That is what we had by this time yesterday. The wind sculpted the snow in the yard, from areas where the tips of the grass showed through to drifts over knee-deep.
This is the kind of event that used to inspire a ski adventure, but no more. Winter is still georgeous if you don’t have to go anywhere. It is warmer today and not so strong a wind.
I hung a few pieces of laundry out to dry. Even though the stuff freezes, it becomes soft and the scent of the outdoors is incredible.
It was nice to do something low tech too after going through linking videos for a client. The person who prepared them first would only work with Windows Media Player (uck!) then conceded to work with QuickTime, but used version 7. Like WMP, it does not run on my computer nor the client’s! I guess this is being an artiste, although it feels like snobbery to me. The web should be accessible!
I have been away from this blog for almost two weeks. The week before last was a weather roller coaster. On Monday a week ago, it was the first day of gun season for deer and almost 70°F outdoors. My dad doesn’t hunt anymore, so we went shopping, a different sport. I got through the first store OK with my cane, but then when we got to the grocery store, discovered they had no electric riding carts. This was disappointing, but I got a regular cart and started around the perimeter of the store to get milk, eggs, etc. I got some things then started through the center aisles, but lost it — foot drop, difficulty seeing, flushing, the whole mito bit.
I got to the checkout and asked if there was a place to sit down. There was one bench by the ice machine way off to the side. I took my puny $12 worth of groceries (with an electric cart, I can easily get $30 or more) and flopped down. I had spotted my mother at the end of the aisle earlier but was unable to get her attention. My dad found me and I gave him the triple coupons I had for her to use.
On the way home we looked for hunters, but saw the most between here and Gastown, bright orange flecks against a tan background on stands and on the ground. Guess it is like with the autumn leaves, you need to go away to appreciate how lovely it is where you are.
I was dragging after the shopping trip and decided to rest in the afternoon, but came down with a splitting headache then nausea too by Tuesday morning. It poured rain all day. The water went over the banks of the stream across Cribbs Road. The bright spot was a lovely sunset.
I went out to check the mail and take the picture and saw a rainbow too.
The nausea and headache turned into some kind of gut bug, and the rest of the week was pretty much a blur.
By this Tuesday I had recovered enough to go to the VNA flu shot clinic at Indiana Mall. I took the rollator and cane along after the bad experience the week before. The rollator is bulky, but you can sit down when you need to. The nurses were telling people they needed to stay in the room for 10 minutes after the shot. My Dad came by and I told him that. Then they relented and said if you were with someone, it was OK to shop, just don’t leave the mall and come back if you started to have trouble breathing.
I found my dad in Sears, we were parked near their entrance, where he was looking at a band saw and a drill press. We ended up packing them in the car along with a snow shovel I got. We then went to the grocery store, where they did have carts, so packed in some groceries then headed to Trader Horn where I wanted to get a furnace filter and a rechargeable flashlight and my dad wanted to get batteries. We really had a car full by then!
The setting sun that evening on snow flurries was spectacular. I was too tired to go out, so the photo has a few spots from the window.
Thursday morning it was quite cold and everything was covered with a thick layer of frost crystals. As the sun burned through the ice fog, the beams sparkled on the crystals stuck on everything as well as those falling from the air.
My folks came over later Thursday morning and we worked on Medicare Part D enrollment. We started with my dad using Mozilla and were entering his medications when things came to a halt. It was similar to what happened when I tried to sign up for the do not call list, so I opened Safari and started to enter my mom’s information. After half an hour, my dad’s session was still locked, so we let that go. It seems to take at least 2 hours online to do things, my mom was getting anxious because she was planning to help put together and deliver Christmas baskets to shutins. We decided to try again the next day for my dad. That night we got our first winter storm (see title above), so ended up enrolling him this morning.
It was snowing heavily when I went to bed (early as usual) Thursday evening, and about 5 am yesterday morning the sound of the TV making clicking noises woke me up. I had shut down and unplugged the computer in anticipation of the storm, so unplugged the TV figuring that the snow or wind had brought down a tree over the electric lines. Later on, I woke up to discover that the furnace was running, but that the lights wouldn’t work. Turned out I wasn’t getting full power and although the furnace (thank goodness!) and refrigerator would run, nothing else would most of the time. By early afternoon when the technician from REA was on the way, I got lights, but the stove burners wouldn’t heat. The technician discovered that the problem was between my meter and the transformer, so no one else was affected. He called in for a lineman and they had the problem repaired by 2:30 am. I put on a tea kettle to make sure everything was working again and had my first brew of the day. That is what I missed most, but some chocolate was a bit of a consolation.
On the chocoholics front, a friend of my mom’s discovered Lindt makes a 70% cocoa bar! I have been satsifying my addiction with Ghiardelli Bittersweet and Hershey’s special dark, both 60% cocoa. I prefer chips to bars though, can tailor the dosage easier.
It is 5 pm now and starting to get dark. I need to pry the laundry from the clothes lines and get ready for Prairie Home Companion.
