Sunday, January 10th
As of today we have officially lived here at Mist Cottage for four months. It is a lot more like home than it was that first day. It took another two weeks for Attila to move in, so the four month anniversary of his actual move in date is January 23rd.
Tonight Attila’s drive in to work sounds like it will be a doozy. the temperature is supposed to plummet, and all this rain we are getting will turn into snowfall. The wind will gust to 90 km/h, which means blowing snow, on possibly icy roads. Attila, of course, doesn’t worry one jot about it all, he figures he will be just fine, and will leave early for work to give himself ample time to deal with the possibility of bad roads. I, however, am not so sanguine about his commuting in such weather. I grill him: do you have candles in the car; do you have food in the car; take a warm blanket with you in case you need to keep warm; take the collapsible shovel with you in case you get stuck; wear warm clothes, and so on. This drives Attila slightly mad, as he has already covered all the bases and is well prepared. Still, I feel better after going through my list.
This weekend was spent sorting through various boxes of belongings, purging items that are no longer used and do not have sentimental value. It was also a weekend of filling in tax forms, which involved finding documents, which was time consuming because locating the documents after the move was not an easy task.
In the winter the humidity in the house drops to unacceptable levels. It seems anything under 35% humidity will trigger my nosebleeds. This was an issue at the country house, and it is an issue here at Mist Cottage. Yesterday the humidity dropped to 33%, and the nosebleeds began in earnest. One of the strategies we are trying is to wash a load of laundry every night, and hang it to dry on the collapsible rack, in the middle of the living room. This magically increases the humidity in the house as we sleep, and is saves us money at the same time, as we don’t use the dryer nearly as much. However, there is only so much laundry that can be done in a week! I am considering wetting towels and hanging them to dry when there is no laundry waiting to be washed and dried.
Yesterday was a busy day baking. We save the bread “ends” in the freezer, and after they accumulate, they are turned into croutons. They are great on a green salad. Attila requested Cherry Squares, so when he woke up from his nap, they were on the country, fresh from the oven.
Today was bread baking day, combined with making a big batch of spaghetti sauce, using the last of the 2014 frozen stewed tomatoes, that I gleaned from Terra’s garden.
Monday, January 11
It has been a quiet day here at Mist Cottage. Attila and I are still tweaking the way we cope with the night shift. This week we will be spending the mornings together, Attila will hit the hay at about noon, and I will wake him up for supper at 6:45 p.m. I will do all the cooking during the work week. It might work, we won’t know until we try.
We went window shopping today at the local stores. We ended up buying a few groceries, our only purchase. It was fun to walk about aimlessly and look at things.
The weather has turned cold. The 90 km/h gusts have abated, but brisk winds are supposed to return tonight, along with snow. The sun shone here, all day long. It was so beautiful looking out there, that I decided to go for a walk at 4:00 p.m. We walked all morning, so I really didn’t need to go out for a walk, but could not resist the call of the beckoning blue sky. The wind was bitter, but I enjoyed my walk regardless. The road was clear and dry, so that I could walk in my walking shoes, no boots needed. I wore a sock, with the foot cut out of it, over my bad knee, it helped a lot.
Truthfully, it seems like the winter is just starting. What a difference between the winters here and those at the country house! I looked at a video I made mid-November one year at the country house, it was a blizzard, and the snow stayed until the end of March that year. Those were long winters. Even if the snow stays here until the end of March this year, the winter will feel as if it only lasted a few months.
My afternoon was spent doing business year end statements and accounts. It is a time consuming task, but I managed to get through the whole thing. Attila had done the tax returns over the weekend, which is an even bigger job, one that needed to be done before I could tie up the loose ends today.
I keep a to-do list on a piece of paper by my computer. The list shrinks, the list expands, and is usually the same length every day despite all efforts to accomplish everything. I find that if I do not add important tasks to the list, they might be forgotten. For instance, one year I forgot to renew the licence plates on the car. The list is a necessity.
This is not an age related coping mechanism. I have always used lists to keep track of what I need to be doing, since I was 18 years old. I also keep an ongoing journal in which I record all telephone conversations, dealings with businesses and the government, and bits of information that I might someday want to refer to. This has worked well on several occasions, as it is a good thing to have dates and times and details when a business you are dealing with is trying to pull a fast one. I am prepared for legal action, if needs must! Twice in the last ten years, I have used these records to hold companies to their promises.
Darkness has descended, it is 5:43 p.m. I must rise from this chair, leave off with my writing, and begin the preparation of the evening meal.
Good night from the cozy, warm kitchen at Mist Cottage.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
RAINFALL WARNING IN EFFECT
WIND WARNING IN EFFECT
5°C
Date: 8:00 AM EST Sunday 10 January 2016
Condition: Light Rain
Pressure: 100.3 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 6 km
Temperature: 4.6°C
Dewpoint: 3.9°C
Humidity: 95%
Wind: ENE 16 km/h
SNOW SQUALL WATCH IN EFFECT
SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT IN EFFECT
-7°C
Date: 5:00 PM EST Monday 11 January 2016
Condition: Mainly Clear
Pressure: 101.4 kPa
Tendency: rising
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: -7.0°C
Dewpoint: -14.8°C
Humidity: 54%
Wind: W 20 km/h
Wind Chill: -14
Quote
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
Marcel Proust
1871 – 1922
