do much with.

I decided to make a rag quilt.

First, I cut squares of flannel.  I also cut squares of polar fleece, because I had lots of scraps of that left from various projects.  I put one piece of fleece between two  pieces of flannel and sewed intersecting diagonal lines across the square. I kept the flannel the same on both sides for ease of assembly later.

I then assembled the squares into blocks of 4 squares.

Squares and blocks

I then cut the seams down, and assembled the blocks into rows. I had 6 rows of 5 blocks each.

I sewed the 6 rows together. Cue more seam trimming.

Quilt before binding

I couldn't leave the edge like that, but there was no way on earth I was going to trim it. My hand is bruised enough as it is. I decided to bind the edges.

A YouTube tutorial later, the binding was done. Here's the finished product from both sides.

Seam side down

 

Seam side up

Not bad for a bunch of fabric scraps.

Don't think about pink elephants

My boxing classes take place on the gallery above a pool run by the city. We all use the same change rooms.

Recently, two signs were posted in the change room. The first one prohibits the possession of any device capable of taking pictures, including cell phones.

You can imagine how well people comply with that one.

The second sign prohibits taking pictures in the change room. Despite the fact that it's much more reasonable, every time I see it, I want to take a picture of it.

Smart Alec

I'm a bit of a smart alec at the gym.

(Please ignore the chorus of people saying I'm a smart alec anywhere.)

Three days a week, I have an instructor who finds it amusing. It's a very joke-y class in general, and having fun distracts us from how hard we are working.

During Tuesday's class, we ended with a foam roller stretch. They look like Nerf toys, but they are very serious. You sit/lie/roll on the roller to release muscle tension - and, if you're me, you spend most of the session trying not to fall off. The theory is that if you find a place that hurts more than usual, you concentrate your efforts on that muscle.

Yes, it's just as fun as it sounds.

Anyway, that's when this happened:

Instructor: "and, if you find a place that's uncomfortable, just stay there."

Me: "With all due respect, that's terrible life advice."

He laughed.

95

Today would have been my Gitrandma's 95th birthday. She died almost 20 years ago, on Christmas Eve.

(When I was a kid, my cousins and I used to sing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer". We didn't sing it that year.)

This improperly-scanned picture was taken in September of 1994. Grandma was sick, but she was just beginning to notice symptoms. 

The picture was taken the day we celebrated my grandparents' 55th anniversary.

Earlier that year, I spent a week out at the farm with them. I helped them paint the kitchen and shampoo the carpets, and while I was there Grandma and I went through some of her old pictures.

There was one of her mother, who had moved to New York State in the 30s and ended up driving a bus. There were pictures of their old horses - Grandpa knew exactly what horses they were. There were her wedding pictures, and she told me that she and Grandpa got married in the afternoon even though they couldn't eat before hand (because at the time, you couldn't eat at all before receiving communion). They couldn't get married in the morning, because if they did they'd have to feed their guests two meals, and they couldn't afford to do that. She had several pictures - a few where they looked nice, and one where the wind was blowing her veil and dress around.

We were planning to get them a clock with family picture on it for their anniversary, so I stealthily pocketed some of the pictures. I wasn't stealthy enough, because every time I stole the nice wedding picture, she found it and took it back.

The clock has the windy picture on it.

It might have been that visit when I asked her whether she was born in the morning or the afternoon (because of the whole April Fool's thing). She didn't know - in her day, she said, kids didn't ask those questions.

Happy birthday, Grandma. No fooling.

The plumbing post

Last ... well, let's say last fall - water started backing up out of the floor drain every time I did laundry.

I solved it by wearing shoes.

Well, maybe "solved" isn't really the word.

In December, I finally called a plumber, but things didn't fall into place until January.  He came, and realized he needed a bigger cable to snake the pipe, so he had to come back again.

He arrived again near the end of January and snaked the pipe, but it didn't work.  He said that it felt like the pipe narrowed outside of the house and I should call the city.

I didn't.

You see, the city would need access to the main clean-out pipe, and the people who'd owned the house before me put a handy wall in front of the clean-out pipe.  The wall needed to be modified, and I had camp, and then I was away, and then a friend was in town, and I just didn't have time to deal with it.

I continued wearing shoes, as that was a much easier solution.

As I mentioned, I cut a hole in the wall on the weekend, so Monday I called the city. 

They asked if I was going to be home for the next three hours. I said no, and they said I needed to call when I was going to be home for 3 hours - and I could call after hours, because they work then.

Yesterday, I got home from work by 5 and called, and they suggested I call back today because it wasn't an emergency. (It wasn't an emergency on Monday, either.)  She gave me the extension of the right department so I didn't have to call the general line.  I don't blame the woman I talked to yesterday - I was totally fine with calling back, but it would have been nice to get better information the first time.

This morning, I called the extension she gave me at 7:30, because that's when she had told me they opened. They called back at 9:45. On the bright side, they had someone here by noon.

He experimented and determined that the issue wasn't outside of the house - it was inside.

Despite the going in circles, this was good news - digging up a pipe sounds expensive. Before he left, he explained what kind of equipment was needed to fix this - basically, it's a snake with a blade on the end.

(Um, plumbing snake, not a live snake. That would be both scary and ineffective.)

I emailed plumber #1 and he said he didn't have the right equipment. He suggested plumber #2. I called plumber #2. He arrived at 5:45 and left at 6:45.

It's fixed.

I'm totally doing laundry in my socks this weekend.

Getting things done

As much fun as the cruise was, there was one part I didn't enjoy.  The day after we were in Mexico, my sinuses went into overdrive.  The nasty side-effect was that I started coughing. It was a terrible-sounding cough - which is not fun when you're in public places.

Or any other time, really.

I got back and gave it a couple of weeks. It didn't improve.

I googled it, and found out that dairy can make it worse, so I cut out my morning yogurt. That was about 2.5 weeks ago.

Yesterday I started feeling better.  I can breathe normally, and I cough a lot less.

As a result, I got a lot done this weekend.  Nothing too exciting - cut a hole in a wall to get at the plumbing clean out (more on that later), put up some hooks that fell down in ... September, I think? Made buns. Flipped the mattress on my bed (and, coincidentally, found a sock in the pillow case I was taking off the bed and a dishcloth in the sheet I was putting on the bed).

Little things, mostly, that I haven't gotten around to doing in a while.

It was a good weekend.

Is anyone else obsessed with this missing plane?

To recap, on Friday Malaysian air traffic control lost track of a plane.

It's 5 days later, and no one knows where it is or what happened.

Here's what they know:
- There was, at one point, a plane
- It is not in the air right now
- There were no calls of distress between those two situations

Here's what they don't know:
- Where it was last detected
- Whether it crashed over water or land or not at all
- Whether it was intact when it stopped flying
- What country it was nearest when whatever happened happened
- What happened to the people on the plane

Crackpot theories (and a few that might be true):
- the plane randomly turned around and flew in the other direction for a while
- or not
- the plane was on fire
- the plane was hit by a meteorite
- or vaporized into nothing
- or is being held hostage somewhere unspecified
- the Malaysian government is covering up what happened
- the US government captured everything via its satellites, but doesn't want to share it because they'd have to admit what their satellites are capable of
- it might be terrorism
- but probably not

It seems like the world is too big to hide a plane that size, but, of course, it's not. There is a lot of water out there, and a lot of parts of the world aren't heavily populated. (Of course, if you were going to deliberately  hide a plane, I'd suggest a major airport. It would blend right in.)

The odds are that the plane crashed into the ocean, killing everyone on board - which is terrible, of course, but would be easier to accept if there was any sort of physical evidence to back it up.

Thoughts from the grocery store at 9:30 on a Friday night

There are a lot of people here.

And kids. Who brings a three year old to a grocery store at 9:30 at night? Way to ruin your Saturday.

And some of the shelves look like a starving army just went by. Although that wouldn't explain why they're out of vinegar. What would an army do with vinegar? Make little fake volcanos?

Why does the milk case alway smell like spoiled milk? Don't they ever clean it?

If you want your two year old to wear his mitts. You say "it's time to put on your mitts", not "do you want to wear your mitts?" 

So the only checkout is about to close, but the store is open 24 hours? How does that work?

I want bananas, but they're all the way down at the other end. ... I don't need them that badly.

Today is not my niece's birthday

Of course, yesterday wasn't, either.

But even though it's not her real birthday, I thought it was worth taking a look back at the last ten years.

The first time I ever flew with Miss B was when she was coming to visit me in Ottawa. I'd been in Brandon for my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary, and B and her mom came back with me.

Here's a picture from that trip:

 

The first time she came to Ottawa.

She was 5 months old, and opinionated, and if she didn't approve of what was going on, she'd cry. Interestingly, she'd stop crying if you pointed a camera at her. (Yes, she's the first grandchild.)

"Come on! I can't go swimming by myself!"

The next time she came to visit me was about a year later. She couldn't talk yet, but she could make it very clear that she wanted to go to the beach. (We went to Andrew Haydon park, and when she saw the water, she started pointing and trying to take off her shoes.)

She kept coming to visit me (and Auntie Wanda, who she claims is her favourite), and it's amazing how much she's grown.

And then a couple of weeks ago, I took the second flight I've ever taken with her, and we went to Florida. Well, you've already heard that story.

Happy birthday, B. Welcome to double digits.

So apparently there's this mouse....

Last week, I went on a Disney cruise.

My entire family went, actually. We all met in Toronto on Saturday and flew to Miami. We got in the night before the cruise, and spent the night at an airport hotel. Amazingly, we were across the street from the back of the airport, but I didn't hear any planes the entire time we were there.

On Sunday morning, we boarded the ship. We got on board around 12:30, and our rooms weren't ready until 1:30, so we went for lunch with all of our carry-on luggage. It was a relief when our rooms were ready.

There were seven of us between the two rooms, and luckily we had adjoining rooms, so we were able to visit freely.  There were a few differences from other ships I've been on.  First of all, there were two single beds (or one double bed) in each room. There was also a couch, which turned into a third bed, and a pull-down bunk for the fourth person in the room. A curtain divided the couch/upper bunk area from the other beds.  That meant the room was larger than some others I've been in.

The second difference was the bathroom. There were two in each room.  One had the toilet and a sink, and the second had a shower/bathtub and a sink. The other ships I've been in had one bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower - no bathtub.

The third difference was the amount of storage in the room. There were lots of drawers and cupboards for clothes.

The rest of the ship had differences, too. there were four different kids clubs - 0-3, 3-11, 11-14, and 14-17, I think. That took up most of one deck. (My niece was in the 3-11 group - she went once, but didn't like it because there was no one her age.)

There were two theatres - one for live shows, and one for movies. (I saw Frozen and Saving Mr. Banks. Both were really well done.) There were three pools on deck 9 - a kids pool with waterslide, an adult-only pool, and a family pool (deeper than the kids pool) right beside the outdoor movie screen, which played older Disney movies. If they had designed the ship strictly to make my niece happy, they couldn't have done better than to create a place where she could watch movies and swim at the same time. (Sadly, Up was on at a time when I was unable to trick my niece into watching it.)

They also had a room specifically dedicated to board games, which allowed my niece to beat me at chess one morning.

And the final difference was that they had three sit-down restaurants, and we rotated between the three restaurants, keeping the same wait staff every night. 

We had the 8:15 dining time, which was late, but while other ships had the early dining watch the show while the late seating was eating, and then the late seating watch the show after that, Disney does the show for the late seating while the early seating is eating, and then reverses it later.

The other difference was, of course, the number of children on board. It definitely made for a different experience, and it was hard to find  place to sit quietly without going to an adult-only area.

I was surprised at how many activities started at 10 or 11 pm. I don't know how they were, because that is far too late for me. Even character appearances were happening after I was in bed.

(And on that note, the character appearances were a big part of the entertainment. Since I wasn't really interested in that, I missed the variety of activities found on other cruise lines.)

And back to the restaurant - the first night, I asked if there were peppers in the food I was ordering, and my waiter went into full allergy alert - which would be good if I were severely allergic, but trace amounts are fine, and it was a pain to have to pre-order my food for the next day every meal.

So anyway, we left Miami on Sunday. Monday was a day at sea, and Tuesday we went to Cozumel, Mexico.

Mayan Ruins, Cozumel

The thatched roof is to protect the ruins

We went to see some Mayan ruins.  They were interesting (as was our guide) but I wish I'd heard more stories about what the ruins might have been used for.  (He did share some, I just wanted more.)

  

After the ruins, we went to tequilla tasting, then the Discover Mexico Cultural Center. The tequilla tasting was interesting, but the cultural center was disappointing. I'm not sure whether it was that we passed through the building quickly en route to lunch, or whether there just wasn't much there.

They did do a demo of people swinging from ropes, but I don't know why they do that or what it is supposed to mean, unless it's a life insurance-selling scheme.

After our tour ended, we wandered through the shops of Cozumel. It's a bartering town, which I love, and I bought my niece a charm bracelet and a few other things.

 Wednesday we were at sea again, and Thursday we went to Disney's private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay.

Four of us decided to do a kayaking expedition, which was fun (although it's a hard position to sit in for an extended period of time).

While we kayaked, the other three went to the beach, and we joined them after our expedition.

I may have gotten a little sunburned. Specifically, where my shoulders meet my neck, and the inside of one entire arm.  I don't know how or why.

Friday was the end of our cruise, and we decided to do a hop-on, hop-off tour with the ship. The big advantage was that they would store our luggage for us, so we wouldn't have to drag it through the city.

We did the city tour, but unfortunately didn't have time to do the beach tour as well. We made our way to the airport and checked in, only to find our flight was delayed.

And then we got on the plane, and listened as the pilot came on and explained that when the plane was refueled, they'd put the fuel in the wrong tanks, and the engine couldn't read the fuel level or use that fuel, so they had to transfer it. (Question: why would you put fuel tanks on a plane if the plane couldn't use any fuel in those tanks? Something isn't right there.)

We got into Toronto late.

In fact, we landed after our Ottawa flight took off, about 45 minutes before the Regina flight left. We made our way through customs and went to the Connections desk, only to find out that we'd all missed our flights.

The Regina group was given hotel rooms and replacement tickets for Sunday night (2 days later), and Wanda and I were given tickets for Saturday morning and told we could try to fly standby at 10 on Friday night if we wanted to.

My niece was devastated, and everyone started scrambling trying to make other arrangements..

Wanda and I went and got food with the vouchers we were given, and miraculously got seats on the Friday flight. We made it home around midnight - only about 17 hours after we got off the ship.

The Regina group got up Saturday morning to get back to the airport to try for standby flights. One of them made it only the first flight of the day, and the rest made it home late last night.

Not her favourite

My niece got a fortune teller this weekend. It appears to be a magic 8 ball kind of deal - you ask a yes/no question, and you get an answer.

The first question she demonstrated for me was "is Auntie Colette my favourite auntie?"

The answer was maybe.

The second question was "is Auntie Colette NOT my favourite auntie?"

The answer was yes.

300

My Monday class at the gym is body toning - so basically strength training. I like strength training, and I try not to miss this class.

The format of the class changes every month, and when I saw the format of this month's class, I considered changing my policy.

The plan was:

25 knees to chest (like a crunch, but raising your knees as well)

25 burpees 

50 squats

50 push ups

50 ball leg curls

50 supine rows

25 knees to chest

25 burpees

I hate burpees. If I never do another burpee in my life, I will be perfectly ok with that. (I also find them really difficult with my asthma). I talked to the instructor and he gave me a substitute exercise - skipping. Except skipping is easier, so it would be 50 skips instead of 25. That's fine - I skip at boxing (except when I've hurt my foot, but my foot has been annoying for too long, so it has to get over it).

One of my colleagues did the routine a couple of days before I started, and she was ridiculously sore the next day. And the day after. And the day after that.

I was a little concerned.

I went to class the first week,  prepared for the worst, and ... it wasn't that bad. The skipping was a little too easy, so I decided the next week I'd do 100 instead of 50, and I had to do bicycles instead of knees to chest the second time, but I survived.

And I wasn't even sore the next day.

The second week, I managed the knees to chest both times.

And this week I missed class, so I went in yesterday to do the workout myself. It took 18 minutes.

I'm almost sorry next Monday is February.

Winter camp

My Pathfinders are going camping next weekend. There is a building on site, but we're planning to spend a lot of time outside.

Any other year, that would be fine, but this year ... well, let's just say that it's been a little cold.

(One day last week I told my colleague in India that it had warmed up from -25 C to -22 C. He did not think that was considerably better.)

Because it has been so cold, Wanda has been wearing my snow pants when she takes the bus. It works well ... except I'm taking the car AND the snow pants to camp.

I went and bought another pair of snow pants.

And then I realized that my winter jacket isn't really warm enough to wear outside for two days.

I went and bought another jacket.

We might sleep outside on Saturday, so I will be packing almost every blanket I own. We have to bring our own water, so I have to pack that. Then there's the food, and the crafts, and the stuff for a treasure hunt/survival activity, and my Dutch oven, and ...

It's so much easier when we camp in my back yard.

Cooling off period

In the middle of November, I got home from work and walked into the kitchen. The floor was cold - so much so that I thought "wow, I'd forgotten how cold the tile floor gets in the winter".  A half an hour later I looked at the thermostat, and noticed it was 10.5 degrees Celcisus in the house. I called the furnace company, and they came out and fixed it.

In December, I woke up one Sunday and noticed it was cold. I checked the thermostat, and the furnace had stopped again.  (Well, it was still working, it just wasn't heating).  I called the furnace company, and they got it working again.  At that point, I knew it wasn't fixed, but they couldn't figure out what part was broken, so they couldn't fix it.

I was worried about leaving it, but I warned my house sitter and got on the plane. I was lucky - it didn't stop at all when I was gone.

I got back on Wednesday, and Friday night it stopped again.  This time, it started spontaneously working as the guy from the furnace company arrived. By the time I went to bed, the house was warm again.

Saturday morning, I woke up to a house that had dropped to 9 degrees.  The guy from the furnace company came out again and had a lot of trouble getting it going. (The one thing you don't want the guy fixing the furnace to say to you at 11 am on a cold Saturday is "Do you have enough firewood to make it to Monday?") Luckily, he got it going again, and he figured out what part needed replacing.

Saturday afternoon, it stopped again. I started calling around borrowing heaters from friends, and it spontaneously started working again.

Sunday, Wanda and I bought (and carried) a lot of firewood.

Monday I stayed home so they could fix it, and they had trouble getting the part. It wouldn't be in until Thursday.

Amazingly, the furnace continued working, and Thursday they came out and fixed it.

Now I just hope they replaced the right part.

* * *

My new years resolution was to change the temperature in my car to Celcuis. I figured it out on January 2. That's two new things in a row, and January 3 I started wearing my new orthotics.  I even considered trying to do a new thing every day, until the furnace went out and I was more focused on not freezing.

* * *

Here's a picture of the many things I got from our family friends who are downsizing.