Cold and damp. [51F and 91%RH at 8am, with gusty wind]
Turned the t-stat to “heat” last night for the first time of the season. Temp in the house was a chilly 71F. At that point my hands get cold and hurt, and my nose gets cold. If my nose stays cold for any length of time, I get sick. I hate being sick. So I turned on the furnace. It was 53F and damp with gusting winds. The wind comes in through the 50 year old windows like they aren’t even there. (the ones I haven’t sealed with heat shrink window film anyway.) A window upgrade has been on my list for years, but the money never works out. And who knows, I might be moving next year.
Yup. Wife informed me that depending on how our middle school lottery goes, we might be moving to get to one of the schools she prefers. Le sigh. We both like this house and want to stay, but we bought it knowing it was not a ‘forever’ home. We figured it would last as long as our kids were in elementary school.
I may defer to her on issues like this, but I did take the opportunity to suggest moving OUT from the city if we were going to move… and I mentioned the article that said 8 of 10 people surveyed believed the US was heading for a Civil War. Her response was “who did they survey”? which is a good response, but irrelevant. It was front page news. Compare and contrast with ANYONE talking about civil war a year ago. When I pointed that out, her next sentence was “we’re not in a good place if there is a Civil War.” She may not be as ‘out’ as me, but she clearly has been thinking about some of the issues. Maybe I’ll be able to move further outside the metro area after all. I sure don’t want to move into the more restrictive areas that feed the “good” schools in our district. (She also doesn’t want to move because she wants to buy a ‘lake house’. Current focus is a log cabin style, on a one acre lakefront lot, in rural TX north of here. I want somewhere that isn’t Houston to retreat to if needed. I’d prefer west of here, but north works too.)
You don’t actually have to get too far out of Houston proper before it starts to get pretty rural, pretty quickly. I’ve thought for a long time that a town that is or was a county seat would be a good choice. Some downtown antique shops, a couple of B&Bs, more churches than bars…
Well, that’s all in the future anyway. Enough stuff to do to fill the present, without spending too much energy on that.
So, what if anything got done here prep-wise?
I bought some vegetable plants but didn’t get them in the ground yet. Bought a ‘garden weasel’ tool for the raised bed prep too. I guess I’ll see if it’s a gimmick or a tool. I’m going to try some ‘shake on’ fertilizer to.
Did some minor repair stuff around the house, have a long list of stuff waiting.
Wasted a bunch of time driving around, but saved a bunch of money on solid prep items in the auctions this week. Short week for doing anything, due to my volunteering at school, but hey, that’s the third short week in a row. It’s getting to be the new normal around here. (which isn’t good)
Picked up a bunch of parts and web gear. Ordered some other stuff that was cheap on sale. It hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m sure I’ll feel better with it here.
My work on the rental house seems to have held up, touch wood…
But I didn’t really get much done to reduce the pile here this week. Still need to do some more of that. At least 2 or three pallets worth need to leave the driveway so my wife knows I’m making progress.
Piling up stuff is a prepper risk. Many of the commentors I’d read at another blog (since sold out) seemed like borderline hoarding. I consider it, and worry about it myself. I am not there, but I could be if I lowered my standards. Organizing the pile and USING it goes a long way to dispelling the hoarding image.
And with that, I’ve got stuff to do. So I better get to it.
n