It's February and moving fast...

Wow... January flew by!  Here it is, February 4th already.  Just seems like yesterday it was Christmas and here it is.... February!  The weather has been cold and there have been a couple of brushes with significant snow but they have been near misses and the last time I plowed it was pure slush that exploded upwards and outwards when the plow met the accumulated snow bank.  It was the only fun I could have plowing snow.

Today is a bright an sunny morning and my little thermometer says it is 30 degrees.  There is snow in the forecast, again, but it is February already.  It is the shortest and if it moves as fast as January, well, spring cannot be far behind.

Puxatanny Phil saw his shadow, so 6 more weeks of winter but Octorara Orphie did not, so spring will come early.  I am voting for Orphie.


Okay, time keeps flying and it is now February 6th and I have had very little time to even finish this post.  But it is really helping make this cold, dreary winter fly by.

I have had another followup appointment with my Cardiologist.  Dr. Sulpizi went over, in detail, the results of my stress test.  Bottom line, my heart is strong and has not had any kind of damage from an unfelt heart attack.  The echo also caught parts of my lungs and she has declared them strong as well.  The only real issue that she found was that when my heart finishes the beat, it does not completely relax.  It is nothing that I need to worry about, but it will be something that we will monitor.  She was also not happy with what the Lipitor had done regarding my cholesterol. Or, perhaps, what it had NOT done.  My numbers were higher than she wants to see.  My number is within normal levels but on the high side.  With my family history, she wants it to be lower than it is.  She changed my med back in the fall and we waited until now to see how it was doing and it went down one whole point.  So we have now doubled it.  I will have it checked again after I get back from my trip to Fancy Gap in the spring.

GriefShare is going well.  We have some lovely people who have taken that first step to get help with their mourning.  There are several widows and when we have enough to have two separate discussion groups, we carve them out and I take them as we have all gone through a similar loss, which helps everyone feel better and share more openly.

I have also been working in the sewing room.  I finished a second little purse.  I altered the interfacing and really like the way it feels.  I have the material to make the larger version and hope that I will get it done shortly... yes, I will take pictures.

I got side-tracked a bit while in the basement sewing room.  It has been a windy winter.  As the Highs and Lows move across the land, the areas in between can be loaded isobars.  The closer those isobars are to each other, the more wind.  My sewing room, being a basement room, it can be a bit chilly.  There are three windows and they are drafty.  SO, I had purchased that window stuff that you can cover a drafty window, use a hair dryer to tighten it up and block some of the drafts.  I also used some bubble wrap to do some additional insulating.

I have a list of things that need to be done or that I would like to have done here at the house.  My son Rob has transferred that list to Google Docs which allows me to add to the list as I think of things to be done as well as move things from the "To-Be-Done" list to the "Done" list.  Covering the windows was on the list and I am happy to say, it has now moved to the "Done" list.  I insulated with bubble wrap, which allows light in but adds some layers.  After they were totally covered, I put up curtain rods and added some cute, little lace curtain toppers with lighthouses on them just to cover the ugly basement window openings.  The hardest one to deal with was the easiest to get to, but one of the furnace ducts was there and I had to be a contortionist to get everything done.  But it is done and I am not sure it will help a lot, but it looks more finished.  Tine will tell if it will help.

Rob is coming to do some more work around the house in March.  Right now he is scheduled to come on the 12th of March for a week while his wife is in New Jersey for a project.  I am not yet sure of what we will be working on as the list is long and there are a couple of things that are high on my list, but whatever we get done, will be wonderful.

So, I will try to post more often, but just know that I am doing fine and am keeping myself busy!