Furby Wranglings

I guess, despite waking up yesterday morning to find icy rain on top of two days of snow. We hunkered down yesterday, I went back to bed after breakfast and slept until almost one o'clock.

Thanks to Christmas money from Mom and Husband's aunt, I was able to get new glasses last weekend; I'd had the exam back at the beginning of November, and my prescription had changed enough to make it a really good idea to get new lenses. Its been at least five years, probably closer to 7. But if not for the Christmas money, I probably would have put it off again due to recent expenses...

Riza seems to be taking a page out of Adric's book these past few months: the oil change was looong overdue, granted, and she really did need new tires, and the heater/AC decided to conk our at the end of September and needed fixing.... And yeah, the battery probably DID need to be replaced (over ten years old) --- but Geez!

At least we received the stimulus check; most of which went straight into the Savings account in anticipation of Furnace Fuel replenishment (most likely in February) and to get a jump on 2021 Property Taxes. Husband goes back to work Monday, and has already been warned by the shop manager that they will be working overtime for most of January. Tomorrow, the PNC's choice for the new Pastor will be preaching at the church, and if there are enough congregation members present to make a quorum, there will be a vote whether or not to formally offer her the job.

I haven't actually met the lady yet.

I need to get moving: I have a car loan payment to make, stamps to buy, the 'Winter Rates' humongous Electric bill to get in the mail, and a semi-quick stop up at the church, because I realized as I was typing this that I neglected to make up ballots for the Congregational vote Thursday when I was trying my best to get everything done before going home! At least the black toner cartridge showed up Wednesday so I didn't have to worry about being able to print the bulletins!

 Well, today is gloomy with icy rain and falling temperatures...Thanks to the brief thaw over last weekend, most of the snow piles that have accumulated since mid-January have melted (and seeped into the basement, oh Joy); I had a slight hope that once the snow disappeared, I might find the PCH package that was supposedly delivered on January 15th, but no such luck.... Granted, the watch most likely would have been ruined by the cold and water, but the matching bracelet should have been fine ---- well, somewhere along our street, SOMEONE has possession of the birthday present I ordered for my younger sister.... grrrr...... however, PCH graciously replaced my missing package and it arrived yesterday. So that's a plus. 

Today is also liquid diet day (water, soda, jello, broth, Gatorade) along with Dulcolax and Miralax later this afternoon, because tomorrow is Colonoscopy Day.  Ugh. I hope the roads are better tomorrow, as I will have to trust Adric to the inexperienced- in-winter-driving hands of Boy Friend Z in order to come home from the hospital (really wishing we'd pushed harder for Daughter to get her Driver's License a few years ago!!!)  I'm told that I will be very hungry following the procedure, so we will stop for breakfast and maybe by then I will be more myself.  Ugh, again....

Monday night Husband and I spent two hours after work at a local car dealership, and came home with a 2011 Buick Lucerne to replace Husband's 2002 LeSabre, which has not quite given up the ghost  but seems to be alarmingly close to it. Poor  Alphonse's heater unit has not worked since roughly this time last year --- Yes, Husband  drove without heat through the recent Polar Vortex.... the new vehicle, tentatively christened "Albedo", after a character in one of Husband's recent favorite anime, is dark grey with admittedly more miles on the odometer than he likes, but the price was right, and the heater WORKS!   Don't have a picture at the moment, but maybe later.

Well, time for some more jello......

Wow, we've had some interesting weather extremes the past two weeks; day time temperatures in the 80's, then dropping again to the 40's at night. One night last week there was a heavy, low cloud cover with lightning above the clouds -- looked just like the scenes in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' where the clouds come boiling in to camoflage the Mothership, and the little ships flashing around and all you can really see are the lights. So cool! (of course that was before the hail and showed up and the tornado sirens went off)

Then Sunday night we had wind and rain, and Monday morning I looked out the back door to find out what Jetho was all worked up about and saw that a trampoline set from three yards down the block had been blown into the next door neighbor's yard! Oddly enough, the TV news weatherpeople were claiming there was NO overnight precipitation ??? Well, maybe not on THEIR side of the river.... Chicago and Northern Indiana have the 'Lake Effect', we have the 'River Effect', which somehow results in us missing a lot of otherwise nasty weather; but when it DOES hit us, it hits HARD.

Rabbits. We saw very few rabbits last year and the year before (figured the neighborhood cats got to them), but this spring, they're everywhere, and poor Jethro is going BONKERS.... 'Mom, it's a rabbit! I want the rabbit, Mom!' and Bel is all, 'shut UP, dude,you're embarressing me, it's just a freakin' rabbit...'

I'm fine, Husband and Daughter and Chow are all fine -- house is standing, there's a little bit of water in the basement (the joys of home-ownership!) and I'll have to do a ton of laundry over because I was stupid and didn't bring it upstairs right away... we really lucked out last night, because apparently there were funnel clouds all around the area and a couple touched down across the river.

Later! I got some peeps to check up on.....