Wordless Wednesday: Happy Holidays From My Nieces

Just When I Thought I Had Things Under Control

I really did my best this year to keep holiday stress away. I had done all my shopping and everything is already wrapped and shipped. I thought I had done well and left me my 3 days at work this week to focus on work and make sure I get a lot done so I won't need to work much (from home) the week between Christmas and New Year's. I was feeling in control and not stressed. Well...then we got 2 feet of snow which this area is not equipped for..then our heater broke. It's been below freezing for days and not expected to get warmer for a while. "Warmer" being a relative term. I think the high today was 37 and it was in the teens last night. BRRRRRRR!!!!!!! I used to have a contract with a HVAC company that included emergency service, but that ran out a month ago and I wanted to get signed up with a new place. Nobody would come look at it yesterday without having one of these contracts so we had a very cold night. Our house has lots of windows so it doesn't hold heat well. I got up early today to call the HVAC places again to get on their schedule for today. Henry arrived at about 11:30am and was able to "jump start" the heater, but he had no idea how long it would last. Our choice was spend $800 on repairs or buy a new furnace. I wanted this done before we leave for CA so I wouldn't have to worry about it breaking again while we are gone. Of course it will take days to get the part, but they can do a new furnace on Wednesday. We need a new furnace anyway so I just bought it. We usually try to buy appliances in the off season and before they break but today we were in a bad position. It will give me piece of mind that it won't break again when it's cold. Me and the kitties were just miserable. Let's hope it stays working until the new furnace gets here.

Reactions

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Snow!

All I can say is we got a lot of snow!

In The Purple

I live in the purple part of this map. We are expected to get 10 to 20 inches of snow. Funny how the ranges change as they get higher. Usually we are told 1 to 3 or 3 to 5. Now it's 10 to 20...those two numbers make pretty big differences. It's now crazy outside as people are trying to get their holiday shopping done and stock up on supplies (???) for the weekend snow storm. I don't understand why so many people need to go out and buy a snow shovel? What happened to the shovels they used last year?

Wordless Wednesday: Shades of Blue

Merry Awkward Christmas

Here is the Kardashian family's Christmas card. Why is Ryan Seacrest in their picture???

So You Think You Can Dance

The season finale of So You Think You Can Dance was amazing tonite! About half way through the season Kathryn became my favorite. She had a great night so I hope she wins. I believe Jakob is by far the best dancer, but he has Juilliard to go back to and I'm sure a career in a dance company. All the others will likely live the life of a struggling dancer so my vote is for Kathryn! The routine Kathryn and Jakob did together tonite stole the show. Good luck!

Sleepy Sleepy Update

I'm still sleepy. The CPAP was awful..beyond awful. I couldn't fall asleep at all with it on. I tried two different kinds of masks (see pictures) and ended up even more sleep deprived than usual because I would try for about 2 hours to use it and then just give up and take it off. Then I started dreading going to bed and would read until 1am, then fight with the CPAP for 1.5 to 2 hours, then get barely any of my usual less than restful sleep. I was even sleeping in a different room for a while so I wouldn't disturb my husband. CPAP stands for "continuous positive airway pressure" and is basically air being blown up my nose that then goes down my throat to force the airway to stay open. The masks smell weird, leak air all over my face and I never figured out what to do with the long tube. My cats were scared of the thing. So, I gave up on it and now I'm going to try a dental appliance that pulls the jaw forward to keep the airway open. I just received it today so I'll try tonite. I'm used to sleeping with a night guard so I don't think it will bother me to use this, although it is an upper AND lower...and they hook together. How am I supposed to babble in my sleep now??? It needs to be adjusted over time until it gets to the sweet spot of what will work for me. Since I have problems with the muscles in my jaw, I need to take this slowly.

Santa's Workshop is Closed

I finished all the gift wrapping today and brought it to UPS to get to get shipped to California. All the paper and bows and boxes are put away...much to the cats' dismay. I feel good having all this done. There are a couple loose ends, like a gift card I need to get and mail and one of my dad's gifts has an unknown arrival date, but I will just put that in my luggage with a gift bag. I got everything shipped to be able to send it "ground" which was my goal since last year I was utterly shocked at how expensive it was to ship "air".