And a Storm That Seems Never to Lift

As I greeted new faces at City Church yesterday, my eyes were continually drawn to window. Snow, lots of it, filled the sky to the point that it was hard to see the other buildings around us. We knew that it snowed more here, in a knowledge sort of way. It snows almost every day here, especially this week. It is hard to be cheerful when the gloom of winter weather is literally over your head.

As I watched the deluge of snow outside, I couldn't help but think of this song from one of my all time favorite movies, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. They sing about the months of winter and I am relating big time to the song this winter. So I watched the snow, greeted people, and hummed this song. It brought a smile to my face among the gloominess of the day.

February finds a drift and a storm that seems never to lift.

I hope it brings a smile to your face this cold winter day too. If you want to see the part I am talking about, it is at 2:51. I could not find a clip with just this scene.

Winter is Coming

That's right! It comes without much bother to most people. Not for us. I may or may not have shared in March that we sold our car, our only car. People, not us, freaked out a little bit. "What will you do?" "how will you get places?" The list goes on. My Mother even called to let us know we can have my brother's car for the year since he is in Germany that long. Sigh...

The last few months have been wonderful and I think it is hard for others to understand that we made this choice not out of financial need, but because we simply wanted to simplify our life a little. We don't shop as much, when we go places it is special. We have become more active in our church and have had time for local events. The financial gain was a nice perk, but not the reason.

As I mentioned, winter is coming. So, what happens to us then? Absolutely nothing different. We walked everywhere last winter, even with a car, and we will do it again. The only issue we thought we might have was groceries. We can't bike the kid carrier to the grocery store when it starts snowing. Oh, no! We will die without food! Yes, in my not so infinite wisdom, I was in fact able to think of that back in June and we gradually built our supplies of storable food. Our pantry is now full and Adam, being a grocery store employee, can pick up the other odds and ends on his way home from work over the course of the week.

We had to plan out our winter. Do any of you do winter planning?

Mr. Snowman

Wednesday was just beautiful! It got up to 35 degrees in our nick of MN and it was an early release For Jayne's uncles (17 and 11). Plus, it was Adam's day off. So all of the boys went sledding while I did some fabric cutting. Before the left they helped Jayne make a great snowman with the snowman building set my mom gave him. Here are a couple of pics to enjoy...

A shot from the garage window.

Jayne poses with his snowman.

Stretch It: Winterizing

Winterizing your house is a great way to save on your heating bills during the winter. That is a must here in Minnesota! There are 3 main things that we have done/do to make our home more efficient during the winter.

Insulate - You can go through and find spots that let in cold all over your house. The main spots for us were lighting fixtures and outlet/switch plates. For the lighting fixtures Adam cut circles out of a clear storage tote that got a crack in it. He drilled out the holes for the wires too. Then he removed (please take great care in this and make sure the power is off, use common sense!) the light fixture or ceiling fan and connected the wires through the plastic circle. This is really a 2 person job by the way. He caulked the circle to the ceiling and reattached the fixture. You can't see it at all and it keeps a considerable amount of cold air from coming in. The switch plates are much easier, though you should still be careful. You will need an exacto knife or something like it, a cutting board, and some light weight foam sheets (the kind that come in packages like the light weight foam around books you order online). Cut out the size you need and the holes in the center and screw it on under the plate. Super easy! Plus both of these were done with recycled materials and little cost.

Vacuum - The vents that is! We have baseboard heaters and last year we found out how to clean them. Take off the faceplate, again, be careful they are sharp. Then vacuum. It is as simple as that. It takes a lot of energy to heat through all that dust and debris. It is an easy way to make you heater more efficient, thus saving money. Take the time to find out how to clean your heating system, it pays off.

Plastic - Plastic sheeting on the windows will not win any beauty contest, but it will save you money. The shrinking kind that we get is relatively inexpensive and it helps a lot. How it works is this...The cold air touches the window and is released into the air. If there is no sheeting, that air is the inside of your house. With sheeting, the air is trapped between the window and the plastic. It has to go through 2 layers to get to the warm air inside. Our sheeting goes on the inside of the window which I prefer as I have to stare at the neighbors house with plastic on the outside for half the year and I can't say that I like the way it looks.

Please take care doing any of the projects I have listed here. They are quite easy to do, but don't do something stupid like get hurt in the process. I would really love to hear what all of you do to winterize your house. We could always stand to make our little house run a little better!