I haven't posted much this week to this blog, simply because there hasn't been much going on. The cold and clear turned to snow and then to ice, and now it's just rain. There's still a bit of ice left, making things slick, but it's mostly back to good ol' Petersburg mud. There's snow in the forecast for next week.
I shoveled the driveway on Monday. I probably didn't need to, but by thinning the snow, it help prevent the snow from turning into ice, and allows the snow to melt away more quickly. Last year, I learned what happens when you don't do that. Last year, the church parking lot turned into one huge sheet of ice that took a very long time to thaw.
Also on Monday, I got around to changing over my bicycle wheels to studded tires. Even so, bicycling in slush is difficult -- a bit like trying to pedal through thick sand and mud.
The girls are in a homeschool drama class. The class is held at a home about 4 miles out. The driveway is quite steep and curved. On Monday, after the snow and then with the rain, it was quite slippery. Going up wasn't too bad, but coming down the driveway, I felt the back end of the pickup sliding out and towards a shallow ditch. Fortunately it stopped and I made it down. As soon as I returned home, I hauled 8 cinder blocks into two moving boxes that I placed into the pickup bed. Elise said that she didn't feel the back end slipping when she went to pick the girls up later in the afternoon.
Our dishwasher went "lights out" again. I tried taking apart the water circulation system to see about the piece that got loose the last time around. Either I couldn't find it, something else is starting to fail, or the part that I thought was the one wasn't it. So it looks like the Christmas present for me this year is a new dishwasher. I'd much rather have gotten a replacement camera body (for the one that is also comatose...) While browsing the limited selection of dishwashers in town, I found a really, really nice cook top, convection oven, and warming oven unit -- for $1600. It has a really big burner that would fit my really big saucepan. Ah, some other time... (or never... sigh...)
Tomorrow is our second annual Christmas brunch followed by our Christmas worship service. We are supplying waffles. I made and froze 30 waffles. In the morning, I plan to make another 20 or so at the church. The frozen ones are for "just in case" more people come than are expected.
We've received quite a number of packages and deliveries this week. I discovered that some retailers' free shipping offers do apply to our address. Some of them must have special arrangements with UPS, because the retail counter rates for 2nd Day Air service (which in reality means it takes about a week to get here) are horrendous (say $40 for a 1 pound package). A great number of online merchants refuse to ship to PO Boxes. UPS or FedEx is the only way to get packages shipped to a street address here.
Amy continues her morning trek out to the hospital to take and deliver coffee orders. Shelley works out at the Trading Union about 3 days a week. And Elise keeps busy with her work at the hospital.
This pretty much wraps up our week.
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