It's gonna be cold!

Again a mass of Polar air is set to descend on us!  Temperatures should drop to the single digits and today we might get up to an inch of snow.

I've been working on a few things in addition to the regular stuff that gets done on a daily basis (laundry, food, cleaning..all that fun stuff).  The major thing is getting my iMac set up, again. I purchased it back in September 2012 - and played with it off an on for a while. It's different from a PC - that's why I got it. But several months ago I got really into it and was finally "getting it" when it started acting funky. Now Macs are rather stable but I had just upgraded to the new Mavericks OS X and so I thought it might be that. One thing I did do was BACK MY FILES UP! And boy, am I glad I did. After funky - it died. I took it back to Best Buy and they needed to send it out for repair. When it came back Mac had a new hard drive and audio card and just the basic system. Files and programs and upgrades were gone. However, the price was reasonable and that's what happens when you get a new hard drive. So, for the past two weeks I've been restoring files and programs. I also take notes and have gone back to my old notes (first time round). I've gotten iTunes done, figured out how to make changes in data on music and have more or less organized my music. Today I installed Neat Filing System software and got my files restored. So I feel good about my progress.

Outside it's gloomy and cold. We got about an inch of snow and again our snow is much less than friends in the South Jersey area got. Single digits are expected this week. And the cold is a good reason to stay inside and continue to do all things Mac :)  

Cold Start to the New Year - Happy 2014

We expected snow Friday, and got it!  LOTS of snow! It’s a rather light snow that swept off the steps Friday morning despite the fact there was several inches. I had been sweeping Thursday afternoon every hour or so – and we got about 6 inches overnight.

I have Honey “duty” in the morning – and as I was suiting up for her first foray out into the whiteness, a truck drove up to the steps and the paper person tossed our paper out – right at the bottom of the steps. Great service and after doing her “thing”, Honey brought the paper back in the house for the carrot treat she gets for the paper.

Schools in the area were closed. Many, including our local school, closed Thursday in anticipation of the snow fall. Around here, the snow didn’t fall until around 3 – and on the TV weather site on FB there was a lot of bitching about the “wasted” snow day – NOT. It’s never easy to make a decision as to closing school. However, as a former school administrator who had to make those kinds of decisions you would rather err on the side of safety rather than ignore the weather forecasters and open only to have to close early and potentially send kids home to an empty house. There is more involved than the simple how much snow will fall. Well, a good reason to enjoy retirement and be glad someone else is making those decisions.

We had our driveway plowed Friday but it was so cold and the cars were so covered we stayed put until today (Sunday). B has been sick with an upper respiratory “thing” that he went to the doctor’s for. The medicine seems to be helping but he is still not up to speed. I got some sort of stomach bug that slowed me down so for the past several days we have been lying low and not doing much. However, yesterday I packed up all the Christmas stuff I had already brought down to the storage area under the stairs and again sorted out some things. After lunch yesterday I tackled the heater room – a wonderful storage area that has shelves and is narrow but deep. I’m weeding as well as organizing. And then, in a spurt of energy motivated by the desire to go out to breakfast this morning, I cleaned the snow off two cars in the very cold, cold air. Didn’t realize but it was in the low teens! When I came in I was both very tired and COLD. A hot shower helped and we had a rather easy meal of green peppers/hamburger/rice mix that was rather tasty and warming.

And this morning we got out to breakfast and picked up two day’s mail as well as drop the trash off. I’ve saved the USA Today paper from Friday to read tonight. Right now I’m working in the loft and plan to start to sort through some old pictures.

We are expecting rain and the temperature is above freezing. However the concern is will it be rain or sleet. So we also went to WalMart to pick up a few things and at least I have lunch meat, bread and such should we be iced in.

We are having baked chicken thighs for dinner along with potatoes and some veggie. It’s been a rather quiet start to 2014.