It’s been chilly in Maryland for the last couple of weeks. I’m hesitant to turn on the boiler because it’s an oil burner and because it runs constantly once it’s engaged. So I’ve been using space heaters. I have one blowing on Max’s bed, I have one in my bedroom for nighttime, and I have one pointed at the couch. They work okay for now, but the downstairs can be pretty cold in the mornings.
For a couple of nights I’ve smelled a burning plastic smell as I sat on my couch. I would check all around the room… Was it the space heater? No. Was it my laptop getting ready to explode? No. Was it the neighbors’ house on fire? No.
Then I’d forget.
Last night the smell was really strong. I kept checking and checking. I localized the smell to the southwest side of the room.
*sniff* *sniff* A-ha!
Now I’m going to need a new heater and a better extension cord…
For a long time now, I have wanted to plant some Allium christophii bulbs in my garden. They are a variety of onion that has gorgeous spherical blooms. I hadn’t gotten them in the past because I couldn’t find the bulbs in stores, or because I couldn’t decide where to plant them. But I finally decided to just get some already. I ordered twenty-four of them from one of my favorite mail order places, High Country Gardens. I’ll figure out where to plant them soon enough.
The bulbs came in the mail yesterday. What a happy surprise to come home to. I don’t know when I will plant them. Maybe this weekend. In the meantime, I’ll have to make sure to keep them away from the frying pan. They look just like eatin’ onions!
I had another productive day yesterday. I have no idea why I had so much energy. Since the aquarium was already gone, I decided to clean out my dining room. And by “clean out”, I mean really clean out. I emptied it. After a coat of OrangeGlo on the floor, I started moving things around. I liked how open the room was, so I decided not to bring the dining table back in. I only use it about once every two years, so I’ve decided to just get a folding banquet table and keep it in the basement. The rest of the year, my dining room will be a big open ballroom. I’ll just have to make sure I’m not alone there with Mrs. Peacock and the revolver.
SOUTH
EAST
NORTH
WEST
I worked at the Compassion Center at my church yesterday. It was the first time in a looong time. I’m a little embarrassed it took me so long to get back there.
It was a cold, rainy day, so there weren’t too many visitors, but the ones that came took a long time to find clothes they liked. I didn’t have an official capacity, so I kind of hung out in the store area. I usually arrange the mens’ shirts by color order, but it looked like someone else had recently done that. Instead I read a little bit from several of the used books there. I’ve been thinking lately that there is so much knowledge available to me that I don’t take advantage of. I should learn more stuff.
The highlight of the day was when one of the other workers said that it was “nice to have a young man around”. I told her it was nice to be called a young man. 
As always, there were many interesting items to study. The most curious was a candlestick with two small figures attached. I don’t know if they are elephants or owls or mice. Maybe they’re simply gargoyles, set to scare away evil spirits. I took a picture when no one was looking.
Yesterday was a Professional Development Day at school. Our principal said we could have the day to use any way that would help our day-to-day teaching. We could come to school and catch up with work, we could read educational journals, or we could even rest. I was glad they acknowledged that this year’s workload is bigger. And I decided to stay home. I got housework done! In the end, living in a cleaner house will make me a more productive teacher because I won’t be going home to a pigsty every night. (Yes, that’s how you spell pigsty. I looked it up.)
The big job was dismantling my aquarium. It took forever! If I were just going to take it to the dump, it wouldn’t take that long, but cleaning it was a big chore, especially the gravel.
GOING…
GOING…
GONE!
I also did several small clean-up jobs along the way… a little ADD cleaning. But I do want to record when I stuffed the skylight vents. My skylights are reproductions of the original. For some reason, they have un-closeable vents in the middle of them. I would have thought even Edwardians could have figured out that during winter all the heat in the house would shoot out like a volcano. I don’t know what they did back then, but I stuffed them full of plastic bags. I had to buy one of those pinchy reachy things to do it. It’s awesome! I like pinching Max with it.
