themartianchick

Looks like you all had a great time, Philbe! What a cute dog!

I need to add a photo of something to my profile. I lost Marvin the Martian...

I think we've all had days like that. Yesterday was my day. I like to keep a big Sun Tea jar of iced tea in my fridge. My nephew had given me a box of Bigelow Tea and thought it would be a good choice for iced tea. I opened 3 tea bags and removed the strings. It wasn't until 5 minutes after I added the water that I realized that all of the tea bags were leaking grounds into the water. I forgot...Bigelow tea bags aren't held closed by a staple, they are held closed by the string. By pulling out the strings, I'd unsealed them all! At least you like corn pudding! (I hate straining tea! )

I hope that she had a wonderful day!

It is good that you found it, Cat, but what would you do with that much butter if your power went out? I've never kept more than 12-15 lbs of butter in my freezer at one time and it gets used within the year. If my power went out during the summer, I'd probably lose whatever butter was in the freezer at that time. I never really thought about it until I read your post. I tend to think of cooking oil/olive as being the fat that I store, since it is shelf stable (though it can still get rancid). I suppose in an emergency, I could trade a pound of butter to someone without any for something else that my family might want... With the meat/veggies in the freezer, I can cook it as it thaws and can up what we can't use promptly...I can't do that with butter, though!

I swear that I'm not the mushy, weepy type, but I have tears in my eyes just from thinking about all that you've been through and the fact that you're still standing! I am so proud of you for taking the stance that you have and even managing to do something nice for someone else at a time when I know that I WOULDN'T be capable of thinking anything except "poor me". You've done all that you can do for your parents. Now it is time to focus on you and your sweet hubby.Enjoy a quiet, low-key holiday and may God bless you and your marriage...

Yaaayy!!

Hi, Philbe! I tried to use the shout box to tell you that I could smell the bread baking but the Shout box seems to be broken today! I baked some bread yesterday, too! Today is a bit of a non-prepping day for me. I will be getting rid of a few things that have been cluttering up the house.

Thank you for asking...All is well in my corner of the world, Robie! We didn't see a single snowflake, nor a gust of wind. I assume that Michael and Lori were missed as well. With Sandy, we only saw some rain for a few days and virtually no wind. It was just dreary and chilly. We were well-stocked for Sandy and the only measures we took involved securing a few yard and porch items to keep them from blowing. We are now even better stocked against bad weather since we just received 7 more cords of firewood. So far, the weather patterns seem to be doing the same thing that they did last year. We never really had a winter last year...all of the storms went around us even though we are usually the snowiest city in NY. Most of our snow came down an inch or two at a time. I remember shoveling once...The sun always came out and melted the snow by lunchtime. BTW- I love the fact that winter storms are being named now!

Hi, Carie! It i is so nice to get an update and have you back with us! I'm so glad that some of the family drama has calmed down so that your family can have some peace.

Older people can behave strangely when they have UTI's or other infections. Has he been checked for something like that? It is more common in women, but men can get them too.

Isn't there a separate item that you can buy that spins the clothes until they are barely damp, too? It seems that I recall seeing something like that.

Awwwww....

Will you have electricity? A pellet stove might be a good alternative since they require minimal venting. However, you would need to make sure that you stock enough pellets to make sure that you don't run out.

We have a rental property where someone broke in and stole all of the copper pipes in the middle of winter. Though hubby realized the theft very quickly, the entire basement floor was soaked. Though we left the heaton to help dry things out, we still had an issue with mold on the first floor. So... we bought a dehumidifier. It worked really well and helped us to eliminate the damp conditions that caused the mold. A dehumidifier might help you too. Since the issue is just in one room, you might be able to get away with a small unit. We bought one that (I think) cost about $130. We still use it when getting a property ready because it helps paint, floor finish and other things dry more quickly. It also doesn't use much electricity as it extracts the water from the air. Once the water pan is full, the unit shuts off until you empty it.

Mi Familia's advice is spot on. Wordpress is the place for professional blogs that can make money. I consult with someone that makes a great deal of money from his blogs, but he has a huge following. The trick for him is that he created lots of blogs with different themes. He trolls the internet for news stories and then writes a one or two paragraph lead in and inserts a link on his blog. Then he publicizes the story by posting it on his Facebook page and people flock to his blog. The biggest story that he posted was about a piece of Hollywood gossip. The news was so salacious that his server crashed due to the tremendous traffic. He blogs about Hollywood, politics, social issues, family issues, crime, etc...Each topic has it's own blog but all umpteen gazillion of his Facebook followers are very different tpes of people with varied interests. It's taken about 4 years for him to build it to this point.

I loved that commercial for some kind of car that was running all summer long. The family was driving down the road and began doing an acapella version of Crazy Train.

I'm loving all of the doggy pics! We really need to go ahead and get another one.I miss being in puppy love...

I heard about the other storm last night. It is already getting cold here. I've been chilly all day, but at least I have options. I've been working on something for my nonprofit employer to try to send some able bodies down there to help to clean up after the storm. I may get an opportunity to see the damage up close, though I'm not sure that I want to. I don't handle cold weather very well.

Enjoy!

Hi, Victoria!!! It is so nice to have you here. This really is a great place to sit and rock a while! We try to be friendly, supportive and helpful. Please thank your hubby for his service and feel free to join in on any of the conversational fun here at Mrs. S!

So glad that you are alright, Jeepers. I still don't understand how the storm missed us and nailed you! We didn't even get much rain today. A few times we had filtered sunshine and the temps stayed in the 50's. I hope that cleanup in your area goes smoothly.

(sigh) So I guess this means no pics...

I did want to add that I was so ticked off by my step daughter and hubby yesterday... This is the one that has become more interested in prepping, which is good because she has 5 children. I called her Saturday night to make sure that she knew about the storm and explained the magnitude to her. I figured that she had food, since she is the one with a deep freezer that is around 6 feet long. I mentioned that our city doesn't lose water access when the power goes out and that there might be a lot of rain, possibly snow, downed trees and powerlines, etc... I told her what my preparations would be and left it at that. So around 7pm, I get a text message that basically asks if this storm is supposed to be really serious like the Labor Day Storm that was the worst storm in our area in my lifetime. ( I found out later that she had been posting on Facebook about how she didn't understand why people were acting as if this was the storm of the century.) WHAT?!?! Didn't we just discuss this? So I called her and tried to get it to sink in. I suggested that she have the kids round up their flashlights in case of a power outage. Uh-uh...can't do that, they are all broken, missing parts, etc... I was ticked because I bought all of then flashlights so that they would have them in an emergency. I probably spent about $25 on them total and they did use them once when the power went out for an hour. I started telling her that she needed to be and in case she lost power and that she shouldn't bother trying to get bottled water, flashlights, etc...from the stores because they were all out. She has a gas stove, so I knew that she could cook and possibly heat the house with the stove if need be. I scrounged up some little LED lights that are designed for cabinets and closets. I bought them at Dollar Tree a couple of months ago before deciding that they wouldn't work for my purposes. We dropped them off at her house (5 minutes away) on our way to unlock a door for a tenant. On the way home hubby told me that I was selfish for not giving her some of our "good" flashlights since we have so many. He said it in a light-hearted manner but I wasn't so sure that he didn't mean it. I pointed out that if they had all kept their flasklights in good condition (or even just one!) that this wouldn't be an issue. I told him that if she had heeded my warnings a couple of days ago, she'd have had time to buy some before they were all snapped up from stores. Then I pointed out that I'd already given them $25 worth of flashlights and that I wasn't willing to take chances with the things that we keep for our use in an emergency. In fact, some of our flashlights were given to us over the past 20+ years by my parents to keep us safe. We always kept them in good condition and that is part of the reason why we have an assortment. I also pointed out that I didn't have to provide her with the LED lights and that time spent in the dark might actually help her to understand that she is the only adult in the house (since her divorce) that can protect her children. Considering how dire the storm predictions were, this could have been a really serious situation. Hubby immediately apologized when he realized that we can't always be there to pick up the slack for her. Good thing he did, too! :frying pan: I must have scared her pretty well... She got up this morning and went to the new Tops grocery store that is having a grand opening today and bought 2 of the last three flashlights (store was only open for 45 minutes and that was all of the inventory they had left) and then filled up her gas tank. I really hope that she is scared straight. I'd hate to have to disown her for a breach in preparedness!

Things are fine here. We had rain and a bit of a breeze. Looking at the weather maps, I think that we have a lot more rain in store. It appears that we haven't gotten the real waves of rain from the storm though. I don't know of much local damage yet. I've been watching the damage downstate on CNN. I'm still in bed and posting from my phone. I wanted to see the sunrise from my bedroom window. Yesterday morning, the entire sky was reddish pink! Today we've got nothing but grey.