Still warm weather. The chicken run has thawed slightly, releasing the inevitable pungency. Hovering around 30 is too warm – I’d love to see the temps drop to the low – mid twenties and stay there for the remainder of winter. I don’t get a vote, though.
The snow removal crew came thru. Streets are two lanes in our neighborhood again and the circle has less snow (we got another dump shortly after it was cleared).
The dogs have been playing ‘king of the mountain’ on the snow dumped from the roof. They can just see in the kitchen window and seem to delight in their new found height.
Both dogs are in dire needs of de-funkifying. Sheep herding Saturday was messy. I’ve gotten the car blankets washed (much less farm yard like) but the dogs have escaped their fate. At this point we will probably wait until Sunday.
The purged books have left the house. Titlewave took a few but weren’t interested in most of them. They say the hard covers don’t move well these days. I took the remainder (45 hard cover, 80 paperback) to the Anchorage Senior Center and got my charitable donation receipt.
Charitable donations – I used a nifty online tool (www.itsdeductable.com integrates with TurboTax) and plugged in our many donations for 2011 (lots of purging, remember?). We donated over $800 in items last year according to the tool. It was easy to use. Set up your charities, then select the charity, enter the donation date, and enter your items and quantities and condition. Jeans in medium condition were something like $7 each. It was gratifying – what a geek.
Tonight was 2011 taxes, cleaning the fireplace, reorganizing the laundry closet, cleaning the bathroom, and loading the dishwasher. Scott prepared dinner, cleaned up the dogs destruction of a couple of cow-pots, and picked up groceries and prescriptions. Virtuous!
The fireplace will need more cleaning before it’s fit to install the tv set. I removed the worst of the ash, pulled the firedog, and wiped down the metal surfaces. Still plenty of fine ash to make a mess of the tv. I looked like a chimney sweep when I was done, and will have black beneath my nails for days. It was fun.
Scott is working on scheduling a cable tech to come out and activate another cable drop and move it to the fireplace area. I think this weekend we will make an attempt at fabricating the structure to support the tv in the fireplace.
Moving the tv is a major hurdle to getting the marmalade room cleared so we can paint, replace the flooring, and move into the room. I am at 6 months now so am anxious to get this done!