The Coming Sno-pacalypse

It's Friday and Sno-pacalypse is supposedly on its way.  It's supposed to arrive after 6pm tonight, so I've still got today to do anything else that needs doing.  Except I thought it was supposed to be here earlier, so we already did everything that needed doing.  

I did the grocery shopping - two weeks worth in case we get snowed in.  The state of MO does a good job of clearing the highways, but the county doesn't do so great on clearing the side roads, so we can be kinda screwed living back in here.  It seems to me that the last time we got a snow event, it was a week before we could leave the neighborhood.  

I gassed up the car.  It's probably not going anywhere, but if we lose power, we can stay warm in the car for an extended period of time.  It won't be comfortable - 2 humans and 2 cats in a Chevy Cavalier - but it will be better than freezing our asses off in the house.

I also picked up enough cigarettes to get us through.

Hubs put new insulation in our well-tap pit, so it won't freeze in there.  This afternoon, he'll go over and turn the heater on in the wellhouse, so that won't freeze.  (A neighbor who's on a different well has already had his freeze this season.)  

I moved all my garage plants away from the windows and also brought a few inside for the duration.  Cecil the Cedar is in the spare room with Seymour the Nephthytis and my green pepper plants.  

Hubs covered all the windows in the garage to help retard heat loss there.  He also drained the plumbing in the garage and made sure there's no water in the toilet out there.  Just in case the heaters can't keep up or we lose power.  (We've already had to replace one toilet because it cracked due to cold - from when the house was vacant before we bought it.  That was fun.  Not.)  The heaters will be turned on tonight.

I already have a towel along the bottom edge of the front door to keep the cold out and the warm in.  Today, I'll put a blanket along the bottom of the doors leading to the sun porch.  Yesterday, I took the cushions off my patio furniture and used them to retard the air leakage from the sun porch to the deck.  (That door is horribly gappy.)  I'll also use some towels along the window sills to stop cold there.  I have no proof it works, but I did it in Michigan and it seemed to help.

Which leads to the reason to our madness.  We both grew up in Michigan and we know what cold weather can do.  We also know that this is southern Missouri, and most people aren't ready for any kind of snow or cold for any length of time.  These homes aren't built for polar weather.  The people are woefully underprepared.

After our first winter here, which was so suckily cold our furnace couldn't keep up, Hubs re-insulated using R30, so we've got that going for us.  I feel bad for almost everyone else around here who get by with the R5 we had before.  Hubs also put insulation around a lot of the pipes under the house and in the garage.  He's handy that way.

Anyway, if you're reading this and aren't quite prepared, there's still a little time.  (Maybe not to reinsulate your home, but for other things to get you by.)  Go forth and get 'er done.  We're gonna hunker down for the duration.  Stay safe and warm out there, everyone.  :hugs:

Sunday Update - 2026 Week 2

Well, here we are again at Sunday morning.  I wanted to sleep in today, but my bladder had other ideas.  Derp.

No writing this week - it's editing time.  Unfortunately, not a lot of that was done either.  I think I'm at 13% on my edit notes, which works out to like 2.5 pages worth of notes.  Better than nothing, but I need to get my act together if I want to reach the goal of being done with this by the end of the... oh crap, it's the 18th.?!  Really? Well, crap.  It would take a miracle to get this book finished in 12 days.  So, let's say this book's deadline is February.  Sometime in February.  Before March?  

I did marketing.  UWC was free and it moved 38 copies.  I also moved 2 copies of WIOH at regular price, so there's that.  I also moved one copy each of DE and of FG, which I assume is from previous marketing.  Yay.  And someone's been reading PH in KU.  woot.  I'm up to like $9 for the month, which isn't gravy, but it's better than a sharp stick in the eye.

I'm still reading The Night Manager.  It's slow going because I'm also trying to read my book for edit notes.

This week, I made beef stew, which turned out awesome, and biscuits to go with that (also awesome).  Then I made a pineapple upside-down cake.  Yummers.

On the activity front, I did a couple days out in the woods throwing logs.  Those kicked my ass, which led to not doing anything for a day or two (or five) after each session.  I'm not as young as I used to be and I keep forgetting that.  So, doing nearly 2 hours in the woods hits me like a 200-pound boxer hits a weakling with a glass jaw.  Derp.  Let's not talk weight, eh?  It was 177.8 last Sunday and I don't expect it's gone down any since.  Did I mention the pineapple upside-down cake?  Yeah.

Speaking of throwing logs, Hubs is most of the way through moving the piles of firewood he's already made with the chainsaw.  And I'm making good progress creating other piles of not-firewood - better known as taking all the crap lying around and moving it to centralized locations.  (Can also be known as creating wildlife habitats, but that's tertiary.)  The hope for me is to create a glade down there in the woods, with wildflowers and pretty trees.  Maybe a gazebo... you know, if I win the lottery or something.

We're trying a new high-protein food for Lumpy.  I think she's looking better, but that could just be wishful thinking on my part.  This cold snap could be the deciding factor on whether she lives through this winter.  It's 10 degrees out there.  :shudder:  

Speaking of 10 degrees... Umm, yeah, I won't be going in the woods until the air can't hurt my face.

I went to the thrift store this week.  No books, but I didn't find a really nifty posthole digger for $7.  Woot.  Yes, I am a redneck who gets excited about cheap tools.  We'll be using the posthole digger to make holes... naturally... which will be used to plant trees.  Or at least to get the ground here broken up enough to maybe plant trees.  We have a plan.

And on that exciting farm implement news, I think that's it for me.  What's been up with you?

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 50

Two weeks left of 2025.  Hmm.  

I didn't do much writing this week.  I had one really good day where I whipped out 1300-ish words.  Then things happened and I couldn't pick up the thread again and excuses-excuses.  

No marketing.  As a result, no sales.  Zip, zilch, nada, bubkus.  I'll try and change that this week, but I'm pretty bummed about my chances.

I read some more of that Stellar Ranger novel.  It's still pretty good.

I did a boatload of baking.  3 batches of cookies and a batch of pretzel turtles were made.  I made devil's food cake cookies with peppermint bark kisses, yellow cake mix cookies with regular kisses, and coconut rum cookies.

Let's not talk about activity.  I did one day in the woods and then nada.  And due to that, we won't talk about weight either, eh?  It ain't good.

Christmas shopping was done - online only.  I ordered Mom's and MIL's prezzies.  MIL's was delivered Friday and Mom's will be delivered today.  Early, I know.  Damn Amazon efficiency.  But I'd rather have them show early than wait to shop and have the stuff I want for them to not be in stock.  I also ordered books for the kids next door.  Those will be here tomorrow.  Then I'll wrap them - because I bought wrapping paper for the first time in 13 years.  I also bought tissue paper, which I used to wrap one of my art pieces.  I hung it back on the wall and am using it to display Christmas cards we receive.  So far, it only has two cards on it, but it's pretty anyway.  I'll unwrap the print after the new year.  

In case you missed this, here's my other Christmas decorations...

That's Sawyer down front on the comforter I put on top of my new chest.

Other than that, it's been pretty blah here.  Hubs has been sawing away in the woods.  I've been a toad.  Today it's too cold to do much of anything outside, which is just as well because I have spreadsheets for 2026 that need to be done.  Ah well.  As my brother used to say 'Big whoppin' wee'.

What's been up in your lives this week?

Thursday This n That

That's right, it's Thursday... Derp.

It's freakin' COLD here.  Last time I checked it was -5.  Negative five.  37 degrees below freezing.  Blerg.

The wren in our garage is fat and happy and warm.  I've named him Woodstock.  He's not yellow, but he is a funny little bird.  We're leaving suet nuggets on top of the Jeep for him.  And there's a shallow pan with water.  And, of course, the space heater is keeping it above 40F in there.  (So the pipes don't freeze, not for him, but he gets the benefit of it.)

The news coming out of Israel is pissing me off royally.  If you support Hamas or the P'stinians, please stop coming by here.  I stand with the Jews.  How any person can stand alongside the people who are celebrating the murders of babies escapes me.  It must be some kind of insanity.

Anyway...

I got my first page of edit notes for this round done and entered into the manuscript.  This is the phase where I do that... make a page of notes, enter the notes, lather-rinse-repeat throughout the day.  One page of notes = 3 pages of manuscript.  I hope to make more progress today.  Might as well, I can't go outside or anything.

Last night, we sat down to watch a new series.  I had great hopes for it, but the series opener was unimpressive.  It had a couple spots that made me LOL, but not enough to sustain my interest.  :shrug:  Hubs and I looked at each other and said 'well, we did that'.  For those interested, it was Good Cop / Bad Cop.  Your mileage may vary, but it's not for us.  Still loving High Potential, but the season ender was last week, so we'll have to wait to see how they resolve the mystery next season.  

I made awesome soup the other day.  I'm calling it Chicken-Cheddar-Bacon-Potato Chowder.  I had defrosted a chicken breast and it's cold, so I got the idea for soup, did some recipe scanning, and then just starting throwing things in the pot.  Like I said, it was awesome.  We'll be having leftovers of it tonight for dinner.  Yum.

Speaking of food, now I'm hungry.  Have a great day.  Stay warm.  Eat something yummy.

Thursday This n That

I know there have been a lot of random posts lately.  Here's another one.

I've been spending a lot of my limited online time blocking morons on social media.  There's this one on FB who uses some variant of Ellen Degenerate to keep making new profiles because so many people are blocking and/or reporting them.  Feh.  My FB block list has to be  huge.  ROFL

There seems to be a huge amount of stupidity in the world these days.  If only there were a cure... Oh, wait, there is.  Knowledge.  It's readily accessible and has no side effects.  You can even operate machinery after taking it.  ;o)

I need to go grocery shopping.  I don't want to.  But it either has to be today or tomorrow because we're down to our last can of cat food.  The Boyz will be testy if they don't get their daily can for lunch.  (They split a can.)  Anyway, it's cold and I'm unmotivated.

It's too damn cold to be outside without a jacket.  Then again, at least it's not as cold as Michigan.

Finn's so funny.  He knocked his bed off the table where it sits and it fell upside down over the heat vent.  So he was laying on the bottom of it, enjoying the heat.  I moved it off the register and he didn't want to lay on it anymore.  After he walked into the bedroom, I moved the bed back onto the table and he came running across the house, bounced up onto the table, and right into the bed.  Of course, he didn't stay there because he's got the zoomies.  Silly kitty.

Okay, Hubs is trying to get online, so it's time for me to get off.  Someone's supposed to come help us with the Starlink this afternoon.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Randomosity

Forgetting to blog + super-slow internet which makes blogging a pain in the ass = a dearth of posts.  

Sawyer is finally on his way to becoming a lap cat.  Sometimes this is a good thing.  Sometimes it's not so much.  He's a moose, for one thing.  For another, when he decides he's done being a lap cat, he doesn't just get down.  He rolls over and wants to play rough (i.e. he bites).  Be careful what you wish for.

This morning, I saw a video of a chick saying how happy she was to be 42 and able to go to a bar on Thanksgiving without having to worry about getting a babysitter. She finished with some nonsense about the right hating that.  Trust me, honey.  The right loves the fact that you aren't breeding.  The same thing goes for all the women who have declared their celibacy in the face of T winning.  More power to ya, gals.  Oh, and the same goes for all the people who are declaring their intent to leave the country.  Buh-bye.  :waves:

It's freakin' cold.  Sure, it's December, but I'm still not ready for freakin' cold.  

Once again, I missed fall fishing.  It was too hot to fish, then it rained a bunch, now it's too cold.  

I need to start working on Christmas cards.  And put up the tree.  And find gifts for the moms.  I'm so not ready for Christmas. I say we put it off until February.

If you're looking for something yummy and easy to make for the holidays, go to Silver's blog for today.

There's some kind of big bird in our woods that I can't identify.  I've only seen glimpses of it as it flies away.  What I have seen is gray.  And big.  Did I mention big?  About redtail size or larger.  It could be an owl, but those are darker.  It might be a goshawk, but those aren't supposed to be this far south.  I'll keep watching and try to get a better look at it.  Right now, though, it's just a ghost.

And that's it for me today.  Time to call Mom.  Have a great day wherever you are.  :hugs:

Yeah, I'm Still Alive

 I forgot to post yesterday.  No real reason.  Maybe my brain was too wrapped up in this weather crap.  :shrug:

Speaking of which it's negative 9 outside right now.  Nine below zero...  41 below freezing. :shudder:  And it's just under 64F in the office.  The furnace - which isn't really a furnace, it's a heat pump - is having trouble getting the house up to it's usual 68F.  Plus it's always colder in the office.  But the thing is running and as long as it's running, life is good.  The two space heaters in the garage are keeping the areas where there are pipes at 40F.  Anything above freezing is bonus.  I do not want to see the electric bill for next month.

Having a bathroom in the garage is kind of a pain in the ass.  I mean, it's good for washing yucky things in the sink out there rather than in the nice bathrooms, but I don't think either of us have used the toilet in there in 8 years.  If there were no bathroom out there, we wouldn't give a rat's furry, white hiney how cold it was out there.  

We got about four and a half inches of snow from the first round of snow dumpage.  It's supposed to start snowing again tonight.  Maybe an inch or two more from that.  Blerg.

From a FB page I follow about local weather, I got a link to a site that tracks power outages.  We haven't lost power at all.  I saw someone on FB talking about potential rolling blackouts in the area due to shortages of natural gas (due to the NG wells freezing), and a neighbor stopped yesterday to tell Hubs he heard our power company might be considering doing that, too.  Fingers crossed they don't actually have to do it.  I mean, it would only be for 30-60 minutes at a time, but blerg.

One upside to all this is that I've been making yummy things to eat.  For instance, yesterday I made frittatas for breakfast and then stew for dinner and also coffee cake.  Sunday, I made a vat of spaghetti with a side of garlic bread.  Saturday I made chili and cornbread.  I now have a freezer full of leftovers and Hubs will have to roll me out of here when this is over.

In other news, the weather is making people cranky.  I watched people basically yelling at each other in several threads on the area road conditions.  Dudes, chill.  Yeah, people are asking the same questions over and over without reading the other threads where the questions might be answered.  Yeah, it's pretty logical to think if road X and road Z are crappy, so is road Y.  But for the most part these days, logic has flown the coop.  More so when people are concerned about their safety and their needs.  They're hoping against hope that THEIR ROAD will be okay because they need to get to work or to go buy milk and bread and baby formula.  While their asking might be annoying, it's not really hurting anyone.  Sheesh.

On a lighter note, I saw someone made a meme that shows a snowy road.  In answer to the question 'how are the roads?', it has a dialogue bubble popping up from the road itself saying "I'm fine. Thanks for asking:.  Humor is the key, man.  I saw another one that showed a snowy, steep road and said something like 'Texas Driving Tip: Stay Home.  Y'all aren't conditioned for this.'  It made me LOL because my brother in OK messaged me yesterday with something along those lines.  We're Michiganders, folks.  The pictures I'm seeing of the 'bad roads' are pretty tame compared to what I used to drive through on a regular basis.  It's all relative.  I saw another meme that said something about 'don't laugh at southerners for not being able to cope with the cold and snow, we don't laugh at you northerners when it gets hot up there'.  Umm, yeah, you do.  And you should.  Share the laughs.  Sometimes laughing is all you've got to keep from crying.

Know what I mean?

What are you finding to laugh about today?

One last thing that I hope makes you smile.  Through all this snow and frigid temps, we have sparrows singing their little hearts out.  They're all round like feathery tennis balls right now, but they're finding something to sing about.  Maybe they're just happy we're leaving them loads of sunflower seeds so they have stuff to eat without having to scratch through the snow.  And we're happy to do it for them.