Thursday

It's been a busy day here at Chez Harris. I made a batch of chicken and noodles, listened to a couple of online classes, baked a loaf of bread, sorted through a closet, winterproofed more of the house, took out the trash, cleaned a bit, played with my furry beasties, walked a mile, and took a nap. Currently taking a break before a bath and shampoo, and then I'll call it a night.

It was pretty warm out on Monday and Tuesday, so I made certain that I got outside for a while. Still hauling branches and twigs to the curb from the last ice storm. I should be done with that chore early next week if the forecast for the sixties and seventies holds. Took the trike out and picked up some soda. It was sunny out both days, so I had to wear the welding glasses. Without them, I'm completely blind in sunlight.

Winterizing after I moved in here three years ago wasn't easy. That's the fun of living in a hundred year old home. There are a couple of rooms where the walls and floors don't quite meet. Heat rushes right through them. I stuffed them with weatherstripping to hold off the cold. The gaps have grown a bit since then.  Today, I rolled up a couple dozen cloth dinner napkins and stuffed them in the cracks. It helped a lot. The house is much warmer now. It's in the thirties outside, so I've closed off a few rooms. The furnace and the electric fireplace are keeping the main part of the house in the low seventies.

I'm ready for spring. For growing things, leaves on the trees, longer days, sunshine, rain showers. Winter is my least favorite month. Spring is my absolute favorite. Every time I go out the door, I check to see if my hyacinths are poking up out of the ground.

The online classes I'm currently taking are "Ancient History" and "Quantum Mechanics". I'm enjoying both, but would love to have textbooks to learn with. Still not proficient enough in Braille to use them at this time, so I try to memorize as much as I can. I practice using Braille daily, and wish it was as simple as learning to read print was many decades ago. I'm still reading slowly, uncontracted, but that is fairly easy. Contracted Braille, Nemeth Code, and numbers are in the future. Every time I use them, it feels as though I'm trying to translate a teenagers text message. I will learn it, it's just taking awhile. I can write with the Perkins Brailler when arthritis isn't too horrible. The rest of the time, I'm using a stylus and slate. Figuring out a way to make the stylus more comfortable for arthritic hands is proving to be a challenge. Tried a few things, and have more in mind to try. I've got grocery and to do lists done in Braille. They are handy.

For Christmas, I bought myself an autoharp. A simple children's version, but I'm enjoying it. I'd been thinking for awhile of picking up a new instrument after giving away my old keyboard a couple of years ago. It is a lot of fun. I saved screenshots of sheet music that I'd like to play, and will enlarge and print them. There are already quite a few that I can play by ear. I found a couple of tuning apps that I'm happy with.

This evening has been lovely. The house is clean and smells wonderful. There are two bouquets of stargazer lilies in the house, making me smile each time I catch a whiff of their fragrance. I borrowed a friend's unused bread maker recently, and there is a loaf cooling on the wire rack in the kitchen. Laundry is done, and there are clothes drying on the wooden rack. I smell a bit of fabric softener whenever I walk past it. I'm snuggled on the loveseat with several pillows, a fleece blanket, and Moriarty the cat. There's a cup of cocoa with whipped cream on top of it. Demeter is asleep, curled up in the armchair across the room. Doctor Who is playing in the background on prime. I've found that I don't mind not having over the air tv as much as I thought I would. I enjoy nights like this. Treasure  them, in fact.

I moved Watson's fish bowl to the living room to keep it warmer. He's covering every inch of his bowl, checking out the new sights. I try to keep him in places where things move or change outside of his bowl. At times, I'll light a candle and place it a foot or two away from him, just for atmosphere. I know, he's just a fish, but I know I'd hate to live in a place where nothing ever changes, so I won't do that to my pets.

Enough for now...