Frozen

CWs: physical health, food, errands

It was a busy week, like most are. I wasn’t feeling well over the weekend, and ended up calling out of work on Monday. I do not like calling out when I’m on phones, but I did not feel up to talking to people all day while having a sore throat. I’m mostly better now, thankfully. It was just a frustrating nuisance of a cold, y’know? Did my phones on Tuesday, then the rest of the week has been pretty chill since then. I had my meeting on Wednesday, per usual, which went well. Ever since getting the new car, which shows real-time information about tire pressure and othr fun stats, I found that the tire pressure is a bit low. All tires are recommended to be inflated to 42psi, and some were as low as 35psi. Low tire pressure can reduce performance, so I wanted to get that sorted ASAP.

I honestly never really thought about tire pressure with previous cars. Most had very rudimentary alerts, usually when the tires were at a catastrophically low level, so I usually just waited for that to happen (which was very rare). But given the better monitoring on the new car, I figured I’d address it as soon as I could. I heard that there are places around here that had free air filling stations, so after my meeting Wednesday I tried to go to one of them. Nope, it wasn’t free, it had a shady credit card reader or took quarters. Went to 7-11 and came across the same sort of machine. Nope. I have quarters, but I’d prefer to save them for pinball. So I picked up dinner and then went home after that. I ended up going to Discount Tire yesterday after work, who actually offer a free air check and fill service (what a kind public service!). The guy was a little surprised at the 42psi figure, but he checked the door tag and indeed, it is 42 for each tire. So he filled them up, and we’re good as new!

Anyways, as I mentioned, it was a busy week, but we made it to Friday. I worked on 1.5h of Latin today, and then we decided to go to Costco and pick up some stuff we needed. I’m totally OK with “Costco Friday.” Hardly anyone was there, which was great; normally it is a huge crowd of people, but Costco at ~6:30 p.m. is really quite nice. We went to Target after that, and then got Jimmy Johns for dinner, went home and ate and watched TV.

We have some more errands tomorrow. I’m going to take the old car and load it up with recycling to take to the recycling center, and then we’re gonna work on cleaning it out. We will ideally be selling it for whatever we can get sometime next week, and then be back down to one car again. I’m ready to be through with it, the new car is really great and I’m enjoying it. I’m also ready to be able to take the old car off of insurance, and not have to pay for any more gas. It has been a good run, but it’s time. We did really well with just one car for a year or more, and going forward we’ll be just fine.

Oh, and the whole title of the post. As my spouse said, we had two cold fronts back-to-back, so the weather has been incredibly cold lately. One day I remember it was 4F at a particularly cold point, and I eventually turned on a faucet drip to keep the pipes from freezing. As my spouse reminded me, we don’t have exposed pipes (they’re in the crawlspace), so I don’t worry too much about them freezing, but still, it can’t hurt to have a drip going. When my parents were here last, we bought some pipe insulation and my mom worked on insulating the pipes as well as we could, which should help too. I love cold weather and winter, so it’s no big deal for me, but it has definitely been cold. Lots of blankets at night have been good, and same with long-sleeved shirts. I’ve also been getting some use out of my big Columbia jacket, which has a fleece jacket on the inside, and a waterproof shell on the outside. It’s nice, because you can use it all put together, or just the fleece part, or just the outer shell. I’ve had that coat since we moved here in 2016 (my parents bought it for me as a gift), and it’s been fantastic. I actually just bought a couple of new fleeces at the Columbia outlet locally, and need to get them washed and in rotation. I grew up with Columbia coats and fleeces, and they’re out of Oregon, so it’s a little bit of home.

I’m holding onto Winter as long as possible, since Summer heat will be here before I know it within a few months. But I’m enjoying the snow, ice, darkness, and chill for now. felicissimam brumam! Thanks for reading, friends <3