Lisa's Blog

I'm just rejoining the land of the living after checking out for awhile due to a nasty cold.

I've never missed 3 days of work before due to a cold!

I felt it coming on hard and fast last Tuesday.  I had the feeling of razer blades in my throat, pressure in my face, runny nose, headache, mush brain and it went down hill from there.  Unfortunately the symptoms were all miserable and none of them let me peacefully sleep so I was a zombie for most of the last week.

Mom said she's been sick too. But she is several provinces away, so I swear it wasn't me who spread the germs!

The Seaside Communications installers were just here to install our wireless internet.

Buh bye Xplornet Satellite Internet!  Now we'll have faster high speed for half the cost ($54 instead of $107 a month).

Here is the antenna:

And here is my latest speedtest result.  I should have done one before, but with the latency of satellite internet, it was no where near that.

Jeff gave me an indoor light garden for my birthday!

I love growing plants.  We tried out a vegetable garden this past summer, but the vegetables weren't ready for harvest until the frost was setting in so this year we are going to try to grow some starter seedlings for outdoor planting to get a head start.

But I just couldn't let an indoor light garden collect dust through the winter!

On December 30th I found some herb seeds I had left from an unsuccessful herb garden attempt.  So I planted the remaining coriander, basil, and oregano.  The grow lights are on a chain so they can be lifted or lowered and I set up a timer to control the light period.

We set up the garden in a corner of the basement near the wood stove.  Jeff put a peg board on the wall for me so I can hang up my gardening tools

Here it is:

After Christmas we finally lucked out finding seeds at the garden co-op store.   I did a bit of research to figure out what we could grow inside, so we selected tiny tim's (cherry tomatoes), parsley, chives, and a lettuce mix.

The lettuce mix was sprouting within 48 hours!

In this one (shown above), the first row from the left is tiny tims, then a vertical row of chives, then parlsey. The 3 rows on the right were the herbs planted a few weeks ago - oregano, then basil, and on the far right, coriander.  ( confession: I have no idea what coriander is.)

Here is the lettuce mix.  I planted an entire tray.

I learned that the oregano is very sensitive to watering.  I killed off almost every oregano sprout in the back two cells from overwatering I think. They turned brown and rotted away.

The coriander is the tallest and has started to fall over.  I don't know if it is growing too fast, or if that means I need to light the lights up, if they already need to be transplanted, or if coriander usually falls over.  I will have to Google

I'm fascinated by the show 'Hoarders'.

If you haven't seen this show, it is an hour long look into the miserable life of a hoarder.

It seems there are 3 types of hoarders.

• Those that can throw nothing out and life in a house full of garbage.
• Those that have a shopping addiction and have a house full of things they've never used or worn.
• Those that pick up garbage and bring it home, thinking they can 'recycle' it or fix it up,

And sometimes the people featured are all of the above.

These people are very very mentally ill by their hoarding.  They don't see their clutter, can't smell it, and don't acknowledge that their hoarding is a problem.

The show features a therapist and a clean-up crew.  They are called to help when the hoarder is faced with an ultimatum.  So far I've seen hoarders who have had their children taken away, a couple hoarders who were facing eviction, one that was facing a divorce, and another who's house was about to be condemned.

Tonight we just watched a husband and wife who had their children taken away and put in the custody of their grandparents.  The wife was the hoarder.  Every room was stuffed with trash and clutter.  Some of it was waist high or higher.  The entire kitchen was full and every surface covered.  There were barely paths through the trash.  There was dirt, mold, and mice feces everywhere.  The woman was unable to throw away anything.

These therapists have found that they achieve the best results when the hoarder acknowledges their hoarding, and makes the decision to start throwing their stuff out.  If they simply come in and remove all the junk and clean it up for the hoarder, the hoarder will focus on the resentment and the loss of their stuff and will feel victimized.

This woman on tonight's episode wanted her children back, but could not throw out anything.  She was up in a dump truck that was waiting to be filled with her stuff, her house was full, her yard was full, and her driveway was full, but she jumped into that truck and took out a 7-11 plastic slurpie cup because she didn't want to part with it.

Because she was faced with a tight deadline and wanted her children back, the therapist and clean-up crew simply removed the garbage and put everything else in a storage facility for the woman to sort through later.  A cleaning crew cleaned the house.

At the end of the show the update on the screen said the authorities were not convinced she had addressed her hoarding and did not return the children.  Six months later the couple filed for divorce, she moved out, and the father regained custody of the son.

This show fascinates me, and drives me to clean

I'm sure there is a little hoarding instinct in me.  I'm a pack rat. But over the last few years, after moving a few times, and now having a nice house I want to keep clean, I am getting really good at having pitching sessions.  I don't want my house overrun with stuff.  I crave cleanliness.

I wonder how these people started hoarding.  Were they born like that?  Did they have a tramatic event?  A period of depression?

How do they think it is okay to live in a garbage dump? Some of the houses are full of feces. One didn't have a working toilet.  In that one the clean up crew found the flattened carcasses of 2 cats under the trash.

Most of the houses featured on the show are cleaned out with shovels.

Yes. Shovels.

Hoarders is on A&E. You can watch full episodes at http://www.aetv.com/hoarders/

Here are some photos from our Christmas Eve here in Nova Scotia.

Monty had to have a Christmas Eve bath. Jeff took him for an adventure in the woods and whatever he rolled in was very stinky... and possibly very dead.

I've updated the "skin" again to give the blog a new look.

I've taken off two items that made the page load really slow - the radar and my book shelf.  If you actually used either, let me know and I'll add them as a link.

I've added the latest picture saved by my webcam to the sidebar.  You can click on that image for a larger view, along with our current weather forecast.  The webcam is sitting in my office window and looks out towards our driveway and front lawn.

I upgraded the software running the blog too and for once.. it went smoothly!

Tonight
Cloudy. 30 percent chance of flurries early this evening. Wind becoming northeast 20 km/h overnight. Temperature steady near minus 4.

Saturday
Cloudy. Snow at times heavy beginning late in the morning. Risk of freezing rain late in the day. Snowfall amount 5 cm. Blowing snow in the afternoon. Wind northeast 20 km/h increasing to 40 gusting to 60 in the afternoon. High plus 1.

Saturday night
Snow at times heavy changing to periods of rain near midnight. Snowfall amount 10 cm. Rainfall amount 10 to 20 mm. Wind northeast 40 km/h gusting to 60 becoming east 60 gusting to 100 late in the evening. Temperature rising to plus 4 by morning.

Did you see that gusting to 100km/hr part??

I had a massive head/face/sinus ache today from the weather change. Winds are supposed to be 160km/hr up in the highlands in Cape Breton and a storm surge is predicted for Guysborough county's coast line (where Jeff works).

Yesterday was my last day of work until January 4th! WOO HOOO

What has been going on?

-upgraded to Windows 7 today on my desktop computer at home. It went fairly smoothly. I went from 32 bit to 64 bit since my computer was capable of it. I've moved most of my files back and now I'm reinstalling software. 1 beef so far - it automatically installs drivers for every device, which is awesome, but I can't get the mouse to recognize the left thumb button and I am used to using it ALL the time.

-I'm listening to old time holiday songs on Sirius. Looks like there are 5 Christmas stations this year, so I can jump back and forth between Bing Crosby's Christmas channel, contemporary carols (yuck), holiday classics on the 40's channel (currently listening to Buddy Clark's Winter Wonderland), pop carols, or carols from country stars.

-I zipped to town this morning to beat the grocery store rush. It worked! I hate grocery shopping, but it was more tolerable with hardly anyone in the store.

-Christmas shopping is all done! Gifts are mailed. Okay one didn't go out until this morning so it will be way way way late, but.... aww well I'm not perfect

-the snow is quickly being replaced by mud. It's been raining for a couple days now. Jeff had to plow Monday morning and I'm so grateful that he did (and I LOVE THAT PLOW) because the driveway would have been all rock hard ice with all the rain. Around my car it is very icy.

-Jeff didn't take extra days off this Christmas so he still has another day to go tomorrow. My employer forces us to take 5 days of vacation at Christmas.

-I am going to miss everyone like crazy at Christmas. I love our family Christmases so much, but travel at this time of year is awful. (see 'We ate Leonard' - http://lisaschuyler.com/index.php/2007/12/we_ate_leonard for a refresher) Hopefully we'll live closer some year so we can have family Christmases again.

-I'm going to have to reboot in a sec to install more software, so ta ta for now.

Want to know the best way to start a Monday?

Find an unopened jar of Trudy's bumbleberry jam in the back of the fridge

The plow wasn't here in time for the first snow fall, that fell after the ice formed, so our driveway wasn't so good for a couple days.

But it arrived on Wednesday and we spent Wednesday night outside in the cold assembling the bracket for the plow and then attaching the plow to the quad.

I only had to run back inside to the basement once for a tool that I never heard of (torque wrench). Our battery powered lantern worked so Jeff could see what he was doing.

Here are the first moments of Jeff trying it out.

I am beyond ecstatic about this plow. After these photos we got about 10-15 cm of snow. On top of ice, that would usually put the driveway out of my range for weeks. But we woke up early and Jeff plowed it down to ice and gravel. Then we got a warm spell up to +7 that almost melted the entire driveway. YES!!!