Sad but true. I think that we should just magically have a generator, or a solar retrofit, or maybe our very own coal-powered power factory in the backyard. Just a small one. So to help raise some cash dollars to buy our magical generator and/or coal factory, I've made a little Amazon page of books that I've found helpful as a parent, some gluten-free food recommendations, a lot of cookbooks and some kids' books that you may not have thought of. If you want to check it out, there it is. And if you don't, that's cool. I'LL JUST FREEZE. (I'm kidding. Go have a look if you like.)
My house has warmed back up today. It took HOURS, but it's funny how different 14c feels when you know your house is getting warmer, as opposed to how 14c feels when you know your house is getting COLDER. It took me longer then the house to warm up - by eight, I was still chilled and shivering. Today is brutally cold outside, but calm and clear and it is almost Friday. I feel a little bit run-down today - gee, I wonder why? - but there's nothing I really have to do and nowhere I have to go. I'm just happy to be warm and in my grubby house - so happy that I'm now going to spend the afternoon scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets. Whoo!
Edited to add: On Tuesday, I wrote that The Baby was singing "My cows and chickens are going to the dickens", and apparently I'm the only Guys and Dolls fan or something. It's from the song "A Bushel and A Peck", which The Baby loves.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
52 comments:
Your day yesterday sounds awful. Thank goodness for Bonnie. And your husband's well-meaning boss. And your Dad.
My in-laws live in the country an hour from here, where the storms are always more fierce. When Elyse was due to be born they swept in and picked up my older two kids so we could give birth without worrying about childcare. (Ha! I typed 'we.' WE could give birth. Hysterical.)Right after they arrived back home with my rambunctious young children an awful storm blew in knocking out their power, which flickered on and off for days! Thankfully they had a generator.
Winter sucks. I have had enough.
Brrrr I feel cold when my house is 18c
I lived in the tropics (Hawaii) for six years before moving to the UK... I struggle in the cold, so I can't even imagine my house getting down to those temperatures and having to sit there. Brrrrrrr.
Oh, and the book Festivals, Family and Food sounds fascinating. Actually, it sounds like something you could have put out yourself.
:-)
You poor thing! I honestly can't even imagine my house getting to 50 degrees. That is nuts. I was cold with my house set at 68 yesterday. That is so crazy.
A generator sounds like a great idea. My hubby and I constantly discuss getting a wood stove, we just don't know where we could fit one in.
It reminds me of when we were little in the 70's during the power cuts [strikes] and my parents dragged out all these horrible old paraffin heaters that stank the place out.
We moaned and so they turned them off again. Then we were frozen.
I now associate stinky and warm. Sorry your association connector let you down with the music!
Cheers
Wow. You learn something new every day. Guys and Dolls is my all time favourite musical, but sadly, I have only seen the movie version (mmmm. young Marlon Brando) in which the song "A Bushel and a Peck" does not appear.
I'm glad you're getting warmer. Slowly. We've got a raging storm here today, and I'm crossing fingers that there'll be no need for generators.
Will go check out your list now. :)
Heidi
"Bushel and a Peck" is one of my kids favorite bedtime songs!!! My four-year-old called it the 'kicken' song forever. Course, I didn't find the song all by my lonesome -- my mom used to sing it to us when we were kids. It was the version her brothers sang to her and was slightly altered -- "I love you, a bushel and a peck, bushel and a peck and a ROPE around your neck." She never realized it was wrong until I choreographed our highschool musical in 11th grade. Oops! Isn't that a warm and fuzzy story. I mean, besides the fact that my mom wanted to hang us all!!! (I must confess, we deserved it!)
Oh, and our power was out yesterday, as well. Northwest Ohio isn't as bad as northern Ontario but I felt your pain. Our corn stove (which ironically runs on electricity) went out, filled the house with smoke, forcing us to open windows and doors and let out the last bit of precious heat. :-( It was down to 44. Soooo cold! Our gas oven/stove managed to get it up to 57,(yeah, that's safe!) but floor level where my baby wanted to crawl around was still around 45. Poor restrained baby!
My mom still sings A Bushel and Peck to the kids so you are not the only one--in fact I go around with it in my head way too often. My MIL loves Guys And Dolls so yeah.
I know what you mean about the whole "getting warm" thing. Takes me forever. Stupid internal thermostat.
Generators are really expensive! Glad you are warming up.
I get a little whiny when my house drops below 70 or so. I don't think I could deal with it being THAT cold. Yeesh.
KayTar's birthday is coming up, so maybe we'll get some Generator-Fund Books. ;)
The worst thing about generators is that they're noisy. So, if you don't have one and your neighbor does, you can listen to it and thing of them being warm and toasty as your house gets colder and colder.
I wish I had these infinite cash reserves so that every time I saw something I wanted to buy for someone I could just GO DO IT.
Solar panels?
Hope you get warm soon.
If not, we're in t-shirts down here so you have a warm place to go.
A few times around here, the thermostat has done some weird thing and it ends up being 51 in here when we wake up in the morning....and when we run out of oil. Brrr!!! But running out under those circumstances is HORRIBLE. I'm glad today is slightly warmer - at least in the house! We've had a cold snap here too but nothing like ON/MB - everybody back home is getting sick of it too!
15 c... Yeah. I have to go and convert that. Thanks...
What a great idea setting that page up. I hope it's lucrative for you... once we pay off the combination of our family member's hotel bill and my recent horrible parking fines, I may even buy some... I see at least three I'm very interested in.
"...a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck....."
Sigh. Our furnace ran all night after our power came back on andI slept with 3 shirts on and fleecy pants because I just could not get warm.
The price we pay for living in the north.
Yes, everyone should have some sort of generator, or solar powered/coal powered thing. As well as a basement full of enough canned goods to last a couple years. Or at least, that's what I start to think whenever anyone talks about nuclear war or there is a tornado warning or something like that. But here I sit, in my basementless house, relying only on the local power company.
I love your book list. The Dr. Sears/ Elizabeth Pantley combo was a lifesaver for us.
Maybe I'll get the feasts and festivals book. That is just the sort resource I've been wanting (except for your blog, of course).
Oh my goodness, being cold and stuck and cold and sick and COLD?? That is the worst! At least all of the cleaning of the house will keep you warm today...HA.
I sing that song all the time, but I really only know the one line and I had no idea where it came from. funny.
It is currently 62 F in my house, because no one is usually here at this time and we have an auto thermostat. I usually don't like it warmer than 66 anyway. But, I just got the bill for electricity and gas and I am thinking of making it colder.
I hope your Amazon page helps you out! I'll go have a look-see. :)
A few posts ago, I left you a comment that said, "I'm sending some Florida sunshine your way!" It must have gotten lost in the mail. I'm so very sorry, and I'll send some again, this time with insurance and I'll require a signature from you for receipt... lol!
I thought generators were standard up there! Here's wishing you warmth.
Emily
Hi there! I found your blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards. I am also listed, under Best Charity Blog. I am stylizing blogs for $20 to raise money for a mission trip I am going on, as well as a Charity of the Month (which changes monthly). Please check out my blog!
www.madebynikki.blogspot.com
Thanks!
Nikki
And here I've been refusing to turn on the heat for saving-money purposes! I've literally been shivering in my apartment on purpose--I figure if I have blankets I'm okay. Then again, I don't have to contend with REAL winter weather like you do! Stay warm!
Cookbook recommendations... uh! I better NEVER have a look at that or I will add again to the pile of already ++ 50 cookbooks and I just cleaned them out a few months ago...
:-)
Wow! Here we are with the fans turned on, jumping in the swimming pool every half hour and wearing next to nothing. And I thought this was uncomfortable! Really, I've never experienced the kind of cold you have over there, so might be a bit less complaining of the heat.
I'll have you know that after I read your post yesterday, I was going around ALL DAY singing/humming "Bushel and a Peck."
I was in the musical when I was in high school. I was one of the "dolls." LOVE IT!
Glad you got your power back. Here in Rochester, NY we had some power outages, but none in my neck of the woods. Hubby keeps threatening to get a generator. Perhaps we need to REALLY do that....
i'm a cold weather wimp. i'm thankful i live in the south.
generators are way expensive! Poor Beck.
hey, I got the song reference! ;) (i did the show in high school. and how sexy is Marlon Brando in the movie? very)
We whine when we let the house get down to 64F (17C).
We love Guys & Dolls! My older 2 daughters used to sing "Bushel & a Peck" to Shorty (my 6 yr. old) all the time. Now they sing it to their little sister.
Hope you have a warm weekend. Snuggle up to your honey.
Festivals, Family, and Food?
Bread and Jam for Frances??
Calvin and Hobbes???
Big Susan???? (my very favorite kid's book of all time?!?!)
It really is too bad you live in Canada because had we gone to middle school together, we'd be BFF.
*sigh*
I'll buy some cookbooks and contribute to your generator fund as soon as I get (embezzle from the grocery budget) some more "fun money." And we use generators down here too. Not for cold, though... for hurricanes!
Susan
I feel cold just reading about how cold your house was! Glad it started to warm up!
ACK! Finally catching up after several days of Greedfest.
Beck, that sounds awful! I remember a night after Abbie was born when we lived in WI and the temps were around -30 and we were all huddled in our little bed for warmth.
Guys and Dolls is a FAVORITE of mine. I was stage manager for all of our plays and musicals in high school and that was the first one I worked on.
I've always sung that song to my kids.
Hugs,
K
Our heat took awhile to warm up the house. As soon as it was warm, I peeled off my grubby clothes and took a nice hot bath. I wore a snowsuit all day... that helped a lot -- and a hat.
We're expecting a new ice storm.... if the power goes out again...!
Glad you are warming up.
I'm glad you're getting warmer. At least maybe the housework finally warmed you up???
I hope you guys can stay warm.
That's a favorite around our house too (thanks to Dan Zane). I'm no good converting celsius to Fahrenheit but you sound cold, too cold. January is over, does that help?
Whoa!!! 14c that's super cold to me! When I am handling 28-31c everyday!
maybe there could be a new show called "i dream of generators." i could be your co-star.
there is freezing rain here today,and i desperately am afraid of a power outage. then it would be freezing cold AND it wouldn't be safe to travel somewhere warm.
but you know how that goes already. . .
Winter is even worse today!! Hubs office is closed too - got a call at 6 AM. The kids are off school today for PA day ... Liam is digging the snow- can't wait to get out there and play. Brrrrr!
Hope the house is nice and cozy for you today.
I loved Guys and Dolls too. In fact, it's the only musical show that hubs ever really admitted he sorta liked. So you're not the only one.
Bushel and a Peck was one of Thing One's favorite bedtime songs!
Did you notice that a large percentage of your readers partiicpated in High School musical productions (me too!). Interesting.
So, when you make that list, you get a percentage on the book sales?! That is fabulous! I will definitely be buying something.
Has the girl read "The Penderwicks" ? We read it on Thing One's sick day last week and it is terrific!
Hope you are warming up! We always lose our power at least twice every winter and it fills me with such panic - I hope you are able to get a generator soon.
Oh my goodness! I'm so glad you got your house warm again. That festivals, family, and fun book looks pretty awesome.
I love you, a bushel and a peck, you bet you're pretty neck I doooooo!!!
We have that on a kids record of those singers...with the elephant...Sherri Lois and Bram??
And a hug around the neck! My Mom sings that too the girls all the time. It replaced another favourite...Teensy Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.
Ahem...I totally went on a WE SHOULD GO OFF THE GRID, LET'S BE ORGANIC FARMERS tangent a few weeks ago.
Then I got over it. But I would if I could.
Oddly, I knew it was from Bushel and a Peck, but not that that song was from Guys and Dolls... I love the Rosemary Wells-illustrated books of it, which helps my feeble mind remember the words.
Oh, I hope you get your generator! I'm a transplanted Canadian who lives in New York and I want a generator when the air conditioning breaks down. It's deathly humid here in the summers.
Our last home in Canada was in a small rural community in the snow belt in Ontario. As a Westerner whose parents grew up without heat, you can imagine it rarely got turned on in our home. Sweaters are what you use to keep warm, my parents used to say. So in this small town, we used propane heat and on a holiday weekend my husband had been away. My son was six months old, so the heat was on, but while it said 18 it seemed much colder. I finally went out and checked the tank and it was empty. So I took my son from his crib, grabbed every warm piece of clothing and blankets I could find and crawled into bed with him. Our three dogs then climbed up and they surrounded us and we were all very warm.
I then knew what the Inuit meant by a "three dog night".
Christine
I did check out your book list because I'm a sucker for book lists anyway, but many of them looked like something I'd be interested in.
I did wonder about "the cows and chickens going to the dickens" in your previous post. Now I know. I have seen bits and pieces of Guys and Dolls, but it was years ago.
I love that musical!! But the last time I saw it was in High School (a loooooong time ago) & I've forgotten the lyrics.
Post a Comment