116 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 12-30-17”

  3. This cold spell is not much fun. We’re not getting above freezing for like a 10 day stretch. This is day 5, it’s still cold (teens) and now it’s snowing. 😦

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  4. So now I’m going upstairs to try out my Norelco One Blade I got for Christmas. I’m currently rocking a full beard, like a month’s worth, probably the longest I’ve ever gone without a shave, so I guess we’ll see if it’s as good as advertised. 🙂

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  5. Amos had me up early. Rotten little dog. Wants nothing to do with me until it is time to go to sleep, then he wants to be snuggled as close to me as possible. When he is ready to get up, sometime between 5 and 6, he turns on the charm and wants to play like he is a puppy again. Cold weather makes him frisky.
    He went to the vet yesterday. He has been coughing and making a hacking sound. He has reflux, so he is on 20mg of over the counter Prilosec. Have I already called him a rotten little dog?
    He will also be going to spend New Years with his other family–ex-husband and ex-wife-in-law. Mr. P and I are headed to New Orleans Monday morning. He has a ticket to the Sugar Bowl. Mr. P said last night that he has always wanted to see Alabama play in the Sugar Bowl, too bad it isn’t the National Championship Game. I am glad he is getting to do this.
    As luck would have it. I have a small closing on Friday. My birthday is Saturday. I was going to use that money to treat myself to something I have been admiring online for a month or so. Something I have never done before….I got the tires rotated on the car yesterday. The cost of new brakes is $25 more than my treat could have been. Being an adult is not always fun. I want to be irresponsible once in a while. Instead, even my most irresponsible friend assured me last light that even he would get the brakes instead of the treat. I mean, he is the guy that just posted a photo on FB of his dog with a leather Tiffany dog collar. Who does that?????

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  6. It’s cold here, too. Today is supposed to be the warmest day until a week or so from now, but that’s not saying much. The high is forecast to be 21°. It’s 8° now.

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  7. I’m up early, had to still wheel the trash out to the curb. This weekend I’ll dismantle Christmas, it shouldn’t take all that long but I noticed the neighbors already had their tree stripped and out for collection this morning. We had a local workplace shooting yesterday (our sister paper largely covered it as it happened on the other side of the harbor where they are, but we also were involved). A former reporter texted me with a tip that one of the locals we know was best friends with the one attorney who was targeted and shot (by a disgruntled partner who was just let go), so we were able to reach him for some quotes. Another sad holiday for several families. 😦

    As for today, I’m meeting up with my cousin in a couple hours to see an early movie today and then have lunch.

    I have a painting and good taste question so will direct this at Kim. Not that AJ or Chas couldn’t handle it, but …

    I have 3 colors for the outside of my house — the main/primary color, a trim and a darker accent shade. I think they will look nice. But my question is whether the front door can break ranks and be another color altogether. I’m still yearning for just a little splash of cornflower blue somewhere. I know the grumpy consultant would have disapproved so I didn’t ask him. He would have said, “You want blue? Buy a blue vase for the front porch.”

    My front door is mostly glass — with wood border around the outside and narrow ‘prairie’ trim a little beyond that (which matches all my windows — these are all original to the house, windows and front door). I’m going on the premise that I can live without a screen door.

    If it looks whacky, I could always repaint it I suppose. I’m going to ask the Sherwin Williams people too. I need to make an appt for their consultant to come over to help me with the inside color choices so I’ll run the outside by her as well and see what her thoughts are.

    Stay warm everyone, it sounds like that weather is brutal.

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  8. Here it is warm and sunny with a chance of snow this morning and a flood advisory. Ten year old is out doing my chores again as I have sixteen year old home. He used to follow me around in the morning as I did chores, but he stole again so I am not letting him go out and watch me do chores. Ten is the only one up to it.

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  9. Cold?! You want cold?!! We’re sitting at -33F with a windchill of -53F. Take that! We’re currently colder than both the poles!! Ugh. I’m glad I don’t have to go anywhere today. We’re going to process the tomatoes from the garden today (they’ve been frozen whole in the freezer until we had time). We’ll be making salsa and sauce.

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  10. I’d paint the door cornflower blue.

    But I’m also the woman who painted all three garage doors fire engine red one day while my husband was at work.

    “What were you thinking?” he demanded when he came home.

    “Grey house with white trim, boring blacktop in front with a white fence. We needed color.”

    “Okay. You can hire a landscaper to design a front yard.”

    I liked those red doors. It made it easy to tell people how to find our house–and the neighbors loved them, too.

    I had to paint them boring white when we put the house on the market.

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  11. Yes, I’m guessing real estate guy may not approve of cornflower blue either. It would be fun to do the garage door that color too, though, no?? But house primary color is darker shade of rust/brown (brandywine) …

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  12. I need more color in the front yard, too, will have to unleash the bougainvillea that has been trimmed down into a never-flowering, leafy square hedge. 😦

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  15. I like being frozen in, when we are prepared for it. Not so fond of it with animals. They stay warm enough at zero but much deeper and I think it would become challenging. But for today it is mid thirties.

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  17. DJ, I would try the cornflower blue and if it doesn’t work got with what Grumpy Guy said to do. You know that Real Estate Guy and I are often at cross purposes where you are concerned. He is cheap and I am inexpensive. There is a difference.

    As luck would have it, I may be able to do an in person consultation in February. I am coming to Anaheim for KW Family Reunion the 16-20. My friend in Pasadena (he who bought the above mentioned dog collar) recommended I fly into John Wayne. I would love to tack a day on the front of that to see you and to see him.

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  18. Awesome 🙂 ! I’m at the southern end of the 110, Pasadena is at the northern end (w/downtown LA and Hollywood in between), not really far at all.

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  19. DJ, what Kim said about the door. I like it when front doors stand out 🙂

    Mumsee, every time I think I would like to get a horse or a donkey or some sort of hobby livestock, I remember who might have to go out to take care of it on a day like today. So far, no outdoor animals except the cat.

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  21. Morning! It is 54 here in the forest…I just saw a photo of Colorado Springs online…it is 18 degrees there and the trees are all flocked with ice…pretty but I am pleasantly surprise we are getting the warmer temps today…that virtually never happens!!
    Dj…paint the door blue…it’s only paint…if you don’t like it…well…it’s just paint!! 😊
    Trees are down, ornaments back in their boxes. The wreaths on the tree by the road and front door are staying put for just a while longer. The red ornament on the Charlie Brown pine down by the road just may stay there year round..it makes me smile 😊

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  22. Kim has me wondering what an ex-wife-in-law is.

    The prospect of a meetup with Kim, DJ, and Michelle sounds fun. It makes me wish my niece’s wedding in Southern California were in February instead of May.

    I always figured there was more than one Nigerian prince. If a scam works for one person, it seems like other scammers would pick it up.

    I saw a flock of Canada geese flying southward this morning. I figured they must be the disorganized ones who took a long time to get ready. Usually they’re all long gone by now.

    A short while later I saw a flock of Canada geese flying the opposite way. I guess they must have forgotten something important.

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  24. Don’t worry about Nigerian prince Aj. I know nobody is going to send me any money.
    But my dad would have been taken in by such things.

    Have you noticed that Kim gets around almost as much as Jo?
    Always hither and yon, mostly yon.

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  25. On The Road Again is my song for today. Art is the designated driver while I review Bible study lessons from inmates. Son is occupied with Chaucer; he is studying for his prelim exams.

    I could also sing the bathroom song using poetry by Frost: “Miles to go before I sleep.” Just remove two letters and reformat what is left on that last word. This is another downside of my giving up the position of driver. We are on a long stretch with no good stops. Sorry for the silly bathroom humor. It is what is on my mind right now. A bathroom would be like an oasis in the desert. I am a poor traveler in all senses of the word.

    My friend, Karen, saw her primary care doctor who said she had never seen anyone come out of a situation where the BP, blood pressure, went so low. Again, I thank God for Karen calling the ambulance and that they got there quickly.

    One mile to the bathroom. Does everyone hear me cheering!!!???

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  26. It has been pretty cold here, but we’ve been walking in the woods anyway.

    I see you were sharing your camp experiences yesterday. I only went to camp for one week when I was six, along with my older two siblings. It was paid for by the sale of our horse (which had been given to us by a neighbour, but we were unable to keep) to the camp. It was a dreadful week. I was a very shy child, and it was overwhelming for me. I wet myself the second night because I was too afraid to tell the counsellor I needed to use the washroom. I was also too afraid to tell that I had wet myself. One of the activity supervisors creeped me out, so I hid every time it was time to do that activity and I was too scared to ask questions about when and where things were, so I missed out on a lot of other opportunities too. Second sibling was in the same cabin and helped me out when she could, but she was in a different group than I was. Altogether, I was miserable. So I never had a desire to be a camp counsellor although my two older siblings worked in a day camp for a few summers.

    We’ve been working on a puzzle of New York throughout its history – we did one of London last year – and it is a great way to teach kids history and geography: https://www.amazon.com/4D-York-City-Skyline-Puzzle/dp/B002T1HG82

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  27. Thank you for the birthday wishes. Yes, it was my birthday yesterday. My husband was performing for the nursing home residents in the afternoon, so I was sang, “Happy Birthday” there. There was a resident with a birthday, as well, so some didn’t even realize it was also mine. It has always been quite a low key day, being sandwiched between Christmas, New Years and the day before my daughter’s. We did have a nice dinner out and a bit of shopping, in spite of the horrible cold.

    I have never been to camp. My daughters went to three different camps at different times of their lives and one worked in the kitchen of one for a summer. They all seemed to be good camps and good experiences for them.

    Karen, I see so many couples that have found love and partners after losing spouses. It is a joy to see their happiness at finding another person to enjoy life with and with which to endure painful seasons, also. I pray God will find you the right person at the right time, if that is something that would be best for you and the other person. There may well be a person out there that will be so blessed by you, in this special way, in the future. All these people respect the memories of the spouses gone before them. My own daughter has a picture of her with her boyfriend, who died when they were dating, on her wall. It is one among many. Her husband does not mind at all, since he understands having had a friend die in high school. Her love and appreciation of her husband is completely different. Nothing and no one replaces another human being.

    Houses are well insulated here and we seldom have left the water running in the cold. We have had -40 + real temperatures and may have then. I don’t remember. I am grateful that, although, we do not have a lot of snow at the moment, we have some for insulation over the septic system. The new mound systems are the worst. My sister had one freeze from Feb. to June. She had to have it pumped every couple of weeks. That was the first year she had it. Now she knows to make sure it is covered.

    My neighbor did have a water line from the pump freeze when they were down South for a few months. Most people drain their pipes before going off as snowbirds. That is just in case the heat goes out, for whatever reason. If water freezes in toilet bowls, they can break. Frozen pipes are no fun and some fires have started when people have used some bad ways to unfreeze them. I am happy to not be speaking from experience on that!

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  28. I never went to summer camp. If I had been given the right opportunity I would have gone. My brother went to an awesome camp for diabetic children. It was beautiful and my standards were set by that. When my parents took me to look at our church camp, it appeared so dull, and no one I knew would be there, so I told my parents no thank you. My brother’s camp was in the mountains, but the church camp was not so it seemed potentially muggy and buggy. In other words, not worth the time and cost.

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  31. Our son spent lots of time at summer camps. His church camp was beautiful and in the mountains as was his Scout camp (my cousin had bought that property and established the Scout camp). The.n he also attended a wonderful art camp at Bob Jones University where he stayed in a dorm and saw what living on campus involved. The BJU art instructors/professors taught so he received excellent instruction and won ribbons at the gallery showing (the grand finale).

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  33. We’re in sub-zero territory, in the middle of several days of such lows and highs in the teens, with several inches of snow on the ground and some wind tossing it around. I have no plans to step outside today!

    BTW, summer camp is where I learned to love collies. As a child I went to church camp once, BMA camp (that is Bible Memory Association) perhaps three times, and I believe another camp somewhere in there. Well, the BMA camp had a male collie on the grounds two of those summers, and I often sought him out to pet him, this gentle, beautiful dog. Later I read Lad: A Dog and Lassie, but it was the real collie that had me wanting one. Then my church’s associate pastor (a man I greatly admired) and his family had one when I was 20. Another camp where I counseled as an adult had a collie named Lassie one year. Then my landlords (who lived upstairs and rented out bedrooms on the first floor) had a sheltie/collie mix, and a later landlady (who rented out the entire first floor as a unit) had a collie/German shepherd mix. It was simply a matter of waiting for the right timing to have one of my own.

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  35. Well, I started taking down Christmas decorations, but some of the net ribbon was frozen to the window, so I’m stalled. I also realized that bringing in the plastic storage bins from the shop at this temperature would not be a good thing either. One bump and they would shatter.

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  36. The weather has been sunny without a cloud in the sky today, and no traffic to speak of until we passed over the Savannah river. Now it is stop and go. We are passing by the town where my new pastor grew up. His dad was a pastor, too. Pastor (Dr.) said he was like the star of this area being athletic and smart, but when he went to Ga. Tech he found he was no longer the star. He returned to his faith in Jesus at Tech. My husband, Art, says the same thing concerning Tech. Art was not athletic, but he was really smart. He represented our state at the national science fair when he was in high school. But Tech made him realize there were a lot smarter people than he’d ever be.

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  37. It’s warmer here than predicted, about 2 degrees right now (the high for the day was supposed to be 1 degree). But when I went out to clear the snow off my car (5 or 6 inches, maybe – I hadn’t driven since Christmas Eve) and shovel behind it, my fingers got hurting too much to consider doing my husband’s car as well. I suppose somewhere I have warmer gloves, but this pair is normally fine for the amount of time I spend outside, mostly walking between car and building.

    So we’ll probably take my car to church tomorrow, wherever that may be. Since my husband is on vacation, we won’t go to either of the churches he serves (and one of them has already cancelled services for tomorrow “due to the extreme cold”). There was one we were thinking about going to, but now I wonder how we’d know if they decided to close also. At least the roads seem to have been cleared pretty well.

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  38. Haha, glad it’s warming up for you Pauline. 🙂

    We saw The Greatest Showman today, I wasn’t overly impressed but my cousin wanted to see it. It was a musical (not my favorite genre) and about PT Barnum who wasn’t the most admirable character, but the move tried to make him appealing.

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  39. Pauline – I have trouble with my fingers freezing (in fact, they are cold right now and I’m inside!). The other day I went to Farm and Home and paid $30 for a pair of gloves that were on sale (normally $40). They have a lining in them that warms the hands. I didn’t believe it until I went outside. I put them on in the car. They were cold at first but actually warmed up just form the little bit of heat reflecting off my fingers. Try them if you can find them locally. Otherwise, here is the website:
    https://www.thewarmingstore.com/seirus-heatwave-accel-gloves.html

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  40. I could fly in a day early Michelle and DJ
    An ex-wife-in-law is your ex-husband’s new wife. She is good to my child and my dog, so I have no reason not to like her.

    Chas– my father said I would “ride a fence post wrapped in barbed wire to go somewhere”. He also used to ask me as I left the house if I had a tooth brush in my purse.

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  42. My husband isn’t feeling well enough to go to church tomorrow, especially in knowing there is a lot going around right now. Sub-zero country roads that are not very well cleared don’t entice me, so I’ll be staying home tomorrow, too. As far as I know we will be having church, but it isn’t the kind of commute I like, and I’ve seen enough of the roads this week to know they aren’t clear.

    So ends 2017. We do at least have a small bottle of champagne in the fridge.

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  45. Right as we neared our destination I got really tragic news. My cousin’s daughter, a year older than my son, and a performer at Disney in Orlando, has committed suicide (from the best of my understanding of my cousin’s Facebook page post). This is so sad because it was in the last month that my cousin’s mother died, and this is the same family who had the cousin on the husband”s side kidnapped and murdered in Winter Haven, FL. How can so many horrible things happen and be grieved from Oct. through Dec? The funeral is a week from tomorrow (on Sunday).

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  46. FYI to DJ- You folks in California don’t even know how to shiver. You Twitter post says “Burrrr” instead of “Brrr”. What you have is, according to dictionary.com:

    noun
    1. a protruding, ragged edge raised on the surface of metal during drilling, shearing, punching, or engraving.
    2. a rough or irregular protuberance on any object, as on a tree.

    And 60°+ is not cold enough for a “polar plunge”. Here they do it in March when the water temperature gets up to 40 or so; sometimes they have to break a thin layer of ice. Sometimes even the air temperature is that “warm”. 😉

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  48. thankful to live in a warmer place. Both my daughters came over with their families for hours today to visit with their visiting sister in law. I spent time with five of my grands and had lots of fun as they used scooters in the parking lot and then played on the playground. This church is our own personal playground. I am getting slightly peopled out.

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  49. oh, and here is 49!
    I hand the keys to the van to the elder who will begin driving tomorrow night to return it for me. I was glad to remember this evening to top off the tank and get the booster seats out. He is heading into the cold weather as he is returning the van to St. Louis. Friends are loaning me their car for my last week.

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  53. There are also memes on Facebook that show photos of huge spiders or a snake in the house, supposedly in the south, & say, “This is why I live in a place where the air hurts my face.”

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  55. That is is way South Florida. That is also a snake that is not indigenous to the US. Those snakes are really messing with the ecosystem of the Florida Keys and wetlands

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  56. I provided a tutorial on what’s happened to newspapers this weekend on a FB thread complaining there’s no local news anymore from our particular community (most of the folks seemed to be comparing the coverage back to the days when the community had it’s own, dedicated newspaper — it closed in 1998, the beginning of the end as it turned out for the local newspaper industry.

    ______________________________________

    Compared to coverage of our many other cities, I’d say (our community) gets a pretty fair shake still. I don’t know how many of you have followed what’s happened to newspapers in the past 20 years, but essentially the bottom has fallen out of the industry leading the drastic staffing cuts, both in numbers and pay. The San Pedro News-Pilot’s closure in 1998 was something of a canary in the coal mine, I suppose. It closed due to poor ad revenues and the Breeze, which once had somewhere around 30 reporters covering the South Bay, now has … 6. That’s right. Six of us left to cover everything from crime to schools to all local government to whatever else. From a recent article on the decline of papers everywhere (it’s not just us): “Craigslist came up with a new model for classified ads—free—with which newspapers could not compete. And there went 40 percent of the ad revenue. Digital display advertising has become so ubiquitous that its value keeps dropping. Print advertising still pays the bills, but for how much longer? The Internet has shifted the balance of power from publishers to advertisers, who can reach their customers far more efficiently than they could by taking a shot in the dark on expensive print ads. The result, according to the Newspaper Association of America (as reported by the Pew Research Center), is that print ad revenues have fallen from $44.9 billion in 2003 to just $16.4 billion in 2014, while digital ad revenues—$3.5 billion in 2014—have barely budged since 2006. And it’s getting worse.” We continue to have layoffs and cutbacks. The ad revenue that once supported newspapers is essentially gone, for the most part. Digital ads don’t bring in the money that print ads once did. It was hoped they’d eventually provide the revenues needed to maintain the business, but that is not yet the case.
    _______________________________________

    I realize many people have no clue this has occurred — they think oh, the paper is just deciding to ignore local coverage.

    At one time there were more than 200 editorial employees at the paper I now work for, which included a thriving copy desk filled with day and nightshift copy editors. They’re gone, I think we have a random couple of people in Monrovia, on the other side of LA, now doing that job. Maybe.

    We have about a dozen smaller beach cities we’re trying to cover — from city councils, to school districts, to crime and development — along with big pieces of the city of LA within our territory. Six reporters just can’t do it.

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  57. I miss when we had reporting and editorials. Now everyone thinks we are entitled to THEIR opinion. I don’t want your opinion unless I ask for it. I want to know the facts and form my own opinion.

    Oh, and I also have to say I miss REAL editors at publishing companies. Self publishing is not good. There was a reason your book was rejected. I don’t know who is publishing books lately or if they are sending them out to the Phillipines like everything else but English was not their best subject

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  58. One of the commenters said, oh, we don’t need them anymore, we’re all “citizen journalists.” !! Yeah, and how’s that working out? Apparently not so well based on the long thread of bemoaning the loss of local coverage in the ‘paper.’ Fact checking is still a good thing to do before you go throwing something out there as truth.

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  59. Michelle on Sunday Morning today there is a company in San Francisco capturing the fog to get the water to make a hoity toity vodka. They are bemoaning the lack of fog. I told Mr. P I saw plenty of fog. 😉

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  60. I guess one of the benefits of living in a rural area is that there are local newspapers, with local news. A lot of the news is not exactly exciting, unless you are particularly concerned with the zoning change in question, or when the construction downtown will finally be finished, or know the hometown person being interviewed this week. I don’t know how they manage, revenue-wise, but the smaller towns have weekly papers and where I live there is a daily paper.

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  63. If I want to wait until the temperature outside is above my age, it’ll have to be my age in decades. The college where I work closes when the temperature, with wind chill factor, is below a certain number (though I forget what that is), but I’m not sure they’ll go by that when school is not in session, so for now I’ll have to assume I’m going to work Tuesday, even if it’s (as predicted) -14 when I leave for work (and -25 with wind chill). But maybe I should see if the local farm supply store has those gloves Peter L mentioned in my size (they don’t carry women’s of that brand, but I generally buy men’s gloves anyway because even women’s large are often tight on me. I don’t think I have particularly large hands, but maybe like my feet they’re extra wide…

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  64. I had to buy some gloves Friday. It is supposed to be cold in New Orleans Monday. I didn’t buy leather ones. I bought stretchy knit ones. They are warm enough and don’t “bind” my hands.

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  67. Question for Cheryl or others with advice on what to do with an injured bird:

    Hubby found a chickadee lying in our yard this afternoon, and gave it to 6th Arrow, who brought it to me in the house. One of its legs and the wing on the same side are badly injured. We put it in a shoebox with the lid mostly covering the box, and let the bird have a warm, darkened, quiet environment, tucked away back in my bedroom with the door closed, to help with recovery.

    Bird is still surviving, a few hours later, and is very hungry. (Not surprisingly, as chickadees need to eat often.) We put some black oil sunflower seed in the box with it, and the bird alternates between lying on its side (it can’t sit up due to its injured leg — or legs?) and trying to hop/skid/fly around to get to the seed.

    It sometimes does get some in its beak, but expends so much effort trying to get its food. Sixth Arrow tried holding it upright, and got it to eat some seed right from her fingertips.

    I’m thinking of putting a little dish of water in the box so the chickadee can drink something, too.

    I can’t let it back outside because it really can’t get more than a couple inches off the floor when it tries to fly, and the temperature has been below zero all day, so it is too vulnerable to be put back outside.

    Any suggestions for what we should do? I feel so bad for the poor thing!

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  68. 6 Arrows, check to see if you have a willdlife rehabilitation center in your area. Technically it is illegal to “possess” most species of birds (even so much as a feather or nest) unless you are licensed. (Starlings and house sparrows and other birds that aren’t native don’t fall under this law, and I believe that at least some game birds do not, but a chickadee is a native bird.) It is also possible to get shelled sunflower seeds and they would be easier for it to eat (unsalted, though).

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  70. Sorry, DJ, I have to agree with Peter about calling anything in Southern California a “polar plunge”. I wont quibble about the spelling of “Brrr”, though.

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  73. The polar plunge around here is done tomorrow. The water temp is higher than usual, forty one. One lady has done it for the past seventy years, since she was seven. I have never done it.

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  74. We aren’t scheduled to get above freezing any time this week, and not above zero for a low until Saturday (which is supposed to be 4), -9 overnight tomorrow night. I don’t even know how many days in a row we’ve had below zero overnight and single digits or teens during the day, with several inches of snow on the ground. I determined several years ago that I can handle one or the other (the cold temperatures or the snow), but the iced-up snow that lingers because it stays below freezing–especially when it is well below freezing, like now–is hard for me. And my husband is sick again (or still sick, one or the other), so it’s not the nicest-ever ending to a year.

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  83. The headline on Drudge says “Earth Survives 2017” Seems not so optimistic about 2018.
    HAPPJY NEW YEAR! anyhow.’
    I walked into my room, saw a 2017 calendar.
    I took it down and threw it into the trash.
    And said to myself. “Chas, you are about as useful as that calendar right now.”
    Is that a way to start a new year?

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  85. I am married to a child. He planned all yesterday what he was packing and then wanted to know what I was packing. I don’t know. I will figure it out in the morning as I get dressed. My alarm was set for 6:30. He has been awake since 4:30. He woke me at 10 of 6.
    Our last conversation ended with, “What’s that on the floor?” To which I responded, “The socks I am about to put on my feet!”

    D-Day took less planning than a 24 hour jaunt to New Orleans! At least the coffee was made when I stumbled in the kitchen. 😉

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  89. ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

    I guess AJ is letting the year start without a new thread.

    I, too, finished the Mrs O.C. biography last week. Now I am reading the devotional starting today. It has been several years since i read it. Our copy was given to us while on our honeymoon in 1982. We stayed in a trailer at the farm of a friend in NE Iowa since we didn’t have the money to go anywhere else. The couple gave us the book. It has been a blessing over the years.

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  91. Quick, how many shopping days till Christmas?

    My husband announced a few minutes ago that the average temperature in America is now 11 degrees. So Alabama and California (and Texas? I know that Texas isn’t as reliably warm as Arizona), you can boast at bringing up the average. And we can boast, I guess, at bringing it down. We’re slated to have -9 tonight. Brrrrr.

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  93. After having company for three days and making a trip to deliver them to the airport, I stayed home last night. I had eaten something with onion and had taken out all that I could see but at least one snuck in so I felt slightly off. A quiet night. I could see my van parked across the way and now Steve is driving it across the country for me.

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  95. We stayed up late playing Pandemic – didn’t even notice the midnight hour as it passed. We won and saved the world.

    We also made a huge stock pot of salsa and another huge stock pot of tomato sauce as well as tomato juice for use in soups. Today I made a huge batch of borscht to freeze and use over the rest of the winter. All from 9 tomato plants. I don’t think we’ll need to plant many next year. I borrowed the large pots from camp – so much easier to make one gigantic batch than several smaller ones. My hand is actually feeling bruised from the spoon handle with all the stirring. Thankfully husband ran the tomato separator thingy.

    We had been invited out to play games for the evening, but we had already taken all the tomatoes out of the freezer and they needed to be processed.

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  96. Well, we had the usual barrage of fireworks (and maybe gunfire though I don’t think I distinctly heard any of that) from about midnight to 12:30 p.m. It apparently caused one of the dogs to have an accident in the computer room which I was cleaning up at 6 a.m. today. My dogs, Cowboy especially, hates fireworks, it’s very upsetting to them.

    Anyway, after letting the animals out I was able to go back to bed and had dreams that (1) I was with a big group of people at a restaurant and I was asking them to bid on a job at my house when my former journalism teacher from college, probably 90 now, said she’d do it! and gave me a $60 advance; yeah, very backward (1.5) then when we were to pay the bill I forgot what i’d ordered and just eaten; (2) I was writing a story at work when I was summoned to the editor’s office and realized, oh, I’m getting laid off.

    I have to taking down and putting away Christmas today. And then that will be that. I did most of it yesterday, just need to take the 2 strings of outdoor lights down and get the card holder (a rustic metal christmas tree sculpture I bought ages ago and really still love) and another rustic metal Christmas tree decoration sculpture — with dangling tin ornaments, it’s a southwest thing-y — boxed and out to the garage.

    Glad we’re all keeping the average temperature above 0 for the nation. I won’t say brrrr or burrrr (so much debate over how to spell something that’s, well, not even a word, sheesh!, shaking my head) due to the incessant teasing I’d get, but it is still a bit chilly here today (although I think I saw where it will be a warmer-than-usual morning for the Rose Parade which is now long over, I realize).

    OK, so you’ll all be happy to know that when I’ve written the polar bear swim story in past years I went to the trouble of looking up polar bear swims in other parts of the country where it’s really cold and had a little fun at our expense. But been there, done that. It’s one of those perennial stories I have to somehow make fresh every year. Saying it’s not really all that cold here is redundant at this point (besides, the Pacific is fairly chilly water).

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  101. Morning! It is 21 degrees here. We slept through the New Year hour. House is cleaned, dishwasher running and I am off to meet my friend for lunch….then I suppose I will come home and watch the Tigers win the Sugar Bowl against that “other team”………. 🏃‍♀️

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  104. I think our neighbours to the south might have set one or two off because Keva barked, but it was just too cold. Plus, we live at least 20 minutes from the nearest ‘town’.

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  105. We hear gunfire more than we hear fireworks ( our neighbour further south has a gun range – very handy for us when we want to go shooting), but not at midnight 🙂

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  107. Kare – That reminds me of this that a Facebook friend (former WMB regular “Cameron”) shared:

    Oconee County Georgia Sheriff’s Office

    From the mailbag:
    Sheriff, it is New Years Eve and I forgot to go and buy fireworks. I have my new pistol and a box of ammo I got for Christmas and my Daddy’s rabbit gun. Do those count as fireworks? After I drink a couple of Bud Lights and pound down a shot of Fireball do you think I can just shoot into the air, cause “Murica?
    Signed,
    Stupid and Loud
    Watkinsville Ga

    Dear Stupid and Loud,
    Not no, but hell no. Firearms ARE NOT fireworks. YOU are responsible for where every round goes, whether you meant it or not. No one knows exactly how gravity really works, however, gravity works just fine on all the bullets you shoot in the air. They all come down. Fast. Don’t do it. Bullets should only go into an approved backstop. Unapproved backstops would be your drunk uncle, your neighbors house or some random cow somewhere.
    Signed,
    Your Sheriff

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  108. ~~WARNING: Sports post!~~

    How about that UCF team? Beat mighty Auburn to go 13-0, the only undefeated D1 team in the country. And yet they won’t be considered National Champions. Way to go Central Florida!

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  109. We’ve had a very foggy day in the 60s — our New Years days usually are sunny and crystal clear (and colder than it is today). Must have been a dreary
    parade backdrop

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  113. So I went to the hotel bar to sip a glass of wine rather than hang out by myself in a hotel room. Met two women doing the same. One has bought a lot of real estate from one of my agents in Pensacola
    Tomorrow I will tell you who I met in line for brunch at Mother’s this morning.

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