cold | My Blog

-23degrees is COLD!!!

Posted on December 9, 2009 by

After a week of snowy cold weather where I thought it couldn’t get colder, it did. BRRRRR!!!! I’m sitting between the fire and the heater and I’m still cold. Next summer, we WILL do insulation! Oh, and on top of everything else, the pipes are frozen. Argh…..

Only good (?) thing is that it is just Morgan and I tonight. Dan is up in Pueblo for a Colorado Workforce conference. Three days of central heat and lots of running water. Damn.

Let’s see… since Thanksgiving,… what has happened? Hm…. Oh. snow. Lots of it. Last Thursday, we had our friend Curtis down from Buena Vista. Of course it snowed. However, we had a good time. Lots of funny CW McCall music including Four Wheel Cowboy. In it is a stanza that says…

Well, Texaco’s open in Trindad
I didn’t stop for gas but I wished I had
‘Cause I could use some
They’s a bunch a’ wild women in Walsenburg
They all make love like a buffalo herd
I wish I knew one

ROFLOL!!!!!!

He might come back down on the 17th if the weather isn’t too terrible. We want to run around Pueblo. 🙂 You know, lure of the big city… movies, bookstores, food. 🙂 He is a ham radio operator, which makes Dan pleased. They chic-chat away.

I have Knit-Wits tomorrow. That should be fun. I enjoy my knitting time with the ladies. Dan gets home Friday and we have the Christmas train again Friday and Saturday night.

Saturday we also have a holiday party with Sangre De Cristo Volunteers for Change. Not sure if we will make that for more than an hour, but we will see. We also have to start digging up the water pipe to re-insulate it if the weather is warm enough. Oh, and one other thing. We have to repair my car. It is still in pieces due to the super cold weather. sigh….

I am looking forward to warmer weather. You know, something in the 40’s! 😛

Mother Nature has Hiccups!

Posted on October 26, 2009 by

Saturday was Logan’s 3rd Birthday. His parents had a party for him down in Aguilar. Since I don’t have a car at the moment, I went down with my parents. When we got there, Logan ran up to my mom and I and said, “Two NANA’S!!!” He was just a little excited. There were a handful of kids and parents there. Logan had a great time running up and down the community center. At one point, he came running to me and after plowing into my leg, he looked up and said, “I love you Nana!” Later I found out he had told my mom he loved her and ‘Nana’. So she had told him to go tell me. 🙂

There was lots of cake, pizza, cookies, punch and green jello with Gummie Bears. Oh, and lots of noise. We came home around 4pm. Two hours of noise was about all I could take.

It was nice and warm. Probably about 58, and I had hung laundry out in the morning. Of course, none of it was dry, so I left it hanging up. Silly me. We woke up to snow on Sunday morning. In fact, it snowed all day and most of the evening. Then the clouds moved off and it got COLD. Brrr……. We honestly wondered if Morgan would have school today. She did. The roads are icy, but not too bad. It has warmed up to a brisk 50. Some of the laundry thawed and dried. The rest will just have to wait. Tomorrow is suppose to be warm too.

One thing this cold weather has done is finally made a dent in the woodpile on the side of the house. Dan gets to chop more wood as soon as we have a maul. Then I will have to rake all the bark and sawdust and really small twigs to where I want them. The plan is to xeriscape the front yard. There are just too many deer that walk through the area to have really “normal” gardens. We had a bear through the yard too. Found the prints complete with claws in the mud. I think it was after the berries on this one bush out front.

Sunny and COLD!!!

Posted on October 22, 2009 by

Yeah, I know that sounds like a contradiction of terms, but…. it is Sunny outside and still only about 45 degrees! Here are some pics of the snow.

And back into the Icebox!!!

Posted on October 21, 2009 by

Last night it started to rain. We went to bed fairly early because Morgan had a field trip to go on and they had to leave at 6am this morning. At some point in the night, the rain turned to snow. Daniel turned up around 2:15am. He didn’t want to fall asleep and not be able to be woken up. I woke up at 3am, when something pissed off the skunk. Oh gads! The smell sent me into an asthma attack. 4am, my alarm went off. Dan was suppose to get up, but didn’t want to move. I don’t blame him. 4:25am, Dan and Morgan finally got up and moving. It was snowing and they knew that they needed to get on the road. Dan, Daniel and Morgan left around 5am for Gardner. I went back to bed, as I could finally breathe.

7:35am-The phone rings. Daniel. “Hi mom, we’re stuck in the mud and Erin is coming to pull us out.” Huh? Okay. I figured that they had gone off the road and were just stuck on the side of the road. I hung up the phone and went back to sleep.

8:58am-The phone rings. It’s John this time telling me that Daniel and Dan are still stuck, Erin couldn’t get them out of the mud, and that they were waiting for Daniel’s Towing Service to unstick them. Great… The boyz went Mudding. What the hell were they thinking? I debated rolling back over and going to sleep versus getting up. While I lay there debating, Dan and Daniel arrived. Dan was soaked and mud covered. They were hauling the hose out of the back yard to clean off Daniel’s car. I got up and took a peek. There must have been ten pounds of mud on it.

Brandy and Blanca of course took advantage of the chaos to run off. Dumb dogs!

They hosed it off, and Daniel headed home to shower and hopefully get his car fixed. He had planned to get a ball joint or something like that repaired today. If he couldn’t, he was just going to sleep. While fixing breakfast, Dan told me what really happened. They had gotten Morgan safely to school and were almost home when they decided to go play in the arroyos near Toltec. Dan said to Daniel that this probably was NOT a good idea. Daniel, being Daniel said “Well, I want to” and off they went. They did fine right up until they hit clay. The sand in the arroyo was okay. However, the mud was…. sticky, sucking and treacherous. Daniel almost got them out. he slid off the ‘road’ and that was it. So, they called Erin, who has a big 4WD pickup. Daniel’s is a 4WD Blazer.

Erin came out and couldn’t even get near Daniel’s Blazer. He got stuck twice and finally gave up. So, they called the towing company. The guy with the tow truck has a Mudder truck that he tows with for situations like this. He almost got stuck. It took Everyone, 8 wheels, two drivers and lots of luck to finally get the Blazer out. The guy told Daniel he was lucky! gads! Boyz!

Dan said the mud was sucking the shoes off of his feet, and rivaled Montana mud. (and that is something to rival!)

So, now we are curled up with a fire in the fireplace, the two dumb dogs have returned and are drying off on the back porch, Spike is with me in the house and the cats are on the front porch. Dan keeps saying he will take a nap. (ha! silly boy) At least he did crawl in bed even if he does have his computer with him.

There is about 10 inches of snow out there and it is still snowing. Such fun. I’m going to finish this post, play on the net a few more minutes and then go back to writing my story.

Update on life, part 2

Posted on October 10, 2009 by

I ran out of hours in the day… I didin’t get to the fun of Thursday. We got Morgan off to school and I started to get ready for the day. Spike, Daniel’s dog, went tearing into the house and scared the kitten, 5. 5 ran and Spike gave chase. He caught the kitten and started to shake it, when the kitten planted all twent claws into the dog. Meanwhile, Dan and I are trying to get the dog to let go. Spike is a pit bull… I thought that we were going to loose the kitten. However, Dan pulled Spike’s gums back and popped him in the jaw. It worked, and We got the kitten free and out of the way. Spike went out on the back porch, and we took 5 to the vet. Just a puncture in the jaw from what the vet could tell. So, we came home. Cleaned up the blood and looked at Dan’s hand. He broke two small bones when he hit Spike. Ouch!!!!

Then Dan went to work on a computer for a client. Meanwhile, I discover that there is a bat on the inside of the porch. Normally, this wouldn’t have bothered me. However, with everything else, I was a bit nervy about moving the bat. When Dan got home, he moved it outside. I have a picture, but it isn’t very close…

The other thing that freaked me out is that I adjusted the piece of plexiglass between the bat and the outside world earlier that morning, and I don’t remember seeing the bat!!!!

Then it was time to head off to Gardner and then to Westcliffe, because Morgan had a volleyball game at Custer school. It was snowing of course. We drove up and watched the game. The girls won!!! After that, we went to Pizza Madness for pizza. Very good! Ate more than I should, but oh it was nice. Then we drove home in snow and fog.

Next day was suppose to be nice and quiet so that Dan and I could get school work done. Hahaahahaahaa….. First Daniel showed up to talk to us about Spike. (7:30am!!) We know he was just being a dog and 5 a kitten. Now we will just take care to lock up the cats before we let the dogs in. sigh…. Finally got Daniel out the door and thought we’d snooze a bit when the phone rang. It was Dad. He had computer problems. So, we got up and tried to get stuff done… Oh yeah….. I think the phone rang 20 times in at least a two hour span. Sigh. Daniel came back with new cables for the dogs and then they all escaped. Dan and Daniel went after them and I stayed put in case they came home. That escapade over, Dan tried again to get his school work done. He finished it just in time to go out to Lathrop park to help my Dad and the park rangers with the computer equipment. Meanwhile, I did laundry, housework and tried to start my school work.

Morgan spent the night and Dan and I got our school work done around 10:30pm….. Off to bed because Saturday was Volleyball tourney time!!!

Up at 6:30am and started to get ready. Dan was a slug….

And Brandy wasn’t helping………

I finally got everyone up and fed… and out the door. There was ice all over the car. Brrr….. Dan got it started, but then it died. No idea what is wrong. So, I came in and called Faith Espinosa who’s daughter Madiana (sp?) is on the team as well. She gave us a ride up and we got there just as the tournament started. Wheeee!!!!

Gardner B team played Gardner A team first. Then there were games between Primero, La Veta and Gardner. Gardner B team ranked 4th. La Veta 3rd, Primero 2nd and Gardner A team Won First Place!!!!! It was a really good set of games with lots of breath holding. Morgan did really well and we are so proud of her. We got home around 1:30pm and started a fire in the fireplace. It is still bitterly cold. I’ve got chicken in the oven and I figure we will curl up with a movie later tonight. Brrrr!!!!

It might as well be winter!!! Brrrrr…..

Posted on May 27, 2009 by

Yesterday, it was almost 55 degrees. And let’s not forget the rain…. Lots of it. With more to come. Makes me wonder if it would be prudent to build an ark…. Oh, and of course there was snow on the Spanish Peaks this morning. It warmed up briefly, but…. I’m still running around in a long skirt, denim shirt and wool socks with my sandals! Brrrrrr.

All jokes aside, it is wet, with more rain due later in the week. Not our normal end of May weather. In some ways, this is good, because I have been indoors doing college work. I have my first class in mid session and I think I’m doing alright. Even learned how to do power point programs yesterday. I have one to do for class next week.

Right now though, I think I’ll curl up with a book, a blanket and a cup of tea.

Billing Cluster-****’s and lots of wind

Posted on December 19, 2008 by

I’ve had my fill of idiots. Especially if they have anything at all to do with phones. For 4 months I fought with Qwest to straighten out my phone bill and service. No bills, wrong bills, wrong service, you name it, they screwed it up. Today I went to check and see if any of the credits I was told I would have had come through. Nope, and on top of that, nothing I asked to be canceled had been canceled. Keep in mind that I haven’t had DSL service since the end of October and no phone with Qwest since mid November. Shut off because I didn’t pay although I didn’t get any bills, or the billings I got were wrong. They even admitted that they were wrong!

So, I called. After the third person and 40 minutes on the phone, I discovered a few things:

I couldn’t cancel my phone while it was in suspended service.
I needed to pay $19.63 to have my phone turned back on so that 24 hours after I had service reinstated, I COULD CANCEL my phone.
I still owed $78 in phone charges
I have $122 in CREDIT coming to me.
I could not get the credit until I have the phone on, and they cycle it through billing.

So, I paid the $19.63. My phone service will be turned on and on Saturday or maybe Friday afternoon, I can cancel my service. I will pay off the $78 by January and at some point, I will get a check or multiple checks adding up to $122. I told the guy at one point that at least Qwest wasn’t as messed up as Sprint. Truth!

For the last month, I have also been arguing with Sprint via email, phone and finally in person at one point. In July, I called and told them that due to the fact that I was broke, I wanted to turn off my phone, cancel my service and pay off my contract. No problem I was told. (you can start laughing, I really won’t mind) Fast forward to August. I go to make a payment and find that my account has been sealed. No access. Hmm…. No access to my account, paperless billing…. hard to pay. I email tech support. No answer. Try again. Got told to go to my nearest Sprint store and pay.

When I cooled off, I explained that I live 60 miles one way from my nearest Sprint store. They did a “sorry, but not our problem, would you like to make a payment over the phone?” When I asked for an accounting and a paper receipt, I got told that wasn’t possible, I’d have to check that online. (What???) I said no thank you, I don’t like to make payments on the phone unless I have a paper bill to back it or an online bill I can check. Back to Customer Service.

Now I’m getting calls from a collection agent. One of them got Very Nasty. Called me a liar and a deadbeat and told me that I “just didn’t want to own up to the fact that I’d screwed up my account and didn’t want to pay”. I explained my views on payments online, especially to third partycollection agents. Reason is, I just got everything straightened out because of a small bit of identity theft. One of the things that they tell you is Don’t make payments over phones if you don’t have a bill in your hand, etc. It might not be the real collection agent, etc. So,… no bill, no payment. This collection agent told me again that I was lying! grrrrrrrrrr!

I did get to Pueblo and made a payment in person. I asked to be switched to paper billing so that I could pay my bill and keep track of my payments. This is after a 15 minute explanation of what had gone on. The guy tried. Guess what! Sprint can’t take you back from online billing back to paperless billing. He apologized.

Fast forward to this week. I finally got someone to listen to what I was saying and then got told that they had lost my payment I’d made in Pueblo. I about thumped my head on the computer. However, I talked to a real person on the phone and got the collection agency off my back until they find my payment! gads!

In town, the weather has been either bitterly cold or just around 45 degrees. Not bad unless you add in the fact that the average wind lately has been around 20mph. BRRRR! Even the dogs didn’t want to go out the one day. Maybe it was because their water bowl froze!

This week at the chamber has been busy. Meetings no one came to, City Ordinances that look like they were written by Chinese Fire Drill and people running in at the last minute to sign up for the lighting contest.

I think I am really glad to be going to Pueblo tomorrow to finish my Yule shopping! Aieeeeeeeee!!!

I’m not ready for this! Brrrr!!!

Posted on October 11, 2008 by

After lovely days of warm weather and the wind yesterday, I know I shouldn’t be surprised that it is cold today.

Woke up to gray skies and light breezes. It never got really warm, but by 11am, it was about 65F. Then, the clouds really rolled in along with thunder, lightning and rain. At first I thought the noise was the trains bumping cars. We can hear that fairly well even though the train yard is about a quarter of a mile away. Nope… Ten minutes later, there was no denying that the noise was thundery. Dan and I looked at each other, said “Tent!” almost simultaneously.

Heading for the back yard, we stuck the tent and dragged it to the front porch to dry. Brandy thought we were nuts!

Here it is four hours later and a chilly 43F! Brrrrr!!! Still raining, accompanied by rolls of thunder and flashes of lightning. I am so glad that we got Mike and Brittany headed south yesterday.

I keep trying to think of nice warm foods for dinner. Plus, I think I’ll pull out my knitting and watch a movie. Brrrrr!!!!

Summertime, and the Weather’s been Freezing!!!

Posted on August 17, 2008 by

30 degrees lower than normal. Brrrrrrr!!! Another day of cold rainy weather in Southern Colorado. So cold that there was snow on the Spanish Peaks. All above the 10,000ft mark. It was cold and damp all day.

I woke up to Daniel bringing in Fatty the puppy. He wanted me to snuggle him because the dog was cold. Oh, and he wants me to knit the dog a sweater. Then Erin woke me up because he needed to get into the house at 520 and Dan had locked the door and wasn’t answering the phone.

No sooner got to 520 when my mom called. Could I take her to the store? At 10am? Of course. So, I shuffled laundry, took my mom to the store, shuffled more laundry and then headed back to 520. Morgan and Matt are here today too. Since then we have worked on the house, played silly spray the stuff in the cans game, had an asthma attack, cooked dinner and now I’m headed to bed. Wheee…. Oh, and Matt and Morgan went to the movies.

Tomorrow will be interesting. Mom & Dad’s furniture arrives. Wheee…. we get a dresser, a tv and a washer out of the deal. Wow…

Imbolc!

Posted on February 2, 2008 by

Ah, only 6 more weeks of winter, and I will be so glad when it is over! It is a delirious 57 degrees in my office at the moment. And that’s with the heater going.

It has been a busy few weeks. Karen was here and got her house as well as did some work on it. Then she had to go down to New Orleans to finish up things there. In the meantime, we all worked as hard as we could between being cold and sick.

Plus, the kids have been whingy or fighting. I had the urge to knock their heads together, but realized that would probably just knock the one brain cell they were sharing out of their wee heads. Not really, but it seems like it at the moment. Matt is 14 and Morgan 11. Too many hormones! Oh, and add in Daniel at nearly 18.

Dan is off today to test and get his FCC license. It will be my turn soon, but I can wait a bit. Can’t get enthused about it. Too much else on my plate to be honest. HTML, CSS, office stuff, tech stuff and wanting to knit and write. Oh, and don’t forget the genealogy!

I also have my taxes to do. Should have done them today, but to be honest, I’m tired. Tired enough that I don’t want to make a mistake and totally mess up our return. So, I’ll do it tomorrow or Monday.

Plus, today is Imbolc. I changed over my two private altars and have yet to do the one in the living room. Logan is such a pest that I am nervous about putting nice things out at a height he can reach.

Dan and I celebrated the cross quarter day which was nice although it turned out to be a very busy day. We had a job down at the Walsenburg Housing Authority. Originally a wiring job, but it became a wireless setup and Network revamp. Funny bit was when we went in, Dan went first and I followed with some of the stuff. Dave, the manager there pulled Dan aside and whispered to him that “it looks like you have an elf following you about… But don’t tell her that!” Dave meant me, and Dan laughed. Dave and I were on the School Board together. It cracked me up.

One thing I am glad of is that we are finally getting over the series of colds/flu/sinus crud that has been plaguing both the office and home. Huzzah!!!