LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

winter

No good deed goes unpunished.

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“Let’s go for a walk,” Lloyd said.

“It will be relaxing,” Lloyd said.

“We’ll take pictures of the snow for a post,” Lloyd said.

So, we did. Bundled up in the super-insulated Eddie Bauer coats of yore (they’re so warm, they must be made of penguins), we took the camera outside. It’s blizzard-y, but we were up for adventure.

Yeah.

Two blocks away from our house some poor kid was stuck at a stop sign. A delivery guy was trying to push him out, so we went over to help.

Bam! On my first push I slipped and hit my mouth on the trunk. Now I have a fat lip.

Delivery Guy had to go, um, make deliveries, but fortunately Drunk Guy arrived to give some assistance – well-peppered with wise old swears. “Turn to the right, d*mmit! Think you’d never driven in snow before.” He was great fun.

Poor Kid decided, after his verbal beating, to just back down the three-block hill and try another street. We bid him well, walked home, and shoveled the driveway. (4th time today)

After shoveling, we noticed that Poor Kid and Other Dude were both stranded. We walked down to help, and met Nice Guy. Nice Guy, Poor Kid and Lloyd pushed Other Dude safely on his way, then went to Poor Kid’s car. Luckily, Drunk Guy showed up. (Turns out he’s Nice Guys’ father-in-law.)

Blah, blah, blah – pushed Poor Kid to safety, helped Drunk Guy shovel his driveway so he could park, and came home….

to a half-inch of snow on the driveway we just shoveled.

Gotta love winter.

After the 3th, but before the 4th & 5th shoveling

Lloyd’s a big helper.

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Lloyd, Beth and I (and many other people!) spent the afternoon helping Annette move into her new house.  Unfortunately, every picture I took is blurry, or the people in the photo have unflattering expressions, so no pics of that.  But we were wicked fast, I must say!  One of the reasons we were so fast is that it is FREEZING cold here!  The high was 9, but we have some Artic gusts that made it feel like -15 to -20.  Speaking of freezing, let me tell you about my celery.

At Wal-Mart today, I told Lloyd I’d like to buy some celery to freeze for those few times when I want cooked celery in a dish. (Soup, stuffing, etc.)  We had a discussion about flash-freezing, where I sounded like I knew everything and he told me I was full of frozen beans. Whatever.  We brought the celery home.

After helping Annette move, I wanted to chop up that celery and set the pieces on a pan outside to see how fast they could freeze.  “Where’s the celery?” I asked Lloyd.  “Outside like you wanted,” he answered.

*sigh*

*sigh*  He doesn’t cook much, so I can’t blame him.  But really?  Do you know how  hard it is to chop up celery that has frozen into a block of ice?  Good thing he’s pretty.

Old Heat

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Well, we survived not having a furnace for two days. It’s really not a hardship since the temperatures are in the 40’s or so, and yesterday was so sunny. Today was cloudy, though, so we didn’t get the solar gain. (I love this! It’s like all my pioneer dreams are coming true! The heat’s out and we have to make do! The only thing better would be to lose electricity. Then it would be just like Laura Ingalls.) I haven’t broken out all the candle heaters yet, but there’s always tomorrow.

Lloyd had choir in Lincoln this afternoon, so I seriously looked into getting one of those electric fireplaces that is also a space heater. They are still around a hundred bucks, however, and I knew I would regret it after the initial rapture of beholding it. Instead, I knew we could borrow a space heater from the Center. It’s an oldie but a goody. ‘Oldie’ meaning that this is the kind that – left unattended – sets garages on fire and such because it cranks out such serious heat. We will not be using it overnight, thank you very much. We’ll use our little safe ‘equipped-with-tip-over-switch’ guy for upstairs.
Its energy comes from the sun.