I'm just waiting for it to stop snowing today so I can go out and shovel the driveway.  Since I don't have to go anywhere and Jeffrey won't be coming home until later, there's no real hurry - and I figure there's no sense in shoveling while it's still snowing.  I'd just have to do it all over again!  We did clean it off this morning, and it was snow-covered by the time Jeffrey got showered and dressed to leave for work.  So I guess we could have saved ourselves the trouble.  The snow does look pretty, though.  Everything is all covered in white, from the trees to the deck, which does not have any deck furniture or adirondack chair, just waiting for spring to be used again.  The deck is nice.  It adds additional living space, but not at this time of year.

This time of year I'm happy to stay inside - except for my morning walk and the above mentioned snow shoveling.  When I get cold I'm more likely to wash some dishes in the stainless steel kitchen sink or bake something than to turn the heat up.  The only problem with that is that, in the winter, I need to wear long-sleeved sweatshirts, but those long sleeves make it very hard to do anything because my sleeves keep falling down.   And when my hands are wet or messy, I can't really push them up very well - so I end up using my mouth.  Or just taking off my sweatshirt in the first place and using hot water or getting really active.  Something like kneading bread dough on a butcher block countertop usually works.  Vacuuming is good, too.

When I'm not doing something like cleaning, cooking or baking, my computer or my cat do a pretty good job of keeping me warm, too.

I posted on my other blog about the flood we had in our basement.  The water line leading to the outside hose broke when they were pulling siding off the end of the house.  And water poured into the basement.  We had a huge puddle all over the floor and several of our electronics got wet.  We didn't waste time reading an article on how to clean up water damage austin.  We just grabbed some towels and started drying things off.  And the guys brought some shop vacs in and started sucking water up, until they couldn't get any more.

Still, everything was wet, so we set some fans to drying it and turned on a couple dehumidifiers.  Jeffrey went through all the electronics when he got home from work and took all the batteries out of the remotes because all the rest of us didn't think of it.  Then he just left everything to dry, and we can hope for the best.  The problem with electronics is that, if they get wet, they may still work for a while, but you never know when corrosion inside will make them quit for good.  Basically that means that, even if they work when we first try them, our contractor will still need to file aninsurance claim for water damage austin to cover the cost of replacing the items that got wet.  I know everybody feels bad, but that's why we hire a licensed and insured contractor.

We left the fans and dehumidifiers running for more than a week, and the carpet dried pretty nicely.  I'm thinking that, while everything is moved, and most of the floor is clear, I ought to get out the home carpet cleaning products austin and go ahead and clean the carpet.  I know it hasn't been done in a while, and just being soaked with water doesn't exactly equal being cleaned.

Related articles

• A Flood! (alwaysbcmom.com)

Note: yes, I know that tacking the work austin onto the end of all the links is awkward and doesn't make sense in a regular sentence, but that's the way they wanted it.

See that girl in the picture on the last post? That's me - all comfortable on my couch with my laptop and excited that my display is bright enough to see again. I'm really supposed to be cleaning the house and doing stuff like dusting and vacuuming. I was going to vacuum earlier, but then the guy from Dell was coming and I didn't want to be vacuuming when he came so that I didn't hear when he rang the bell. Yes, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!

Now, instead of using my own vacuum cleaner, I'm browsing a list of dyson vacuum cleaners. I wonder if one of these with the powerful cyclonic action and a HEPA filter would do a better job of removing all evidence of cat hair and cat dander from my house than the vacuum cleaner I already have?  All those years we told the kids they couldn't have a cat because Don is allergic to them, and now we have Tillie.  That means, when Don is coming over like he is Saturday, I need to do my best to have the house clean so it doesn't bother him any more than necessary.   I hate for a friend to come over and be miserable.

The reviews of these dyson vacuum cleaners seem to say that they work better than any other vacuum cleaners.  What one actually says is that once you use a Dyson, no other vacuums can compare.  While that might be true, I really have no choice but to get up off this couch and use the vacuum cleaner that I have.  It might not be as good as these dyson vacuum cleaners but it's what I have, and it sucks stuff up pretty good - when I actually get around to using it, that is.

Still sneezing, still stuffy, still blowing my nose every two seconds.  Isn't this fun?  It's supposed to cool down tomorrow, with a high in the 70's somewhere, and I'm going to turn the air conditioning off.  We'll see if that helps.  I don't know that the air conditioning is really causing my problems.  It's just convenient to blame it on that, because mostly I don't like air conditioning - though sometimes it's necessary.

Today I'm taking Cory, and Beth if she wants to go, to see Ratatouille in Whitewater.  It's Tuesday so we get free popcorn.  We cleaned the house up pretty much yesterday so it's not too bad, since Tana is coming to visit her Beth and Cory.  I hear she's bringing her grandparents, too, and it will be nice to see them.  I'm sure they wouldn't complain if my house was a big mess, but it makes me feel better to at least attempt to get it in order.  One of these days I really will get caught up.  Yeah.  Right.

Oh, and about that air conditioning.  I know it will be cold in the theater this afternoon.  Somebody remind me to take a sweatshirt.
 

I'm finally getting my vacuuming done today. I started a couple of days ago, so I'm trying to figure out why it takes multiple days to vacuum my house - and I'm not even counting the basement. I need to vacuum down the stairs and do the basement too. When I get down there I have to vacuum up the spider webs and dead bugs and all the nasties. Who invited them, anyway?

Then I need to do some dusting. I was going to do it the other day, when I realized that, due to the open windows and rushing wind, I was just getting more dust. So why bother? I would really like to get things to a point where they are clean, and then they would stay clean. Instead it seems that as soon as I clean something it gets dirty all over again. I just vacuumed a room, and I find myself picking stuff up off the floor that someone has tracked in. I guess I should ignore it until I vacuum the next time, but it bugs me. I could be cleaning constantly and probably never be completely satisfied with the results. There seem to be three other people in the house who follow me around making messes - or maybe they are making messes and expecting me to follow them around cleaning them up. I'm not really sure.

Truthfully, I'm supposed to give up on the cleaning and sit down and work on this calendar. We actually have most of the information from the schools already, so we're moving full steam ahead. I just have to make myself sit down and work on it - but instead I'm on Live Journal, and I'm vacuuming. And the sun is shining so that I want to go outside. I probably will do that - because I can. Frost this morning and now it's already 64°.  How can I resist that?
 

No walk today because it was raining, and it was a very cold rain. It had slowed down some by the time the kids left for the bus so I was thinking I would go for my walk then. It was not raining hard enough that I needed to drive the kids to the bus stop, but I decided it was raining enough that I didn't want to walk two miles in it. Instead I stayed home and drank some hot honey lemon water - hoping that will stop this cold I feel is coming on. All of a sudden, out of the blue, I'm getting a sore throat and my head just doesn't feel right. Sometimes, if I go heavy on the citrus and avoid sugar at all costs, I can keep these things from getting worse. Other times, well...

Today I must run out to the store to grab a few things. I did major grocery shopping last week, and I usually go at least two weeks, and sometimes a month, between my shopping days. However, there are a few things on sale that I really want to get and then I'm hoping not to have to go again until after the Holy Days. If I need anything else, Jeffrey can get it. He's already responsible for getting the lamb and the Matzos.

Hopefully I can get out of here and get back in a reasonable amount of time today. I really should work on cleaning. It would be nice if I could just do like it says in the Bible and get rid of everything with yeast "on the first day" - but, it takes me much longer than that! Sunday I did get the downstairs freezer cleaned out, organized, and inventoried. This freezer doesn't get too frosted up too bad, but I wanted to defrost it, too. I used to work really hard scraping that ice off the sides and really dreaded the whole defrosting thing. Then I read somewhere that the way to do it is to put a container (or 2) of hot water in the freezer, close the lid, and wait. Come back later, and the ice has started to melt and slide off the sides of the freezer, making it so simple to clean up! Amazing. Then, once the freezer was defrosted and wiped out, I took a picture of my empty, clean freezer. Then, I put everything back, making sure to count everything and write it down, and took a picture of my full freezer. The only way to keep track of everything in a freezer like this is to keep a list and mark things off when they come out of the freezer. Sometimes someone forgets to mark things off, so the list gets off a little. It was pretty close, though. The box of pizza has since been used, and all loaves of bread are consolidated into the Pick 'n Save bag for easy removal.