So, did you get it out, or did you have to leave the keys in Carmen?
I really like your new project hippy.
We got about an inch of powder last night, but coupled with temps at 20F (and predicted lower), things are semi shut down for a couple of days (no laughing from those in snow country). I’m enjoying a pajama day and Nelson is enjoying lap time and time in his new studio bed, delivered Monday.
Stay safe and healthy y’all!
Just saw some flakes falling. Three sites I checked said less than an inch total accumulation. Accuweather is still calling 3-7". What are they smoking??
I’ve taken care of my phone calls, tho I don’t trust Breezeline still. I wish we had a viable internet alternative, but we don’t - at least not yet.
And I did a search for free things to do in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge for kids. WAAAAAAY too many sites came up with “Free for kids under 2” and crazy expensive for the rest of the family. Plus I need to find things that will be fun for Tobias, and so many are really not appropriate for a 3-y/o. But between the pool at the hotel and mini-golf and gem mining, and maybe a local playground, we should do OK. I hope. The pool will be a winner - both kids love the water.
And in the last few minutes, the “snow” appears to have stopped. 
I plan to rollsuck as soon as the canister dries. I used my regular vacuum to clean some ashes in the pellet stove, and the filter and canister were way too gross. So I replaced the filters and washed out the canister. It’s sitting by the pellet stove to dry. I guess it’s chillage in the interim.
Good morning all. Stayed in bed until nearly 8:30am today, I’m not sick but not entirely well (slight sore throat, some coughing and stuffy nose) so may use the snow on the ground (barely an inch and and road is clear-but all the schools are closed anyway) as an excuse to stay home and vegetate today. Temp outside is 26F and will barely crawl above freezing later on, but all the moisture has disappeared from the sky.
JtC, hang in there; as for Hubs family, you can only do so much…
Sario, nice to see a new/old face drop in.
Sari, given the way egg prices are going, I doubt that will be the only truck hi-jacking of the spring.
Shoe, cops, pushing cars out of the drive-in, a stranded motorist…so, just an average night then? 
Maybe not quite as obsessive, but I have a spreadsheet that I update on a weekly basis and keep a checking account register on my desk.
hippie, looks nice, happy quilting.
And that’s all for now. Need to take on sustenance, probably pancakes and bacon, and then get down to some serious slothage. Have a good one all.
Years ago, I put together a box of rolled “wheat” pennies. (For a long time, US one-cent coins had wheat seed-heads depicted on the back.) I can’t remember exactly why I thought that was a good idea. This year, the gummint is flirting with the idea of phasing out that coin, and "D’oh!"nald has called for a halt in minting them. So, what should I do with this $300-face-value box of coins, now?
Had to do an early morning run, in spite of feeling sick. Started up the trusty car. Started on first try, even though -30 C. Unplugged block heater cord. Then turned on the heater and defroster.
No go.
No heater. No windscreen defroster. No rear-window defroster. No lights on the climate-control panel. No life-affirming hot air coming out.
Then looked at the instrument panel. No outside temperature showing. And, the red “Danger! Airbag will kill you!” light was showing.
Sighed and put it in drive, attributing all of these flaws to the above-mentioned -30 C (which I knew was the temp from my phone, kept warm by my body heat in the pocket. It will stop working in cold weather as well, if not kept in my pocket.)
Plus, the car’s navi-panel wasn’t working; just black. It’s a liquid-crystal display, apparently. I assume that “liquid” bit was the tip-off why it wasn’t working. Fortunately, I knew where I was going and didn’t need the map.
On my errand, passed one of those portable signs that the city puts up on main arteries, to show your vehicle speed: too fast, too slow, or just right. It wasn’t working either. “Go wild! See if I care!” was the implicit message.
Did my errand and then thought I’d better drive the car a bit to see if it would warm up. Took a bypass and got up to 80 km. Suddenly, the temperature panel came on, and the fan started blowing. Not life-affirming warm air of course, because the air coming in was so freaking cold, but it was a start.
Stopped at Tim’s for a quick coffee to warm up. When I came out, the car started - and the outside temp was showing on the instrument panel, and the airbag was no longer threatening to kill me. All back to normal - for -30 C weather, as the outside temperature readout now helpfully confirmed.
Home now and I’m going to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head.
Volume was down, but there were a lad of packages that the sort aisle didn’t scan, they just tossed 'em onto Brown belt. Which is where i was being sent. When I wasn’t pulling the Bottom Yellow cages for Slo Loader, or loading the one car, or pulling Top Red. Whew. It started snowing an hour ago, now it’s starting to stick to the ground. Glad I have French Toast fixings.
I’m under the approach path to RDU, and now I get twitchy when I hear a low flying jet.
Nah, it’s always been here, the idiots just feel confident in acting on it now.
Still in her, I had her towed home.
there will be lunch! i found sour cream at trader joes, along with pistachios and almonds. a quick stop at “nuts to you” for chocolate covered gummy bears and wilber buds. the nuts and buds will go together to create “people kibble”. the gummy bears will be consumed solo.
Mooom, we realized the other day that we have no recent photos of ourselves, so Mrs. Nott set up a tripod with a remote phone button to take some new ones.
Sario, it’s nice to see your owly-face again!
I went to the dentist today to get fitted for my new night guard. I expected to have them stick a tray of alginate goop onto my teeth, but they do it with a digital scanner now.
I’ll catch you all later.
Still single digits in no. Illinois although it doesn’t feel as cold as yesterday. As in, my hands aren’t cold inside the house. I hate taking showers when it’s cold so I’ve taken baths the last 3 days. Well, I’m sick of that so either I’m gonna drive to the gym or heat up the bathroom with a heater and TURN IT OFF AND UNPLUG IT BEFORE I TAKE A SHOWER. Empasis so **JtC ** and BBBoo don’t holler at me.
I keep the thermostat at 70 so it’s not like it’s living in an igloo.
If it’s a option, I’d hang on to them a while longer, or maybe consult a coin dealer and find out what it’s worth.
I guess it depends on how close the heater and outlet are to the shower. Ours is on the opposite wall (about 7’ away.) We keep it running till we dry off, then unplug it. I’ve also been known to start it up before I’m ready to shower, just to pre-warm the room. We ain’t dead yet!
Stoopit snow is falling. Barely more than a flurry, but it’s accumulating on cold surfaces. Accuweather is still showing up to 7" total. I think they may be too lazy to update their site. Weather dot com shows it stopping in about 3 hours. Weather dot gov says maybe 2-3" total by morning. Who knows?
On the plus side, I’ve conducted rollsuck operations and I just took a pan of cream cheese marble brownies out of the oven. The house smells yum!!
once again south of us will get snow.
we do have wind, which is playing havoc with the elevators at the office building.
also, a large cell tower is being removed. they have removed the top bit. on this very, very, cold, windy day there are about 6 people working on the tower. they look like really large corvids hanging from their climbing ropes. i can’t believe they are that high up on steel with the weather today.
I hope they are very well paid.
With all the snow we have had I have been putting out a lot more birdseed than usual. I don’t see anything exotic but they can be a lot of fun to watch. Lots of sparrows, a junco, a bluejay, a pair of Downy woodpeckers, and at least two pairs of cardinals.
Yay! More gorgeous quilting.
I think the car was telling you to stay home in the first place. Hope the weather warms up a bit.
That sucketh. Hope the fix isn’t too spendy.
Regarding this week’s theme, I got 3 managers saying I did an awesome job on a project.
But my brain is a bit overloaded from too many finance terms in German today. I’m not strong on finance terms in English, and 7 hours of it in German has finished my brain for today.
I know absolutely nothing about cars or dealing with your current temperature, so this is probably a really stupid question. Is there a point when you need to start worrying that oil isn’t getting circulated through the engine when a car is acting up like that?
Roads here are still a mess from the ice and snow we got yesterday due to the unusually cold temps (low was 0F, which is cold for us). Even the interstates keep getting shut down due to accidents and jack-knifed semis. We just don’t have enough equipment to deal with the conditions, and it’s cold enough that whatever salt mixture they’re putting down either isn’t working or does briefly before refreezing into a nice smooth layer of ice.
Work waited until 10pm last night to announce the building was closed (I’d already told my manager there was no way I was going in). Really? Who in their right mind looked out their window and thought things had any chance of improving?
It sure is nice to have a good excuse to stay in and not even think about changing out of loungewear!
Interesting price disparity today: an 18 pack of eggs with the store label on them: $8. An 18 pack of eggs from one state over: $12. But our three bags of groceries still came to about $50/bag, so it didn’t make much difference.
While I was waiting for my wife to come out of the doctor’s office, a nurse called out for “Anastasia!” I thought, I gotta see someone with that moniker. The woman who emerged from around the corner couldn’t have looked less like what my notion of a person by that name would look like. Interesting what our preconceptions are. I would imagine she’s gotten the “you don’t look like an Anastasia!” all her life. Parents can be unthinkingly cruel.
Not a stupid question. That’s one of the reasons for the block heater. It’s an electric heating unit that keeps the engine block warm, to help the fluids work and reduce strain on the battery to crank the engine.
It needs to be plugged in overnight, and unplugged before driving off. I’m generally good on the first stage, but rather erratic in the second stage. I’m accordingly on my third extension cord this winter, having forgotten to unplug twice and driven off with the cord still plugged in. The two previous ones must have eventually dropped off at some point, but I didn’t notice.
They’re the Canadian equivalent of road alligators from damaged tires: road snakes in the middle of winter, stretched out and run over in the street.
Annie was my volunteer.
Thank you for your suggestion, Bbboo, fortunately we are both feeling better today. He is much better and I am a little better.
The brownies are quite yum. And I pulled a smoked turkey thigh out of the freezer for supper - thinking fried spud chunks-n-onions, and maybe peas-n-carrots for the sides.
Flurrying continues - grass and such is white, but paved surfaces are mostly wet. And according to weather radar, it’ll be done within the hour. It’s mid-20s out there and barely 70° inside. We’ve both been lazy most of the afternoon, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. RDOS Rocks!!!
Afternoon all. Have accomplished absolutely buppkis so far today and except for taking the recyclables bin out this evening I do not intend to do anything further. I guess after 5-6 straight days of shopping/gym/errands/etc, a full day of sloth is allowable. Made it all the way to 26F today, so an even better reason for vegetation…
Piper, that is mind-blistering cold. And your last sentence:
Shows great wisdom.
I concur.
And that’s really all I got. May go read the Sunday NY Times opinion page, if it doesn;t depress me to much. Onward into the day.
Do you just make brownies the normal way & swirl in the cream cheese.. before? .. after? baking?
And do you use Philadelphia or something else? I feel like I must make these.