It is 14 degrees out and Rob and I are going to go for a walk at 9:30pm. I will probably seize up and die but if I survive it should be something to write about.
I went out this morning for about five minutes to feed the trout and regretted every second. I can’t wait to get down to warmer weather. My ice cube trays froze up very quickly, so I guess the cold offers some slight advantage.
My dinner with Gyorgyi last night was a lot of fun, and I should see her again on Friday to help her move some furniture.
I was going to stay at a Comfort Inn down in Charleston but I decided to check out Wild Dunes and they had a pretty good deal for a room at the hotel, $104 a night, which was 20 more than the Comfort I was going to stay in. I will stay at Wild Dunes three nights, go on my cruise and then stay three more nights when I return from the voyage.
I gave my first final today and I will grade that tomorrow night while I am getting ready for my colonoscopy on Wednesday. I am not worried too much about the procedure and I think the results will be fine.
I was able to clean up my office some, getting rid of extra copies of magazines I have published in, taking out some old income tax and professional expense files, and sorting out my miscellaneous pile. Very productive.

Today is turning out to be a waiting game. I would like to go up to Roanoke and perhaps have dinner with Gyorgyi, but the hourly weather report says that it will be freezing at 7, just when I would start driving home. It probably makes more sense to simply go home after I do my errands, so I am unsure what to do. I do have new tires on and it is only 1:30 so I am not sure if I should drive up there now, and see how things progress. I like walking around Roanoke, so that might be the option.
I did 20 minutes of bike riding and I went swimming at the RU pool so I hope that will help my weight and my blood pressure.
My grading has gone very well and I have about an hour’s worth left to do.
The oranges I bought from Maddie are excellent and I think I am going to juice some so I can use up a lot of them.
My friends seem to have so much going on, real problems with real anxiety, and outside of my pretty minor health stuff, I am doing quite well.

I went swimming yesterday and I rode my stationary bike pretty hard so I hope that will help me lose some weight and get my blood pressure down. I want to try to get off the blood pressure medication and today (the third day on it) my afternoon pressure was 137/67, much improved.
Today I rode hard on the bike again and I went for a walk up to the orchard. I vacuumed the house and cleaned out my instruction manuals. I also think I have the Quipp jump start device figured out (I can’t find the manual), but even though I installed the cables on the generator (I was so lucky that the generator is already set up for electric start), I am not going to try it out unless it is an absolute necessity, meaning that I can’t start the generator with the pull cord. I did charge the batteries for six hours, and they were low, both the first and second below the red. With bad weather coming in tonight and expected to last for 3 days, today was the day to get them charged. I also got one stack of movie questions graded and tonight I will start on the second batch.
Our performance last night was quite good, even though the audience reaction was non-existent. I practiced hard today and I should be able to do the Christmas songs next Friday.
I talked with Kelly today and she appreciated my gifts, for her, Alfredo and Lucia, and she has a third job interview on Wednesday. If she doesn’t get the job, then she would be paid for six months without having to do anything. However, at the end of that, she wouldn’t have a job, which could be real scary these days.
I am really looking forward to my trip to Charleston and my cruise. I am ready for some golf and some warmer weather.

A scary night. I got home around 10 and the temperature in the house was 48, so obviously the heater or the thermostat wasn’t working. I moved the thermostat to 70 and the heater instantly went on so I knew that I would have heat, at least in a few hours. I sat there watching TV bundled up and eventually lit the stove and two of the top burners. I thought the CO2 detector might go off but with the stove fan on low, I was fine. When I went to bed around 12, the heat was in the mid 60s.
The next problem was that my wrists were hurting more and more and by the time I tried to go to sleep, my right wrist was very painful. I couldn’t find a comfortable position for it so I kept waking up and a couple of times it hurt so much tears came to my eyes. I got up and I realized that I couldn’t start the generator even if I wanted to, but thankfully I had charged up the batteries the day before and there will be sun for a few days. Add to this my continuing high blood pressure and living in the hollow seemed a lot more difficult than I wanted.
When 8:30 came I drove down to the pasture and called Rob’s office and they told me to come in at 9:30. After waiting a little while, I got to see Rob and he told me that the wrist problem was from one of my yoga postures and that the inflammation was because I stopped the Alleve to try to lower my blood pressure. He told me to go back on a stronger dose of Alleve and he gave me a prescription for a blood pressure medication, saying that this would help prevent a stroke, which both my parents suffered, though in their 80s.
I am tired but I feel much better knowing what is going on and I may take a walk with Rob tonight.

The first snow, of perhaps five inches, came yesterday and it wasn’t much of a problem. I did scrape the road with the tractor around 5:00pm but the snow stopped shortly thereafter and I didn’t have to go back out. I had taken a hike to the orchard earlier and it was very pleasant to watch the snow fall and to feel the silence that a snow storm always brings.
My solar is working very well. I charged it and equalized it and last night it stayed at 100% and even this morning it was 100%. The battery was at 50.3 and I assume when I return home it will be below 100%.
I did a lot of straightening up in the house yesterday, and when I return today (after my walk with Rob and some shopping), I will do some more. Even with my regular culling, I still have lots of stuff I don’t need.
On my way in today the road was slippery and I saw four cars that had slid off. That’s what I want to get home by 3, and also to watch Tiger and see if he can win the Chevron Challenge.
I have to grade one more paper and then I am ready for tomorrow.

A good day grading and practicing in the morning and then driving up to Roanoke for a break. I donated my old sax to Valley Repair and they can use it for parts. I walked around downtown Roanoke for a half hour and then had a nice grilled tuna lunch at Awful Arthur’s. Then it was back home and since it had warmed up I decided to do some tasks.
I pruned the fruit trees so that I won’t get smacked around on the lawn tractor, then I took the plug out of the pvc pipe so the pipes won’t break when it gets real cold. I started charging the batteries and by late afternoon I had them to 100% (although I didn’t check what they really were with the hydrometer so I may be a little surprised in the morning). I also changed the oil in the generator so it should be fine till spring. I started to equalize the batteries but I will have to continue that tomorrow. I also went and cleaned up the Sisson road a little, a few bottles and cans.
My refrigerator experiment is working okay, but the temperature stays in the mid 50s—even when I fill the ice bucket--so that may be too warm. Fortunately, I will plug it in again in late February.
The peas, spinach, and lettuce seemed to have survived the freeze so I watered them and we’ll see.
I checked the 500 gallon propane tank and it still reads 87% so that is great.
I emailed another woman on Match.com but she didn’t respond so I guess I will keep trying.
I have set up my Vancouver trip (both Amtrak and Hertz), and I went with the 16 days out west adventure. That will give me more time to wander and also to see some of Plutonic’s projects if they will let me.

It is getting very cold and I was pretty chilled on my hike this morning. The solar is getting a bit low but it should be sunny the next three days so it should build back up. I think I am going to stop working on the greenhouse until late February. When I got back from Thanksgiving the lettuce and spinach and peas had frozen and it seems a good time to end things for the winter. My icebox is working well and tonight I will freeze up five more trays of ice. The temperature inside the refrigerator is about 50, slightly warmer as the ice melts. I will plug the refrigerator back in in late February. I have ketchup, mustard, mayo, yoghurt, organic salad, half and half, and some shredded cheese stored and we will see how they last. My classes are almost over and that feels very good. This weekend will be rough with final papers in the Environmental Lit class and portfolios in the poetry class.