It's the last week for panic shopping in the MMP!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Safe travels metal mouse!

When I took Nelson out this morning, it was colder than I’ve ever seen it in the 27 years here in middle Tennessee. It actually dropped below zero degrees Fahrenheit! :open_mouth: Nelson was a little freaked out during last night’s walk, given that the sleet was still coming down and the wind was howling. He was still upset this morning, even though the stuff from the sky was history, but on the ground. The wind is still pretty fierce, making me thankful for the short irkday yesterday to get away from home chores done. I plan on staying in today, except to deliver cards to my neighbors and the maintenance guy.

Up, caffeinating, breakfasted, bed stripped, towels / sheets in the dryer, jeans in the wash and other laundry on deck. I may bake some muffins or a batch of oatmeal - raisin cookies today, as much to keep the temp up in the apartment as to nosh on.

Stay safe and healthy y’all!

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Howdy Y’all! We have decided we are not that shaggy, so will put off haircuts until next week. 'Tis cold out and just don juana go out in it, so inside and warm we shall stay.

MetalMouse have a safe trip. Check in when you can.

MOOOOOOM hope stuff gets figured out with BIL today.

BooFae enjoy the shenanigans!

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Happy Friday!

Miserably rainy again this morning.
The wind is picking up, supposed to be high winds and the temp drops to 8 degrees by morning.
No park again today. Cerby’s limp is getting worse instead of better, so I guess I need to call the vet.

Ripple stayed home by himself for the first time yesterday. He didn’t want to go when I took my son to irk, so my son put him back in the house and we left without him. He was fine, happy to see us when we got back, but calm. No whining, or jumping, just a tail wag and nose bump.

I hope your eye feels better soon Nellie.

Safe travels MetalMouse

I’ll be glad when the holiday is over as well.
Even though for me it’s really just another day and I got everything done early.
I haven’t told anybody we’re not going. I sent my niece a text asking how she is doing and as usual, no answer. Even if she is clear for the holiday, I don’t know if anybody else caught coved too, and they may not be clear.
I don’t have any reason to go back out of the house until Tuesday afternoon. I may just stay in the entire time. Unless I want to go to the park, I’m not going anywhere. I haven’t had cabin fever for a long time, and it might be nice to have it again.

I got the contracts for irk yesterday. I need to sign them and send them back.
At least I got them, as much time as I have missed this year, I was a little worried.

I’m sorry about your mom, Taters. I had issues with my mother.
It’s hard I know.

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The five-gallon bucket under the leak was almost half-full this morning. I dumped it (and the mixing bowl beside it), and it’s still dripping. I’ll call the roofer later, but I know there’s nothing he can do because there’s still snow and thick ice on the roof, the weather is harsh, and the Christmas weekend is starting.

Weather dot com says we’re having heavy snow that will turn to freezing rain at 09:00. I just went out into the catio, and I can hear precipitation. It sounds like rain, though it’s still too dark to see. The rain sounds different, so I’m guessing it might be the freezing rain?

Got a text from [my company] EATS saying today is officially a telecommuting day. Not that it matters to me, since I telecommute most days anyway.

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It’s minus 8 with a wind chill of minus 35. I won’t be getting out of my jammies today except to take a shower which I will need after baking. I’m not a fan of baking but I found a receipt (old timey word) for maple cookies and my sister loves maple and she’s had a hell of a year so I will make her cookies. My niece canceled her trip in on accouna the weather so it’s just me, sis, and BIL. My nephew and his family will be here for New Year’s so I get 2 parties! I like Christmas now that only people I love are involved.

Happy Festivus to those who celebrate. I’ll get the aluminum pole from the crawl space.

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It seems i made the right choice to do the 7.5 hour drive yesterday. I had no troubles. Today is pouring and really windy.

So I’m at my folk’s house for a few days. Please excuse typos, I’m on a tablet.

If’n I don 't check in, stay safe, y’all, and have a great holiday!

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Good Morning Mumpers. I got a lotta problems with you folks!!

IOW , Happy Festivus! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Literally counting the minutes till Irk is over and I can start my 3 day weekend. Had a nice dinner (eggplant parm) with my folks and saw my massage client last night. Other than that , not much going on in casa de Janis. And don’t forget your booties ‘cause it’s cold out there…

@Taters @FairyChatMom sorry for all the drama. Families are complicated. hugs

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In addition to the hot water pipe in the laundry room being frozen, the utility sink’s drain is now frozen too.

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Woke this morning to the gentle scrrrip, scrrrip, scrrrip of people trying to chip ice off their cars, The roads and sidewalks are encased in ice. I got a call saying the eye doc’s tech phoned in the Rx last night (so doc and discharge nurse forgot). There’s no way I’d skate a mile to get it, so I’ll wait until sidewalks are passable. Hopefully that’ll happen later today, though TWPTB seem rather glum on the prospect.

I’m getting $$ from the USPS! I didn’t trust my little food scale to weigh packages accurately, so I put in a heavier weight when calculating postage on XMas parcels. I got an email saying their scales detected the difference, so I’m getting $$ back. I had no idea they did this. I now have a postage scale so this won’t happen again.

Today I’m baking vegan muffins. My friend’s son and his hubs are in town, and she’s going to bring them over later today or tomorrow to introduce me. Son is vegan, spouse is vegetarian. Vegan! Vegetarian! Pescatarian! Gluten-free! Paleo! No dairy! It’s getting so complicated to cook these days. Seriously, I’m glad folks have the options they do now. I just feel like the aunt in Big Fat Greek Wedding: He don’ eat no meat?! Is OK, I make lamb! Or something like that.

The eye feels pretty good. No improvement in vision, but I know it’s still way too early.

Doggio, my two dogs completely ignored each other (except for the Great Escape Conspiracy), but when the older one passed, the younger one was clearly uneasy for a few days. The universe is off balance somehow.

FCM, your BIL reminds me of JtC’s friend, only with family. How long will he be in rehab? Also, I must’ve missed a page: what happens when he gets released from rehab?

MetalMouse, safe travels! If you get a minute, please let us know you got there OK so Mama Nellie doesn’t worry.

BooFae, loved today’s forecast. Enjoy the shenanigans!

Taters, I’m sorry you got dealt a difficult mama. You definitely deserve better and should be proud that you didn’t let her make YOU into a difficult mama. Have fun with the adorable grands!

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Frozen pipes are a pain.
I’ve only had it happen once, and a hair dryer took care of it.

My powder room gets really cold this time of year. It juts out from the back of the house and is over the outside stairs to the basement. There is insulation, but probably not enough. Not cold enough to freeze, but cold enough to be uncomfortable.

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You are very welcome. One time I was able to get a manager to shut off the overhead speakers while I was shopping. The music shut off, all of the clerks stopped what they were doing, looked up at the speakers and then sighed happily and went back to folding and stocking. Sadly, I’ve never been able to duplicate that feat.

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I think this Spring I’ll put some channels on the crawl space opening, and have a sliding hatch. As it is, the hatch is screwed on. Also, it’s buried in snow. If I had an easily-opening hatch, then I could put a little space heater under the house.

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I had a couple of bad winters in Baltimore that were so cold, the line from the oil tank to the furnace froze.
I had to buy a heated wire that ran along the oil line.
It usually doesn’t get that cold here, or there.
That was the year the bay froze over.

I think sometimes of moving to Florida
but Florida has alligators, palmetto bugs, and hurricanes.

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If you swap the first two letters in ‘Pottery Barn’, it becomes Battery Porn.

I don’t know if anyone needs to know that.

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Every year I watch this short Christmas video, and every year, it cracks me up. It’s also very sweet. Most of you have probably seen it, but I thought it was worth posting the link.

I did! It made me laugh, and who doesn’t need that?

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You know, for a mostly quiet work-week I was starting to think it would never end…but I just logged off (a couple hours early), and now I’m done for the rest of the year! :tada:

It was overcast and raining pretty hard when I woke up, and since late morning it’s been sunny but cold and WINDY. Like, gale-force-wind-warnings windy. I put my big trash can out on the curb while it was still raining, and about an hour later the wind knocked it over – even though it was full! I righted it, gathered the scattered trash, and put it back on my patio. Pickup can wait another week. :slight_smile: Luckily, I noticed the Amazon truck when it arrived: the two items that got delivered today were very light (new gloves, and an apple corer/slicer), and had nearly blown out of the yard by the time I got to the front door.

Even though it’s still ridiculous outside, I think I’m going to bundle up and go to the grocery store. I’m out of granola snacks and bananas! It’s an emergency! :wink: I might even go to two of the big chains near me, to get all of the things that only one of them has. The trunk of my car should be cold enough to keep anything fresh/frozen from store #1 safe while I hit store #2. I definitely live in a food oasis: I’m within 2 miles of a Giant, Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Wegman’s.

They sure were! :grin:

Have a great (and safe) trip!

It is. :slight_smile:

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I started and ran the Jeep. While it was warming up, I scraped about a half-inch sheet of ice off of the windshield. The bit that had been covered in snow before the freezing rain came, came off easily. The ice that was directly on the window was harder, but the defroster did a good job. The rear window was easy, owing to the defroster. The ice on the side windows wasn’t as thick.

The fluffy snow is frozen now, making it hard to walk on and heavy to shovel.

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And Desantis - you can’t forget that idiot…

Oh, yeah, HOME!!

The drive up to Baltimore was unpleasant - overcast, occasionally raining, sometimes hard, and even some flurries. By the time we were driving back, we had mostly blue skies and sun, but still very windy and cold.

BIL was not as difficult as I expected. In fact, he was pretty calm and coherent. But it was obvious that he’s still got problems because he didn’t remember being told about how he ended up there. And he’s not happy being designated a Fall Risk - especially since he can’t shower and he said his hair is gross! He didn’t get belligerent and we explained what was going on. Looks like he won’t be moved to the rehab facility till Tues because of the holiday. There was also some mixup with insurance, but I think FCD got that straightened out.

The rehab facility is in Fort Washington, which is lots closer than Baltimore - it’ll be easier for visits. No telling how long he’ll be there - he’s still weak, his BP is wonky, and then there are the mental lapses. I assume once they deem him ready, he’ll return to the apartment, but we’ll do research on places where he could be supervised.

The doc did tell him he can likely never drive again, which means he pretty much won’t be able to work, because public transportation in our area sucks. He’ll definitely end up on Medicaid, with only SS as income. But that’s a problem for after the holidays.

Meanwhile, we stopped at Food Lion on the way home so I could get a few things - for punkin pie! Then got home and realized I used the last of my punkin’ on Thanksgiving, so I had to run to the other Food Lion, where apparently people can’t count or can’t read the sign that says “Express - 12 Items.” But I got what I needed. I’ve baked a pan of brownies, and there are 2 punkin pies in the oven as I write this.

FCD went down to the apartment to deal with FIL’s new meds. He’ll be bringing them here tomorrow morning for brunch and gifts with the littles. So I’ve got a few minutes now to chill before building a couple of the casseroles for tomorrow. :notes: Fa la la la freekin’ la…. :notes:

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Howdy Y’all! Definitely been a day to stay inside and warm. Although it’s not as cold here as it is where a lot of you are, it’s 35 Amurrkin with a wind chill of 25 Amurrkin and a predicted low tonight of 14 Amurrkin, so BRRR! We had a late N.O.L./early sup of leftovers and are now returnin’ to chill/sloth mode.

VanGo glad you made it safe to Maine. Maine, right? Enjoy the time with your family.

Nellie cute video! GLO-OOOOO-OOOOO-OOOOO-RIA! IN EGG SHELLS A DAY OLD!

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I’m sure you thought of everything you could, but you are slightly overwhelmed so could have missed something.

I’m really sorry this is happening, it is bad and I doubt it will get much better for quite a while.

Your tree looks very festive! Hubs bought a big fat dowel from Ace for our tree, but I think that ship has sailed this year. Jerkface cat.

That is horrible, it isn’t safe to even leave your porch when it’s all icy and slick! Dang about the family issues, there are many good reasons we live in a different state then my sisters. I hope you get some quality sleep tonight.

He sounds like one of our cats…waiting to get sick until it will be hard to get them into a vet due to holidays/plague/no money, etc.

I’m glad you had a safe trip, Van Go. Enjoy your family time and have a safe trip home :slight_smile:

That sucks. I hope there is little to no damage when all is said and done.

Are you expecting a sudden improvement or a gradual one? Just wondering what to results to be hoping for…

It’s in the low 60s here with no wind. I should be outside dealing with the weeds but I woke up thinking it would be a good pajama day and thus it is. Hubs bottled some mead this morning and the citrus flavors are a little overwhelmed by cinnamon but that will mellow out in time. It is still well worth drinkin’ though!

The jays must keep an eye on our back steps because as soon as I step away from the feeder, they start yelling and they are in the peanut pile before I get the door closed behind me. They like to take them to our privacy fence and wedge the peanut between the slats to hold it while they peck at the shell to get to the meat.

VBC is fascinated by them and spends much time talking to them through the window. I’m assuming that they will turn into year round visitors and am looking forward to listening to them through the opened windows in the spring.