Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Feeling winter

Still doing a lot of knitting.  Just started a pair of gray socks for my older son.  The yarn is great...subtle shading differences that make it really nice.  He's in a cold climate this year so I'm planning on lots of knitted stuff for him.  A sweater, too, if I can get to it soon enough.

I dug out the winter stuff and can't find a matching pair of gloves or mittens.  I have no idea what happened to them as I kept them in a bag.  Possibly the car-key fairies have stolen them along with Tom's keys again.  He lost them a couple of years ago and we found them a year later in the yard.  This time they have to be in the house somewhere.  I just haven't been able to find them yet.

It's bitterly cold out with temps in the low 20s and a wind chill in the low teens.  Very cold for this time of year.  I've got all the older windows taped up with plastic but I'm thinking the newer windows need it as well.  They've been completely wet with condensation in the mornings.  I'll get to them.  One window at a time, I suppose.

I did finish up the self-striping socks the other night.  I'm keeping those.  I rarely knit pretty socks for myself so I'm keeping this pair.  I might get some Wool ease from JoAnn's to make some more winter socks but we don't need any just yet.  Maybe by February when all my socks are threadbare.  They're a few years' old already so they probably won't last beyond this winter.  I've darned them multiple times.

We had some snow Monday morning but it's melting today in spite of the frigid temps.  The sun is very bright, thankfully and is melting it all off.  I've got to get some ballast for Tom's truck so he can safely drive to work.  The truck is very light in the back and is crap on snow and ice.  I'm going to get some cat litter and bag it up in plastic so it doesn't break open.  This way if he gets stuck, he can use the litter to get out of the snow.

We're doing pretty well with the frugal thing.  I'm only shopping once a week even if we run out of something.  So I'm saving on gas as well as the grocery bill.  I'm thinking of shopping today instead of tomorrow though because I'm not motivated to do much more than knitting today.  I've been doing okay as far as cleaning house.  Since I stopped trying to work on a complete room I'm making more progress.  Just doing a little bit in each room has made more progress. 

Well, I need to go exercise on my stationary bike before we go shopping.  I don't relish getting out in the cold but I'm going to have to get used to it.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Busy winterizing and being frugal

I'm not online much at all these days.  Busy being frugal, winterizing the house and knitting.  Always knitting.  My love/hate relationship with facecrack is still there.  I love it but resent the amount of time it takes to actually read it...not because of facebook, but because it slows my computer down to a crawl.  That's what happens when your 10 year old computer tries to deal with the faster speeds. 

I'm rotating my projects, trying to get some things finished up.  I didn't go to the knit thing at the library but did knit all day at home.  I'm not so much working on projects for the community now as working on projects for us.  I do have a baby blanket on the needles, but now I'm working on my sweater coat, Zach's sweater, socks (always socks) and am thinking of starting to knit up some bags for groceries.  I have some store-bought bags but I have no idea where they are.  They disappeared last time I organized things.  Still, they don't handle heavy things well, being made of paper, after all.  I stopped buying library bags since they only last a couple of weeks before the handle breaks off.  My library visits are never without lots of heavy books, after all.  I have tons of stash to knit up, or in this case...crochet up.  I should get busy.  Or busier. 

I'm making progress with cleaning. Catching up on over a year of cleaning isn't going to happen overnight so I've got a system where I don't necessarily tackle one room and clean it; I just clean bits up of several rooms and am making much more progress this way.  Plus we're tackling the basement as well.  I've gotten 6 big garbage bags out of there in the past two weeks.  You can't tell to look at it, but I know it's that much cleaner.  And I'm caught up on laundry as well.

We have a drip in the bathtub faucet when you shower so I've got a bucket under there that I have Zach take downstairs after each shower (I can't carry that much weight anymore) and put in the washer.  It takes a few trips before I have a washer full of water but it does save us some money.  Tom doesn't think it's worth it, but that kind of thinking is what has gotten us into trouble over the years.  I've done it as well, thinking that I can spend now and save later.  Or thinking that it's not worth the trouble to save money in one aspect, when it's all aspects that we can utilize frugality.  I'm getting there.

I've still got some windows to put plastic on but the new screen door is making a huge difference already.  I haven't turned the furnace on yet because we haven't needed to. Before, standing in the foyer, you could feel a steady breeze through the door.  Now, nothing.  No breeze at all.  I won't need to close off the foyer at all this winter.  I do have a curtain up that we can close for an arctic entry of sorts.  It's not completely closed off but it does help keep the initial breeze from flowing into the dining room once the door is open.

I moved my bed back up against that wall with the bookcase headboard in place again.  It just wasn't working as a living room the way I had it and with no place to prop up my pillows ( I have a hiatal hernia and have to sleep propped up a bit, plus with the congestive heart failure, sleeping flat affects my breathing) it's hard to get comfortable.  It was really hard to get in and out of the room as well, with the futon opened up, making a tiny entrance into the living room.  Now it's just a bedroom (which is what it was when the house was first built anyway) and more spacious.  Well, as spacious as a tiny room can be.  I'm getting used to it and sleeping pretty well still.

I have the guys' supper in the oven so I'm waiting until it's done and then off to bed to knit some more.  Today is socks.  I'm almost ready to turn the heel on the second sock.  And maybe I'll dig out some yarn and start a bag for shopping and/or library.  I've got some leftovers in the fridge to eat later.  Butternut squash & mushrooms.  It turned out pretty good for me just throwing things into the pan.  I'm losing weight again, finally.  Didn't lose a pound in the past 2 months.  I have no idea why I can't lose weight on 1000-1200 calories a day...and exercise.  I'm down to around 201 now...or just under that.  I'll be so glad when I can lose all this weight.  As long as I've carry this around, my heart is working that much harder and as it's already damaged, this is not good.  I am trying, not cheating at all.  It's just so frustrating.

Off to get supper out of the oven.