When it absolutely, positively has to get there… sooner or later. Maybe. Buzz Machine: The Death of snail mail and Sunday papers I was actually waiting for some mail to arrive, and finally received it today. My eye doctor had promised to mail my latest eye prescription card 2 weeks ago today, but the office manager forgot to put it in the mail until a few days ago. My husband David was waiting for stuff, too, and had checked the mailbox 3 times today. Third time’s the charm; the letter carrier must have just gone by. I rarely get mail…
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We’re planning on using some upcoming vacation time to do some home improvement projects… yes, it’s The Floor Project From Hell: Next Generation, and theoretically The Floor Project From Hell: Back To Bed. Part of that project will be adding 2 ceiling fans in the two “guest” bedrooms (with the help of a real electrician) and so today we went around looking at fans. There’s a place in the neighborhood that actually specializes in fans, so we went there first. Interesting experience: it’s a small stripmall store front, absolutely stuff full of stacks and stacks of boxed ceiling fans. There…
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I’m not sure how much I should say, or how much I can safely say, about yesterday. So I’ll ease into it by catching up on the entire week. Last week this time, I was dropping David off at O’Hare, because he was getting ready to go to a technical conference, at which he was making a couple of presentations. He’d worked hard on his slides, and I’d helped him edit them and streamline them generally. At last year’s conference, he was nervous about being up for an award, and he called me in a panic demanding to know if…
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What with one thing and another, its a good time to refinance, plus apparently were part of a trend according to the President. So some guy by the name of Vlad is coming over to appraise the house for the mortgage company. Thats right, its an obvious joke, but still we laughed.
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March 7 March is the homeowner’s month. It is time to put away the snow shovel, but not yet time to get out the lawnmower. For the first time in… probably a year or more, the dining room table is cleared off as a friend is coming over so David can take a look at his laptop. The stuff that was on there was a mish-mosh of things that Timmy sent me from Mom’s house; I’ve successfully ignored them all this time because I’d unpacked them with the vague idea of organizing, sorting, and tossing junk and only got 3/4…
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It’s -12F now. Overnight low supposed to be -21F. This is insanely cold. Initiate hibernation mode.
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Note tomorrow’s forecasted high temperature is a negative integer. And it’s snowing again.
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A cook’s favorite, sturdy tool | csmonitor.com Years later, my brother came to the rescue. He hollered at me for washing my skillet with soap, and sternly informed me that it should only be cleaned with water, coarse salt, and hot oil – never soap. He seized my trusty-but-iffy skillet, scrubbed it with handfuls of coarse salt, and snatched the canola oil, pouring in a very small amount onto the skillet. Next, he proceeded to quickly heat the skillet to a high temperature, spreading the oil with a paper towel. When he was finished, it was smooth and clean.
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Don’t be fooled by the images of the portable heater with the “Amish-Made” mantle. You pay through the nose for something that puts out about as much heat as a $21 heater from Wal-mart. The photos showing Amish men wiping cabinets and driving away with them in the back of a horse-drawn buggy are likely Photoshopped. The heating element is made in China… need I say more? And the same company has been linked to a scheme selling digital converter boxes that can be obtained for a fraction of the price with a government coupon. Arlington, VA – June 20,…
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Last night’s snow (or as I originally typo-ed, slow), dumped only about 4 inches on suburban streets in the area, but the traffic was horrendous and there were enough minor accidents to put corks in all the bottlenecks. And due to the way the east-west arterials around here are blocked by large tracts of parkland or shopping malls, there’s only a few ways to get between work and home. If there’s bad weather, or traffic, everything gets choked off at one of two places. I started out pissed, as I had a late “hit” call where someone needed an exchange…