Jan 1 - 2014, bring it on

Well, it was about the same last year when we got back from Whistler -- Internet says that it's -34C / -29F right now with a high of -24C / -11F and wind chill of -45C / -49F today. My thermometer reads -31C / -22F right now, probably moderated by the lake, albeit frozen, or the house.  The difference then, knock on wood, is that we had major car trouble with the alternator and then the alternator again and then the fan.  This year it's just the fan ... running too fast.  Last year it was the shattered fan.

We didn't do a lot yesterday.  It was cold then too.  Sunny and crisp, Lauren, Megan and I walked across the lake and clambered through the fallen logs, sometimes up to our waist in snow, on the point directly across from us.  Lauren pulled her foot up without a boot, at one point.  Her foot got cold and as a result she walked "funny" on it and then thought that she'd hurt her ankle.  Perhaps it was the favored walk ?  Don't know.  I got her feet in a tub of warm water when we got home and the ankle was soon forgotten as she got distracted by everything going on.

The girls ended up with an early night, since they'd mostly been up to midnight the night before and kept giggling past that.  You could tell that Emma was tired.  

I did go to Britt early on for New Years Day Mass.  Conscious of the fan the entire time, I'm glad that I'm getting that fixed tomorrow.  I didn't want to go too much over 90 kph (55mph) which would make a long, long trip to Florida !

Speaking of which, early Monday a.m. is still the plan.  

This morning I brought down the electric heaters from the garage that I setup a few years ago as emergency heat.  They'd work well in the event of the furnace quitting when we're not here but of course wouldn't help much if we had an extended power outage.

The big news of the day is that Sara needed a heater in her bedroom last night !  Yes, this is Sara who opens the windows in the coldest weather !  Sara has been wearing a sweater !

With the bedroom doors closed there isn't as much air exchange as with them open.  In fact, with the house temperature set at 68F, those bedrooms will be warmer but not with the doors closed.  The furnace running its low-speed fan doesn't move enough air to combat the outside temperature against those walls.

The girls are toasty in the basement, with the baseboard heater in that room and the door closed.  

I'd brought up a bunch of beads for the girls to make bracelets etc.  When I say "a bunch" you cannot imagine the variety and quantity that I bought at Walmart.  Yes, I did go overboard.  They played with that for a while before we did our walk across the lake.  They were going full tilt most of the day.

We had pickerel and pike for dinner ... excellent.  The pike tasted better because it was fresh.  The pickerel came from Tarinis and had been frozen.  

David, Kim and Indie left after dinner.  Indie, of course, is Megan's hamster.  I wrapped a towel around his cage to get up to the car.  Even though it's a short walk, hamsters aren't exactly used to this kind of deep freeze !

What else ?  Nothing much jumps to mind.  No doubt as soon as I press "Publish", I'll remember something major.

Onward !