The One About Thursday Thirteens- 10th Edition

For you see, each day I love you more
Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.
~Rosemonde Gerard

It’s time for the Thursday Thirteen again. If you have a Thursday Thirteen of your own, leave your website in the comments section and I’ll try my darndest to visit it

Thirteen Things Reasons Why I Love My Boyfriend

 

1. He’s a huggy, kissy, cuddly, affection-showing, hand-holding type of guy.
2. He’s guy’s guy and no one would want to mess with his 6’5” self.
3. I feel absolutely safe when he is around me.
4. He has a good, solid career (full-time Navy) and yet is trying to better himself by going to school full-time as well.
5. He isn’t gung-ho about sports. He can take them or leave them.
6. He goes outside every morning to start my car so it is warm when I’m ready to go to work.
7. He’ll feed or let my dogs out if I’m otherwise occupied.
8. He loves all my animals… cats and dogs… and they love him.
9. He has held a parking spot in front of a restaurant’s door when there was a cold, drenching downpour. When I met him at the restaurant, he left the parking spot so I could have it… he ended up having to park waaaay away and walk in the rain himself.
10. He can deal with my moods when I have them.
11. He sends “I love you” texts nearly every day.
12. He isn’t afraid to have me around his friends/family and even hold my hand and give me a kiss in front of them.
13. He lets me know he loves me with every thought he has and everything he does.

 

Wordless Wednesday- 10th Edition

Silence is a source of great strength.
~Lao Tzu

 

It’s Wordless Wednesday again!

Photos of Lulu in her new PJ’s (greyhounds get cold easily)

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The One About Thursday Thirteens- 9th Edition

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. 
~Charles Dickens

It’s time for the Thursday Thirteen again. If you have a Thursday Thirteen of your own, leave your website in the comments section and I’ll visit it

Thirteen Things I Have To Do Before Christmas 

1. Help B install my dishwasher.
2. Make 20+ dozen cookies for family, friends and co-workers.
3. Thank God for having a dishwasher for the first time in several years so I don’t have to wash all the dishes from said dozens of cookies.
4. Mail some of said cookies to B’s family.
5. Make loaves of bread for some friends/family/B’s family.
6. Make homemade jam to go with said bread.
7. Buy my mom a digital photo frame… my last present to buy!
8. Wrap said present.
9. Start/finish B’s present (yay for him not reading this!)
10. Wrap all of B’s presents.
11. Figure out why my sewing machine keeps breaking the needle.
12. Finish a satin pillowcase for my Secret Santa person once my sewing machine is fixed.
13. Clean my house.

The One About Wordless Wednesday- 9th Edition

The cat could very well be man’s best friend but would never stoop to admitting it. 
~Doug Larson

It’s Wordless Wednesday again!

A picture of the cake I made in honor of my co-workers two newly adopted cats!

The One About Thursday Thirteens- 8th Edition

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. 
~Native American Proverb

It’s time for the Thursday Thirteen again. If you have a Thursday Thirteen of your own, leave your website in the comments section and I’ll visit it

Thirteen Ways to Save Money on Energy Bills This Winter

1. Replace your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Compact fluorescent lights use about a quarter of the electricity of normal incandescent bulbs. They also need replaced much less often. The added bonus is that CF bulbs put out less heat, so they also reduce your AC load in the summer.
2. Weather strip your doors and windows. Just think, a 1/4 inch gap along the bottom of a 3 foot wide door is 9 square inches of open space. If you had a 3 inch x 3 inch hole in one of your exterior walls you’d fix it, wouldn’t you?
3. Harness the sun. Open south-facing window shades and drapes during the day and close them at night.
4. Get a programmable thermostat. You can dial back your heating/cooling while you’re at work, but have it back at a comfortable level when you arrive home at the end of the day. By having much finer control over where the heating is set, and always ‘remembering’ to turn down the heat at night, the average family will save $150 a year, according to the EPA.
5. Seal Those Drafts.  Stop letting heated air seep out of your dwelling by finding and plugging up leaks with caulking or weather-stripping. Try the incense test: carefully hold a lit stick up to joints. Where smoke wavers, you have a leak. Place a rolled bath towel or custom-made ‘draft snake’ across the bottom of leaky doors and windows. Simply reducing drafts can cut heating energy use 5 to 30%, according to the U.S. Department of Energy
6. Turn Down the Thermostat. For every degree you lower the dial, you’ll save between 1 and 3% of your heating bill, reports the Department of Energy.  What to do instead? Put on a sweater! A light long-sleeved sweater is generally worth about 2 degrees in added warmth, while a heavy sweater adds about 4 degrees.
7. Keep Those Vents Clean and Unobstructed.  Close vents in rooms you hardly use (of course, you may have to consider making sure pipes won’t freeze, if there are any in that room). Make sure your vents are clean and unobstructed. If they are grimy, vacuum up the dust. Never allow furniture or rugs to block your vents.
8. Seal off fireplaces. Never use a fireplace as a heat source for your home.  You actually lose more cold air coming in from the chimney than is replaced by the fire.
9.  Lower water heater to 120-125 degrees. Many water heaters are automatically set at 140 degrees. Lowering the temperature on your water heater to between 120 and 125 degrees will reduce the amount of fuel needed to heat the water.
10.  Speaking of your water heater, add an insulation blanket to water heater. Wrapping the water heater with an insulation blanket can save heating money by slowing the drop in temperature from the hot water tank as it sits unused.
11.  Add insulation to attic. When adding insulation, start at the top and work down only after eliminating air infiltration.  For example, in Michigan, it is recommended to have at least 12 inches of insulation in your attic.  I only have six, so I’ll be getting more soon!
12.  Make your ceiling fan do the work. Most fans have a switch that lets you reverse the motor. The resulting updraft forces warm air near the ceiling down to where it can make you and your family feel more comfortable.
13.  Upgrade to energy-efficient appliances and windows.  When replacing your appliances or windows, make sure you buy ones that have the blue Energy Star logo on them.  This could save you hundreds of dollars a year on electricity, especially on air conditioners and furnaces.

The One About Wordless Wednesday- 8th Edition

Childhood is the most beautiful of all life’s seasons. 
~Author Unknown

It’s Wordless Wednesday again!

A photo of me when I was two years old.  I was cute then… what happened?!

(click to make larger)