What wouldn’t I give for a couple electric kettles right now? Very little. My room is freezing and I’ve got the tiny little space heater running and the room’s too big for it to do any real good. I’m going to crawl under 4 blankets but I don’t think it’ll help much – blankets can only hold in heat and since I’m not putting any out, there won’t be any for them to hold in.

Did I mention that it’s cold?

OMG it’s 66 in my house. Is there ANYONE who thinks that’s OK? My fingers are so cold I can barely type.

The heater is defrosting itself. Am I being unreasonable, or shouldn’t a heater expect that it would be needed when it’s cold and not need to defrost itself.

Too bad I’m the first one to think of that little hiccough in the system.

I recently started growing vegetables in my backyard. I took a pickax to the ground and earned myself a doozy of a blood blister on my thumb. But the plants have grown and they look like they may live. Since it’s my first time, that’s all I’m really hoping for – that I get them through the winter. They’ve stopped growing since the colder weather came in and tonight is supposed to get near freezing, so I’ll have to take certain measures but I think it’ll be ok.

One thing I’m thinking of doing for the next season of crops is getting a composter. I had to buy dirt to start my garden and that doesn’t make much financial sense to me since my yard is already full of dirt. But from the standpoint of it being easy, it made a lot of sense. But a composter can be easy too if you have patience. Put in your scraps, wait a long time and out comes beautiful dirt. I look froward to seeing how well this works for me.

Now that swim season is over, my pool is returning to a shade of blue. Wait, what color was it before now? Green, of course. Isn’t that the color of all pools in the summer. The color of putrescence. There’s nothing that taking all the sand out of your pool filter and then refilling it can’t do.

What a shock to come home from a trip to the library (1/2 mi away) to see that there had been a downpour at my house. Happily there have been no leaks (that I’ve seen, anyway) with our new roof and we can spend time saving up for new doors. Unless the storm coming later in the week has the same kind of hail in it that destroyed our roof last year.

One of the coolest features you can add to your backyard is an outdoor firepit. In the winter, it’s great to gather around to warm up and it can give the area a nice focus that a grill certainly can’t do. Of course safety issues need to be addressed but once that’s done, a firepit will be a great addition to your outdoor space.

Beauty products are often the center of your effort to make yourself look better both for your self and for the world around you.  Getting a good value is key in keeping this part of your routine affordable in ever more expensive times.  Sometimes, buying online is the best way to go especially if you live far enough away from civilization that the gas would eat into any savings you might get at your local WalMart.

In a rare feet, I have managed to create my own office supply depot in my garage.  Typically a person keeps their office supplies in or near their office but since my desk is filled with children’s papers (I just can’t seem to give away the one that is purely scribbles and I don’t actually know who it belongs to) I certainly can’t fit everything in there.  It’s been easy enough, though, to just dig through the box that sits inside the door for whatever I need.

Right now the problem back east is the huge amount of snow, but come spring there will probably be other problems when all that snow melts and when the spring rains go through. Basements everywhere are bound to flood and they’ll be in dire need of industrial pumps to clean up the mess. Aren’t I happy I live in a snow free, basement free part of the country and don’t have to deal with that? Yes I am.

With the cold season upon us and hearing in the news about people who’ve been without power because of snow storms, you might want to invest in an alternative power source. I’m not talking solar and I’m not talking a wind turbine in your backyard. I’m talking a honda generator. One that you can fire up if the heater goes out and you don’t want to have to move in with the in-laws until the power comes back on.

It’s a reasonable expense during a cold season like this.

The light in my vanity has chosen recently to go on the fritz. Sometimes it turns on, sometimes it flickers and doesn’t come on all the way and sometimes it doesn’t come on at all. Others would say that the bulb has burned out (normally I would too) but this time, I’m lobbying for a new fixture.

The one we have seems to be from the 70s and it would take a bit of doing, but I say some Hudson Valley Lighting that I adore and want to get put in. Cross your fingers that when I dig in the couch for change, I come out with a couple hundred dollar bills instead.

Well now it’s time to relax a bit. The holiday has passed and the eating of the candy has begun. I’ve cleaned 25% of the house (well enough) and have space for a post Christmas guest or two to sit down. The major electronics have been play tested and found wonderful. The flat tire that appeared this morning was hardly noticed and doesn’t even warrant a mention, but since I’ve already mentioned it, I’ll just leave it there.

Because now it’s time to relax a bit.

It’s all coming together, now. I’ve achieved critical mass on stocking stuffers and I have ideas for all the gifts I am responsible for. I’m basking in the glory of knowing they won’t be sold out when I get to the store to buy it.

All the gifts that need to be mailed have been mailed and I learned my lesson about mailing late and how that can make the shipping cost more than the gift itself.
I might be able to pull of this Christmas without having chest pains. That’s always the sign of a good holiday.

Happy holidays to you.

I’m always going to want to build my dream home but my mind gets all messed up with trying to keep the cost down.  My dream home cannot live under those kind of restrictions and then my fantasies always end up with me looking around my new home and it being …. lacluster.  At which point in time I start thinking about my dream home WHILE IN THE FANTASY ABOUT HAVING BUILT MY DREAM HOME.

It’s horrible that I can’t turn off the money saving feature on my dreams.

Maybe I should look into making my fantasy home one of those metal buildings.  I can cover all the metal framing and I might even like the modern look.

I dyed my hair.

I have naturally dirty blond hair and have recently begun growing gray highlights. Yippee Skippee. The result is my hair always looks old. And it flops on top of a very youthful looking face (if I do say so myself).

So I boldly went and had my sister buy me some dye (I’ll pay you back, sis). She’s had some experience in this department (not the grays, but in applying dye) so I chucked the idea of waiting for the 8th day of the week – otherwise known as ‘someday’  - and decided to force her to dye my hair for me.

The color: Amythyst
The place: my bathroom
The time: 3 oclock in the afternoon
The result: my greys are now red! Real Yippee Skippee here!

But I may have jumped the gun just a little.  Other than the greys, the rest of my hair stayed pretty much the same color and, with my husband plucking my greys religiously, I didn’t have that many hairs to dye.

And no one can tell that I dyed my hair for the first time in my life.

Since it would be too self seving for me to tell them I dyed my hair and ask if they like it (and not as fullfulling as you would think whcih I learned when I tried to do just that with my parents) I’ve decided to blog about it and tell everyone in the world.

Thank you for your time and attention.

No, this is not a picture of me.

One of the first things we did when we moved into our new house was to trot on over to our local water filter supplier and buy a new water filter for the water line that runs through the fridge. The house came with one of those refrigerators that dispense water and we’d never had one of them before so we figured it would be nice to have one.

And it is. It rocks. Especially the ice dispenser.

I’m better than you because I’m never going to have to remember to buy ice at the store ever again (I think).

Don’t feel bad, I still like you.

Problem with this house?  A child’s door has a keyed lock.  And it got locked.  I was all for taking a sledge hammer to it (I’ve got some tensions to work out) but cooler heads prevailed and instead a weird looking tooth pick was used.  It kinds worked like the old credit card method but with a twist – you had to twist it.

Now how do I relieve my stress?

It is possible that this very moment in time is not the right time to buy one of the Outer Banks homes currently available on the market what with the weather there right now.  But next week is.  Coastal North Carolina is a beautiful destination with many attractions and events to amuse you.  Having a vacation home there would be idyllic especially if you, like me, are a west coast (or western US) native and have never been further east than the Mississippi River.   There would be much easier access to cultural sites all along the eastern seaboard.

The main thing my husband wishes the house came with that it didn’t is a fireplace.  After all the work he’s been putting in on the pool, I’m pretty glad he doesn’t have to look after a fireplace too.  And that I don’t have to help him do it.  I can just picture myself stuck halfway up a chimney and my kids having to climb up on the roof to drop food down to me.  Or not so I can lose enough weight to free myself.

One day, we will probably look into electric fireplaces and see if something like that has a place in this house.  They really look good.