Preparing to hibernate

The Troll and I have been busy preparing our cave for winter.  We spent much of last weekend transferring about 700 cubic feet of insulation from the basement (where it sat in tightly wrapped bundles) to the attic (where it now lies in a nice solid pink blanket).  The in-between stages of this process weren't nearly as neat; at the end of the day, I vacuumed up so much fiberglass from the hallway that the brush attachment looked like a wad of cotton candy.  But the effort was well worth it; we got the insulation in place just in time for the first frost of the season, and as the outdoor temperature dropped into the 20s, our house stayed a cozy 60 degrees.  Tonight's projects will include lubricating the boiler pump so we can fire up the heating system, wrapping up the air conditioner in its winter blanket, and attempting to salvage whatever fruits are left on our tomato plants.

I'm actually quite enjoying this whole process of settling in for winter.  It makes me feel all cozy and domestic.  Once the cold weather arrives in earnest, I'll probably be much grumpier about it, but right now it's, "Yeah, hot soup, wool sweaters, football games!  Bring it on!"

On Being Sick

Despite my best efforts to ward off the infection with Zicam, I seem to have caught the cold that the Troll had a couple of days ago.  As I mope around the house blowing my nose repeatedly, I have to admit that there is one upside to being sick: it's the perfect excuse for not doing whatever you really didn't want to do anyway.  For instance:

"I can't exercise today; I'm sick.  I can't do laundry or clean the bathroom or run errands, either.  I need to rest, which means lying on the couch in my comfiest, slouchiest clothes, watching Jane Austen movies on tape.  I'm too sick to eat salad and whole-grain bread; that stuff's only good for you when you're healthy.  Right now I need soft, comforting food like matzo ball soup and ice cream.  And I'm only going to read fluffy novels today, because serious books full of useful information are just too tiring."  And so on.

Not that this is really enough to make up for the raw throat and dripping nose and general ickiness, but it's something.

Gnome Redux

He's not nearly as pretty in profile, is he?