Quiet week

Our long weekend last week was nice.  We did get out to what I am starting to refer to as "the deer park," up on the north side of town.  I led us off the pathway into the woods, along a deer path, and we were not disappointed.  Saw three.

My doc visit went fine, and my labs look good, and I got my bone density test out of the way.  It was nice to have so many hours off work this past week, between the long weekend, and my appointments.

Dave finally found out why we never got our microwave delivered.  

There was, as there often is with him (he does not listen), a communication breakdown, and the microwave was sitting at the store, waiting for him to pick it up.

They said the words "in store delivery," and all he heard was "DELIVERY."  

So, he went to pick it up, and our neighbor (everyone properly masked) helped take out the dead one on Friday, and install the new one on Saturday.

Best Buy accepts and recycles old electronics, so Dave will take the old one to them.

We donated the little one we bought to get by to an organization that houses homeless veterans.

It looks like my rose bush and shrubs may be severely damaged, if not dead. Time will tell.  The miniature daffodils were buried in the snow, so they are still green, but the taller ones, exposed to deadly weather by the drifting snow, are brown and curled.

Maybe they will come back next year, but without green tops to feed and energize the bulbs, I have little hope of that.

This will be a colorless spring in OKC, I fear.

We are off to Costco this morning, so that's all I have for the moment. Have a good week.

Present and accounted for...

 We survived the two blizzards, and record-setting cold, with little discomfort, other than the constant anxiety that we would lose power, or our pipes would freeze.

All of the feral cats disappeared when it got really bad.  

One by one, most of them have re-appeared.  There's only one we haven't seen yet. Even the elders have shown up.

This does our hearts a world of good, to know that they didn't freeze to death. That was, sadly, a distinct possibility.

There are a couple of houses around us that have open crawl space entries... we're thinking they  sheltered under those houses.

We got a total of 14 inches of snow, and the record breaking cold temperature of -17F, with wind chills of -30F.  We had high temperatures that were either just barely above 0F, or below 0F.  

Many friends had water pipes burst, despite their best efforts.  

This region of the country does not have the infrastructure to deal with weather like this. People died. 

Unlike Texas, our power grid didn't fail, but it came damned close, so rolling black outs were instituted.  For some reason, our area was never blacked out. 

If it had been, our pipes may have frozen as well.

As it was, we left water running 24/7 (not just dripping), and we were okay.  

The worst issue we had was that the water pressure in the entire area dropped to near nothing. This was due to 31 main breaks in the city alone, mostly on this side of town, and tripled water demand caused by everyone running their water, OR their pipes bursting!

The pressure dropped, but, thankfully, we could still leave a stream running to keep the pipes from freezing.

However, there was not nearly enough water pressure to operate our tankless water heater, and we were asked to conserve electricity, so we spent a lot of time in the candle light, with everything turned off that we could, and we had to skip showering for a couple of days.

We did dishes by heating water on the stove, and doing them in the sink, with a tiny trickle of ice cold water for the rinse.

Sponge baths like in the fall, only this time, we didn't have to do them by flashlight.

Water pressure has gradually come back up, and we were able to shower yesterday.  I also did laundry, and Dave ran the dishwasher, so we are almost back to normal.  The pressure is still low, but at least now, we can use the water heater.  It just takes longer to rinse the conditioner out of my hair, HAHA.

I have to say, once again, that Dave is a master of preparation....  Two years ago, he insisted that we insulate the attic with our tax refund money.  

In addition, he purchased crawl space covers that he installs in the late autumn every year.  These keep the raging winter wind out of the open expanse under the house, where our above-ground water pipes are.

This makes our hardwood and tile floors a bit less cold in the winter, and protects our pipes.

He removes them in the spring, so that the rain water and other sources of moisture can evaporate in the hot weather.

Without these things, we surely would have had water pipe issues at the very least.  

Our heating system worked hard, but it DID cycle off and on, instead of running constantly.  We were comfortable in layers, and shoes instead of house slippers.  

Unfortunately, replacing the windows in this 1927 house is an EXTREMELY expensive prospect.  One quote we got was $23,000.00  But, Dave wants to get started on them anyway... one or two at a time, using a Lowe's credit card.

It will take years to complete, but it's probably necessary.

Anyway, I wore Dave's parka to shovel snow, and my hiking boots with cashmere socks, but my feet and hands got REALLY cold.  Painfully cold.

Dave did a little shoveling, but I did most of it.  He's got a heart stent, after all.

Thankfully, Amazon has sale prices on winter gear, and I went ahead and ordered myself a decent down parka and insulated boots.  I may only need them once in a while, but now, I will be prepared with cold weather gear that fits me.

I had hoped they would come before the storm, but Amazon Prime no longer guarantees 2 day delivery like they used to.  If they did, I would have gotten these things the day before the first storm.  Oh well.

My packages arrived yesterday, when it was in the 40s out, and everything was starting to melt.

A friend also sent a care package with more long sleeved cotton t shirts for layering, and a polyester fill jacket and vest.  I think she raided a thrift store, HAHA!  I am so grateful that she went to the trouble.

So, we had scheduled this as a 4 day weekend, in hopes that we could get away from the house for an overnight or something...but instead, we have been home, getting errands done, and continuing to clear the melting snow.

The absolute isolation caused by the weather was really hard on me.  Even the zoom dance classes were canceled, because people didn't have power or internet. 

So, on Friday, the first day of our mini vacation, we got in the car, and took our chances of being able to get out of our neighborhood to a street that was clear.  

Many of our resources are along one of the streets that they DO plow, so we headed out to do a few errands.

It took 2 hours, but it was 2 hours of NOT being locked in the house, and we only got caught up in the deep ruts of snow on our street once.

The stores were mostly deserted, so we didn't come into contact with others, except at the cash registers, where the checkers were on the other sides of plexiglass barriers, and everyone was masked.

Getting out did my mental health a WORLD of good.

Yesterday, Dave went out to get groceries, because our delivery service app isn't working yet again.  He then took himself to a pub.

I was really mad about this because I am the one who goes stir crazy being cooped up in the house, and HE is FINE WITH IT.

Oh well.

All of the snow and ice is melting.  Some streets are flooding, but it's clearing away pretty quickly for the most part.

Yesterday, our car port was full of 2 inch thick ice from the meltwater, but today it is just wet.  The huge icicles are gone, and the street we live on is now mostly clear.

Today, it's going to be in the 40s again, but horribly windy.  We might try to get the taxes done later, and then, tomorrow, it's supposed to be in the 50s.  I am hoping to finally get out and take a walk.

I also need to go get my labs drawn at some point tomorrow, the last day of our little mini vacation, as I see my doctor on Wednesday.

Also have a bone density scan on Friday. I rescheduled it from last week, because I knew I wouldn't be able to get there on Thursday, after two blizzards!  

We are EXCEEDINGLY grateful that we made it through this weather crisis so much more easily than the last one, but there is no doubt that I, at least, have a degree of PTSD from the events of the fall.

I can feel the anxiety melting away, like the snow and ice, the further we get away from the events of this week.  

Wishing my readers warmth, comfort, and peace of mind. 

Blizzard!

 Well, Oklahoma is having another record breaking (actually record setting...unprecedented) catastrophic weather event.

Right now, it's colder than it has ever been, and there will be approximately 20 inches of snow on the ground by Wednesday evening.

Tonight, and into tomorrow morning, there will be sub zero air temperatures, and the wind chill factors will reach thirty degrees below zero, fahrenheit.

This is Alaska, North Dakota, Wyoming winter weather.  This is not southern plains weather.

People are already dying.  Animals are dying.

We are fortunate that we have shelter and warmth. Those who do not are in imminent, life threatening danger.

SO there's that.

We started seeing this in the forecast on Wednesday, so we ordered our groceries Wednesday night.  

The service was already overwhelmed, and they couldn't give us a delivery time until Thursday morning.  Our shopper said the shelves were already getting sparse.

Luckily, we got everything we ordered, in one form or another.  I mean... I wanted bone in pork chops, and I GOT thin cut, boneless, flavored pork chops...but whatever.

By yesterday, people who hadn't had the forethought that we had were faced with bare shelves.

Folks who have places to live will be stuck in those places for at least a full week.  

Oklahoma city, county, and state services are not equipped or staffed adequately to clear the roads beyond the highways, and what they call "tier 1" snow routes.... that would be the grid of surface streets that mark out the one mile section lines.

Our street will never be plowed.  People will be driving down it, making ruts, and sliding into yards.

Yay.

I left all of my seriously cold weather gear back in Illinois when I moved.  I gave my sister my down parka, and I donated my boots, gloves, and hat.

I've ordered new ones, but they can't get to me with the blizzard.

When I go out to shovel the driveway later, I will be wearing Dave's parka, which he bought in 2011 when we had a really bad cold snap.   The coat I bought at that time turned out to be inadequate.  It has a great, warm hood, but the body of the coat is worthless.  You can't really tell that when you're indoors trying things on, LOL!

I've been using my hiking boots for snow, but they aren't well insulated enough to deal with this intense cold, so I will have to come inside often from shoveling.

Fortunately, it's so very cold (high of seven degrees during the snowfall), that the snow will be light and easy to move.

If our power stays on, we will be okay.  If it goes out, it will be very bad for us.  

I am baking brownies, and going out to do a little shoveling here in a few minutes.  Just trying to maintain sanity.

I walked away from my computer hours ago, and forgot to click "publish."  Oops!

Stay warm and safe, gentle readers!  

Vaccinated!

 The email came on Wednesday.... my employer offered several time slots for us to go to my office and get our second Pfizer injections.

We went yesterday at 11 am.

So far, my arm hurts.. like.. a lot.... and yesterday, about 4 hours after our injections, I felt really fatigued and headachy...  I laid down and fell asleep for about a half hour, and then I felt a bit better.

Took it pretty easy after that....made Dave a steak dinner (his birthday is tomorrow), and then sat in front of the tv until bed time.

My sleep was fitful last night (but then, it usually is), but so far, this morning, I feel pretty okay...

I'm wondering, though, if it could change as the day goes along.

EDIT:  Yes, it has changed as the day has gone along.  I am feeling VERY low energy, have a dull headache, can't get warm, and my joints hurt. No fever, though.  

I've been seeing that the Pfizer vaccine is not as problematic for people as the Moderna one, so maybe I'll just feel a bit tired and achy... we shall see. 

A friend got the Moderna, and she felt terrible after her second shot.  Feverish, and exhausted.  I really hope that doesn't happen, but we got chicken soup and crackers with our groceries this week, just in case.

Even if we feel good, we'll have that for lunch anyway, simply for the comfort food factor!

We also made sure to leave today completely open, with no plans, and no pressure, so we can just rest if we don't feel well.

There's really nothing else to report this week.  Winter has come back, so there won't be any hiking, or even taking walks, most likely.   

Oklahoma doesn't get a lot of bitterly cold weather, but next week, it is supposed to be far colder than it usually is down here.  NOTHING like what my family and friends are dealing with up north, right now, but dangerous cold for this gardening zone, to be sure.

There will be broken water pipes all over the region, I'm sure.  Ours lie on the ground under our house, in the crawl space, for example.... we're just praying they stay in-tact during a week of extreme cold.

Stay safe and warm, and have a good week!