Sunday, February 24, 2008

February Birthdays

It was Katie's birthday! All of the family got together at mom and dad's for a turkey dinner (well, lunch) because it is Katie's favorite. I was in charge of dessert. Katie requested a pumpkin spice trifle and it was delivered! See pic...
All the kids were very cute...Nick played catch with Grandpa, Maggie and Libby had matching ponytails, etc. etc. Grandma Wood was in attendance!
Here's the pics from the day.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Snowy, Cold, Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday folks! Yep, that's right! Time to get out there and attend your primary or caucus, exercize your right and duty to be a part of the political process, and most importantly, make your vote count and kiss Bush's ass goodbye! Anyway. Life for us has been good - it's been one of the harder winters on record here in Boise. Our 1957 oil furnace went on the fritz the first week in January...it only worked when it wanted to, spewed black smoke when it finally fired and made the whole house smell constantly of fuel. I hated it. It scared me when it fired because flames shot out of various mechanical orifices and it sounded like a freight train rumbling through the house when it decided to come on. It cost me tons of money in parts, labor and service; and in doing the research for a new furnace, I discovered that I had spent well over $2500 for fuel for basically two seasons - and we NEVER ran the furnace! Anyone who has spent time at our house in the winter knows we function in refrigerator temps because we can't afford the oil. (A rant for another time - EXXON is sitting on $25 billion and virtually no debt! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8646744/ I wonder how that happened? Maybe because I pay $3.18 per gallon for oil to heat my home and $3.00 a gallon to fuel my car. Man, something's gotta change.) So! A new 80% efficient two-stage gas furnace has been installed in my basement - replacing the scary, nasty, hulking beast of an oil furnace. Seriously, the footprint of the new furnace is less than half of what the old furnace was. The installation was of course, as unsmooth as possible...as it always is in my old house. They had to install the actual gas line from the main in the alley to the house (imagine backhoes and large men with beer bellies and visible cracks), pipe the gas into the house (a process that changed several times over the course of the day), disassemble and remove the old furnace and air cleaner (seeing the three inch layer of dust, dirt and dog hair in the ducts might lead one to deduce the air cleaner has not worked in at least the 10 years I have been there), install the new furnace, have the gas line pressure tested by the City, have Intermountain Gas come out and install the new meter, etc. etc...all with no less than six men running around my back yard and basement; banging, dragging, yelling, listening to J-105, digging large holes (three), tracking mud, water, and dog crap all over the once pristine snow covering my yard. It was stressful. But! Now, you can barely hear it when the heat comes on, it's clean, and to be frank, almost too warm for me! I have lived in a heat-restricted environment for so long, the continous heat is almost an assault to my senses. But, I'm dealing. :) Special thanks to Western Heating and Air Conditioning here in Boise for their awesome job and great customer service! I would highly recommend them for anything you may need in the HVAC arena. That's it! Be warm! (We are!)