went off last night.  This happens every winter.  The units on the roof are ten bazillion years old, and the landlord has not interest in doing anything about anything, so a valve sticks and cold air just blows in constantly.   Fun times.  So I turned it off, after which it took several minutes to actually shut off.  I was getting nervous that it wouldn’t.  Turned on my fireplace, Lunatic and I got under our two blankets combined, and had a nice night.  It was 50 in here when I got up.  Turned off the fireplace, turned on the emergency heat, and warmed up to 55.  Yay.  Turned on the heat, and it’s working again.  Every other time, some poor guy has had to go up on the roof and manually unstick the valve.  Very relieved not to have to call, more relieved that heat is working.  I have my fireplace and a little heater fan, so even if the emergency heat did not work, I’d be fine.  Cold, but fine.  🙂  It’s winter.  I do like winter.

twelve drummers drumming day, also known as take down the tree day.  I slept really poorly, and so am in a mass of pain today, so I have decided to rename my tree The Winter Tree, and leave it up for a while longer.  Because I can.  It’s my tree, and no needles fall off cause it’s fake. Also, I love the lights.   🙂

It’s 2 degrees, at 5:15pm Eastern.  You really have to feel bad and be worried about people who have to be outside in this kind of weather.  So glad I am not one of them.  Stay warm, people.  Watch out for you neighbors and friends, make sure they are warm and okay.  And give coffee and blankets and whatever else might help to those forced to be outside for any reason. ANY reason.  No judgemental, blame the victim crap here, please.  I’m pretty sure Jesus wouldn’t be doing that shit.

It stopped snowing last evening, then we had some serious wind going on.  It is now 7 degrees Fahrenheit, at 9am Eastern.  Move Your Car So We Can Plow guy came around at 8, but fortunately for me, I do not have a car to move.  No going out in the cold for me.  Did go out Wednesday in the cold, but it wasn’t that bad at all.  I do love winter.  Of course, I don’t live where the flooding was.  Freezing cold blizzard, topped by floods.  Fun times for the lucky ones in those areas.  Boston, Scituate, Hull, and more.  It’s salt water, so don’t know if it will freeze in place now or not.  Welcome to our restaurant.  Please bring ice skates. Hope you all are having a great start to the new year, floods or not.  Tomorrow is take down the Christmas tree day.  Easy job.  Fold up the branches and put it back into the box.  🙂

From the Boston Globe:
Still snowing like crazy, but apparently it is flooding in many areas, which is not the winter storm norm.  Ha Ha.  I see lot of people dissing global warming, but this is caused by global warming.  The ice is melting at the poles, the oceans are rising, thus flooding.  Thus extremes of temperature. We are having a record long cold stretch here, below freezing since December 24th.  Stronger storms.  It’s not good news, people.     NECN flooding post

Brief aside, saw Urgent Care doctor yesterday as mine was not in.  Nothing serious, not really that urgent, but as he’s reading my chart (I did NOT have blood work done) he said it shows that I have not been eating enough.  I was too surprised to ask how he got that from my chart, but have to call my regular doctor tomorrow and will ask.  That’s puzzling, don’t you think?  Besides, after being on Prednisone for five years, there is no way you could call me underweight.  Anyone who tells you that Prednisone does not cause weight gain has never been on it. Trust me.  I know whereof I speak.  🙂

We’re having a snowstorm here in New England. Like the many, many, many snowstorms just like this one (and worse) that we’ve had here in New England. One would think that it’s the Apocalypse from all the hype. News is not about telling you the facts, it’s all about how to get more ratings. How to get more ratings? Try to scare you to death about every little thing that happens, or even might possibly odds are a million to one but still someday maybe could happen. Responsible reporting has gone the way of the passenger pigeon. I love a good snowstorm, and it’s been a few years of really lame ones recently, but they were a regular occurrence for most of the seventeen years I’ve lived here. It’s not like it’s been a hundred years since we had a good storm. Good grief. I don’t even have tv, and I am still just fed up with the irrational hype. Once in New Hampshire, my husband worked three miles from our home, and it took him four hours to get home.  That was snow.  Stay home if you can, having stocked up on no-heat or extra water-needed edibles and bottled or jugged water (if you have lots of jugs hanging around) in case the power goes out, make sure to clear your roof if it starts to get deep up there, and have some sort of emergency heating available, and candles and matches. People survived big storms before we even had stores to buy these things and alarmist reporters and weathermen to make it all seem like the worst thing that ever happened anywhere anytime. So glad I don’t have tv, and an added bonus is I don’t have Trump in my face at every opportunity. I’ve had this laptop on for less than half an hour, and I am already saturated with the hype. It’s everywhere. Chicken Little, anyone? I loved that story when I was a kid.

A friend’s house, less than a mile from me.

This below was my first winter in New England.  It snowed for days.  It was glorious.  Started out with these huge flakes just slowly floating down from the sky, and it never stopped.  Or it seemed so, anyway.  It was truly beautiful.  This picture is Peabody, MA. after the storm.  Can’t find any of my town.  Not great at Search, maybe?

Out my window right now, holding up the curtain, followed by a link to snowstorm article, if you’re interested.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/02/09/boston-biggest-snowstorms/DzYKmJfGEdy7C9Wd7uKmXM/story.html