Chitter Chatter Fall-Winter Edition (2021)

[LadyWordsmith]

On 12/31/2021 at 4:59 PM, Ryrin said:

We are going out to dinner with my youngest son and his girlfriend. Then they are going to hang at their house with some friends. We are going back home for movies and drinks. We were supposed to have another couple join us but they are sick with colds. We have a standing date with then for dinner and a movie on New Year’s Eve.

 

I love board games! I’ll post later about the new games I’ve gotten. I’m going to start hosting a game group. 

How lovely! I hope you had a great time. Our evening was wonderfully relaxed. I learned a new game that I love, called Calico (it's a tile strategy game where you try and combine calico prints by color or pattern to meet certain pattern goals, and try to lure adorable cats into sitting on your quilt by using their favorite patterns. ? ). 

[LadyWordsmith]

So how is everyone doing? Anyone else already in (or in the line of) the storm that went through the North East, or the one coming across the country now?

 

We're anticipating a little ice and then a few inches of snow Tuesday night through Thursday. Have already provisioned in supplies for both the 'with power' and 'without power' versions after what happened to us last winter. The 'without power' version involves a lot of snuggling with furry animals, our emergency heater, and the camp stove. Not quite 'roughing it' but I'd rather not rough it when it's below zero outside if I can avoid it! 

Realistically it will probably be boringly dull as we sit here in our warm house, and we will probably all have work and school as normal since we're all work/school from home virtually. 

[JamesBrown]

Our winter storm is coming in tomorrow evening. Naturally everyone is remembering the savage storm we had this month a year ago, when temperatures dropped below zero Fahrenheit and we had rolling blackouts for four days. 

 

I don't think it's going to get that bad again, but I don't like it when it gets below fifty degrees F, so yeah. 

[Ryrin]

Oh, wow. It just got colder here but I’ve been reading about all of the weather. Please check in when you can to let us know how you are doing. 

[LadyWordsmith]

Will do! Definitely not expecting it to be as bad as it was last year based on what they are projecting, but prepared in case. We were incredibly fortunate the only power outage we had was one of the planned rolling ones. 

[Ryrin]

11 minutes ago, LadyWordsmith said:

Will do! Definitely not expecting it to be as bad as it was last year based on what they are projecting, but prepared in case. We were incredibly fortunate the only power outage we had was one of the planned rolling ones. 

it has to be awfully hard to be in a freezing place with no power. Do you guys have a fire place or pellet stove? 

[LadyWordsmith]

7 hours ago, Ryrin said:

it has to be awfully hard to be in a freezing place with no power. Do you guys have a fire place or pellet stove? 

We have a large kerosene heater and several gallons of kerosene, should the power go out for more than a few hours. 

Our fireplace in the new house needs some structural work before I'm confident using it for an actual fire. (We got it cleaned this summer and they found the two concrete slabs that make up the firebox portion at the bottom have cracks and need to be replaced, of course). But that's going to require saving up a bit of money, so we haven't been using it.  My hope is to repair those and then convert it over to a gas fireplace. Though that might be a two-step process with us doing some wood burning in between since it might take a couple of years. 

[Ryrin]

Well, we have freezing temps here. Ugh.

 

We have a fireplace too. We like wood burning so we plan to leave it but since we bought the house we need someone to look at it too. 

[LadyWordsmith]

So far we have a nice layer of snow, but we still have power so we have the heat. ? I put a bin out last night to fill with snow. We're going to bring it inside for the cats to play with later.

I like wood-burning as well (definitely my favorite smell, though we usually burn wood outdoors while camping), but if I have to use it for a long period of time, it's much less stressful overnight to not have to have someone stay awake to tend a fire, or try and find inexpensive firewood (they charge a lot for dead tree matter in this state ? ). I also find I use the fireplace more often if I can just 'turn it on' when we want it. But unfortunately we just have the one (or I would convert one and leave the other to keep the choice).