I hope you all had a great New Year's!
Jan. 2nd, 2022 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayneWe got back from Phoenix early on the 30th, as in about 12:30am. Russet was working New Year's Eve, so I made a batch of Shredded Chicken Tacos, which are pretty awesome (cooked in orange juice with minced chipotles in adobo sauce and lots of cilantro) even if I did have to cut down on the chipotle to appease her slightly sensitive stomach. I've got some great chipotle hot sauce to amp up my tacos on the side.
The evening was quiet for me: I was running my band and playing music in Lord of the Rings Online for a good six or seven hours! Fortunately I got in a good hour-long or so nap before hand. Friday night is typically a band jam night, extra special since it was New Year's Eve. Made some new friends at the event, which was nice, and I finally packed it in about 2am.
Yesterday was snow shoveling! We had a storm front move in that brought in about 8" of the stuff. It got down to about 5f last night, but the house stayed pretty warm. But the front moved on and we have blue skies and the sun is out. Getting ice crystals blown in your face while snow-shoveling isn't fun!
The other thing that I did Thursday was fix my oven! The part arrived last week while we were in Phoenix, I picked it up when I headed down the mountain from my friends and it was only 15-20 minutes to replace it - Appliance Parts Pros (.com) has great videos to help you out! Totally easy job! And I think I found another point where mice were getting into our house: the hole in the floor where the 220 circuit was coming in to power the stove! I'm going to talk to our electrician to see if I can simply spray some expanding foam in there to seal it up, which will also seal off a heat leak.
So our New Years was pretty mellow. We just hope '22 is also more mellow than '21. We don't do New Years resolutions, but we sort of have one: set up wills, living wills, and medical powers of attorney for each other. I have a web site bookmarked for such, I need to dig it out.
So here's to '22: let's hope it didn't say 'Hold my beer' to 2021.
The evening was quiet for me: I was running my band and playing music in Lord of the Rings Online for a good six or seven hours! Fortunately I got in a good hour-long or so nap before hand. Friday night is typically a band jam night, extra special since it was New Year's Eve. Made some new friends at the event, which was nice, and I finally packed it in about 2am.
Yesterday was snow shoveling! We had a storm front move in that brought in about 8" of the stuff. It got down to about 5f last night, but the house stayed pretty warm. But the front moved on and we have blue skies and the sun is out. Getting ice crystals blown in your face while snow-shoveling isn't fun!
The other thing that I did Thursday was fix my oven! The part arrived last week while we were in Phoenix, I picked it up when I headed down the mountain from my friends and it was only 15-20 minutes to replace it - Appliance Parts Pros (.com) has great videos to help you out! Totally easy job! And I think I found another point where mice were getting into our house: the hole in the floor where the 220 circuit was coming in to power the stove! I'm going to talk to our electrician to see if I can simply spray some expanding foam in there to seal it up, which will also seal off a heat leak.
So our New Years was pretty mellow. We just hope '22 is also more mellow than '21. We don't do New Years resolutions, but we sort of have one: set up wills, living wills, and medical powers of attorney for each other. I have a web site bookmarked for such, I need to dig it out.
So here's to '22: let's hope it didn't say 'Hold my beer' to 2021.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-02 11:04 pm (UTC)Yeah, shoveling in cold weather: tell me about it! It was in the teens today, but fortunately we had <2" of snow last night, not more. I'm still working on the ice buildup from last week though.
Yay for a working oven.
It's old school but works as a temporary solution: stuff gaps with steel wool to keep mice out. Something that works until you can find out about the foam.
> So here's to '22: let's hope it didn't say 'Hold my beer' to 2021.
Yeah, no shit!
no subject
Date: 2022-01-03 12:01 am (UTC)Steel wool! Now that's an interesting idea! I like it except for one thing: it's an electrical pass-through, and steel wool is an excellent fire-starter material. I don't think we have a mouse problem right now as we have raccoons living in our undercroft (according to our canine detectives), so mice are probably avoiding our house for now. The evidence was of past mouse habitation, plus we've previously trapped mice before. It's just now with raccoons having moved in, mice haven't been much of a problem.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-03 01:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-03 08:08 am (UTC)The coons keep the dogs entertained with their antics. Sort of a quadruped telanovella. Gets the dogs very excited occasionally, I figure it's sweeps weeks when that happens. :-)
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Date: 2022-01-03 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-03 08:07 am (UTC)The video on replacing the bake element was so wonderful to watch, and the actual task did not disappoint! All you needed was a 1/4" nut driver and a flat-head screw driver to undo the oven door locks so you can remove the door for easier access to the interior. The video showed using pliers to remove the terminal connectors, I had no problem sliding them on and off with my fingers. I also need to replace one of my rheostats controlling one of my burners, that's a little more involved as I have to remove all four, plus the entire head of the stove! LOTS of screws! That's going to take some time and patience, and is reserved for a long weekend! I was pretty confident that expanding foam stuff would be perfectly safe, but I hadn't worked with it before. Wanted to make sure.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-03 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-03 08:14 am (UTC)I do enjoy running bands in LOTRO. People seem to think I do a good job. I found out that the two festivals that I did in December have been posted on Youtube, I should post those. I played funk rather than Christmas music!