[rujerro]

GB- That's cool that hoses were hooked up from bath to the washing machines and you can use the machines! I wonder why no water in other 2 rooms? Do you have a well as well as city water?

Dlrcpa- Glad that your brother was able to move his stuff (with gentle coaxing and guidance I'm sure).

Erma- Friday can't come soon enough and I prayed that everyone could get their utilities back! The weather is unusual and heat/water are too important to lose.

I'm hoping everyone who is battling the lack of utilities in Texas can get through this turmoil safely. Hearing about it is so upsetting! I've seen hotels allow people in their seating areas/foyers so people can be warm and even sleep in those areas. I've seen people drive hours to find a hotel that allow outsiders to sleep in seating areas.

I made chicken soup in the crock today while DH made burritos. Tomorrow, DH will get fish at a local place( from Britain) whose mother makes meat pasties and other uk items.

 

[ermadunk]

Was suppose to have a rolling black out for 1 hour last night never happened.Today the water company turned off water for this erea suppose do some work and said it be back on by 6pm it 9:05pm still no water and that was little after lunch guess my luck has run out.There are several people without water now.It quit snowing around 10 last night sun been shining today but not warm enough to melt any snow.Maby a little on roof.

 

[dlrcpa]

Erma I hope you got your water back on, that is a big problem. Did not get that much snow/sleet/ice here. Roads cleared but driveway is still icy, needs to melt off, maybe on the weekend. I plan to go to parents' house Sunday. Buyer walk-through set for Tuesday late afternoon after the husband gets off work. There is daylight to 6pm so should be able to see good enough outside. May make pizza for supper, otherwise leftovers.

 

[Grammarbug]

Our lack of power and water can be blamed directly on our governor. He is blaming ERCOT for not winterizing our electrical stations, but in fact Abbott didnt want to pay federal government to help do that. We are the only state that didn’t. Even Bill Gates called him out, so now something is going to get done. This weather is very unusual I agree, but people have lost their homes and businesses due to broken pipes and flooding. Our lovely senator Ted Cruz took his family to Cancun to get away, but he was caught on tv and he flew back. Unbelievable! I went to Kroger yesterday and shelves were empt. Worse than beginnping of pandemic. Sprouts lost all their food that had to be refrigerated or frozen.

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Glad to hear folks are getting power back and hope water is fixed soon. /rant/ I don't think you can place blame anywhere for a once in a century storm that should never have happened. Even if TX was hooked up to the power sharing grid with other states, everyone around them had power outages too so it would not have helped. It was no picnic in OK, LA, or Ark, and they have the same issues. Ted Cruz is a piece of work all right. He and Josh Hawley should crawl back into the cesspool they came out of. /end rant/

I think it is supposed to get above freezing today. We still have 4" of snow on the ground. So tired of it, but at least the sun is out today.

DH is out of milk, and the bread has gone moldy so I am going grocery shopping today. Two stores having Lent sales, but mostly shrimp which DH can't eat. Going to look for actual fish, not sticks, or nuggets, or patties. Power was off and on for a few days, hope they have not lost their frozen goods.

Ru, your chicken soup sounds nice and comforting.

Dlr, hope the walkthrough goes smoothly. Selling the house will be a great burden off your shoulders.

Plan for dinner is to pick up gyros and salad from a local shop. I'm tired of cooking, and tired in general. Have a turkey breast from earlier in the week to pick meat off of, and will use that for sandwiches at lunch, then freeze carcass for later.

Take care everyone,

 

[jettsmom]

The sun is shining and it is warming up. Predicting 60's one day next week. Today I have some orders to pick up. Didn't really buy much food, mostly bird seed and snacks for the girls. Going to stop at Aldi for a few things. Milk is cheaper there and I can pick some that don't expire tomorrow. That happened at walmart. Need some fruit too. I'll get bread next week, we still have a loaf.

Oldest dgd will spend the night. Not sure if younger is coming to play for a bit. She usually does. She's getting better at staying here. She tells mom to go home. Not sure what we'll eat. When they came a few days ago, dinner didnt' go well. Constant interruptions.

Dinner tonight will be salad and pizza

 

[Contrary Housewife]

Good luck at Aldi. Mine was wiped out like the first week of COVID. Signs up saying the bread truck hadn't come in. Lot of empty shelves and freezer cases. They had one guy working to restock all the frozen stuff. I think they lost power at some point this week.

 

[ermadunk]

Erma I hope you got your water back on, that is a big problem. Did not get that much snow/sleet/ice here. Roads cleared but driveway is still icy, needs to melt off, maybe on the weekend. I plan to go to parents' house Sunday. Buyer walk-through set for Tuesday late afternoon after the husband gets off work. There is daylight to 6pm so should be able to see good enough outside. May make pizza for supper, otherwise leftovers.

Water is back on today.

 

[Livin Large]

Hope Everyone is warm and has power.

GB - glad you have power back on and I hope you get your water back soon.

I've been without power for 50 hours and our power company is saying it could be more than 14 days for all their customers to get power back.. I'm worried for the elderly and those that were not prepares like I was, I have a gas stove and fireplace insert so I'm warm and can cook. My ground isn't frozen so my pipes shouldn't be frozen either. I have plenty of food too. As soon as the power went out I turned my laptop off to save the battery.

Lessons learned - I need backup batteries for my solar generator so I have more power. I'm only using it 2-3 hours at a time twice a day for 2 days and then it's out of juice. Today the sun finally shined and I was able to charge it over half the way. Need more solar lanterns for the house too and use half one night and the other half the next night or something like that especially if the sun doesn't shine. Barrels full of water outside will freeze - duh! I guess when I set them up was thinking of power outage in the summer and not temps in the teens, I read the 1 cup of molasses will keep 50 gallons of water from freezing, it may be slush but won't freeze solid. I can buy animal grade for $8/gallon. Because of the hint of sweetness the animals will supposedly drink more. Nut all in all I was very well prepared and so very thankful for the time I spent getting ready.

Today I finally left the house, first time since last friday. I went to Radio Shack because I need to make some new cables for the solar generator, one that will connect from a battery to the generator and from a solar panel to a battery. Well when I got to Radio Shack it was closed, empty windows and empty store, I googled one in a near by town and when i called the phone number it had been disconnected, Does Radio Shack even exist any more?? So in desperate hope I went to Harbor Freight to see if they had something I could use or make work. I bought clamp ends to fit on a battery because I know I will need them and ended up buying a soldering thingy in case I decide to take an existing cable to make what I need. Then went to Advanced Auto Parts to buy 1-2 deep cycle batteries. They best ones they sell are $200 each. I started talking with the gal and she told me that if a battery sits on the shelf for 1 year that they sell them for $42.99 each plus a $20 core charge. I ended up buying four 1 year old batteries after she tested them and they all tested like new. I mentioned that I have 2 old batteries at home and she told me to bring in next time I'm in town and took off the $20 core charge for all 4 batteries. What should have cost $800 plus tax only cost $172 plus tax. Tomorrow I'll work on making the cable so I can use the batteries to run my generator. Super excited!

My laptop battery id at 50%, time to turn it off. I"ll log in when I can keep ya updated. Stay sate and warm!!

 

[Contrary Housewife]

LL, Radio Shack has been gone for years. Great deal on the batteries, though. Hope you get your power back faster than that. I hear that a lot of the delays are caused by the number of things they have to dig up to get at anything these days. For example, if they have to repair water, they have to dig around all kinds of things, phone cables, fiber optics, power lines, etc.

 

[marthamfi]

I hope everyone effected is doing ok! I have seen the photos so scary cus not like it is common or once every few decades that you can prep for. I see the people helping others too. hopefully warms up fast.
We get more wind storms etc to lose power but of course depends where you are and how stable the power is in your area.
that was good timing you got your prep done LL. and great deal on the batteries. We still have radio shack but it is called something else now the source but more cell phones etc then cables. do you have the solar batteries for laptop cells etc? Dlcpa, you must be happy the house is almost done.

nothing exciting rain and sun 40s today. kids , housework etc. reg work. our anniversary today 21yrs together 31 told dh we can do something later and go out w his friend like normal plus he is less stressed for the weekend. we don't need anything may send kids to my moms for a free night at home. teens are up later then us lol. did prime roast on tuesday. frozen homemade soup for dinner. have gift cards to use up so will get takeout on the weekend. leftovers are eaten so nothing in a fridge to use up. though need a pantry challenge lots of things in freezer drawers didn't remember.

 

[rujerro]

LL- Great job on prepping and batteries/mcgyvering things. I worry about solar power when there's power outages because what if it's cloudy out? Then the solar batteries can't charge. Or they charge but only up to 25% max. I purchased a generator but we can't buy gas if no power since gas pumps need electric to pump it. I should get a jackery and have both.

DH wanted fish for Friday but didn't go out. I'll make it today. DS2 wanted veg- got squash & beans. I'd say 5 lbs. of it so I hope he eats it. He loves veg and I used to be vegetarian but as I've gotten older, fiber is not my friend.

I got home from work and wanted to make french bread. I made 2 loaves. My baking makes things very soft. The bread comes out with a soft texture like a marshmallow. I use a water bath to try to crisp the outside but nope. It may do well for garlic bread in the oven later on. Honestly, I treat it like a doughnut and have it with coffee.

I'll do some laundry and ride my bike. I'm a night owl for sure. I never thought so but I see that I'm more awake at night.

 

[Grammarbug]

Water came on today. Hopefully things are getting back to the so-called normal.

 

[KmmCo]

Picked up some OT on Thursday (4 hours) that should put $100 in my pocket. Every bit helps. I did not spend any money this week except for $25 gasoline for my van and 50 cents at Goodwill. I had property taxes to pay this month, and even though I had some savings for that, I want to not spend too much this month and start to put some back into savings for the next time.

I stayed out of the grocery store by eating up miscellaneous leftovers the last couple of days. The only thing that I am out of is milk, but I can use powdered milk if I need any for cooking. I don't need it for breakfast as I have assorted fruit, eggs, english muffins, grits or oatmeal. Plenty to chose from for breakfast options. I can do toast or make breakfast burritos too as I have a little bread and a few tortillas left.

Today I have some chicken breast in the crockpot for dinner and will serve it with some potatoes and veggies that I have here. The leftovers will be packaged up for work lunches. I may cook some rice to do the lunch preps if I don't have enough potatoes. The chicken is well seasoned and has a nice cream of chicken soup/sour cream sauce that I have made before.

 

[dlrcpa]

Cleaned up last area of basement where brother has been living, it looks so much nicer with empty space and the floors cleaned. Needs painting badly but the buyers realize that and painting is not that hard when the room is empty. Hopefully just 2 more trips to make - walk-through Tuesday and settlement Friday. I will be glad to stop putting so many miles on my car and burning so much gas.

 

[Grammarbug]

It’s sunny here. Going to make grilled goat cheese and arugula sandwiches for lunch and then DD and I are going to the casino to pick up my waffle maker that I couldn’t get because of the ice. Got laundry to do also. Nothing else going on today.

 

[KimB]

Attended mass then visited my mom. She got herself a Cavapoo puppy. She was getting lonely without my dad who passed away. He’s full of energy and keeping her busy with the house training. A nice thing about the cold weather is that he does his business and wants to come right back in.

 

[rujerro]

Kim- That pup sounds so cute.
Dlrcpa- I'll be happy for you when the house sale is completed and you can rest.
Kmm- Glad to hear you got OT and a full pantry during these times.

I found 93/7 ground beef on clearance so will make chili at some point. Currently, DH put beef ribs on the smoker. I am thawing chicken and pot roast and flounder for the week's dinners. Making jerk chicken tacos, pot roast, fried fish, boiled eggs.......Found a quinoa rye bread on clearance and it looked good.

Weather should be nice and then back to the deep freeze. ick

My kid got a empty coin book and wants to collect coins for it. Those state quarters are for the book and then he said he wants those golden presidential dollars. Did I mention he wants to collect gaming chips from the casinos in Vegas?? I posted a ad on the local neighborhood about the coins. I'll pay current value for them if anyone has any for his book....

Someone posted a video of their girl scout, dressed as a cookie monster, and delivering cookies. It was toooo cute. I sent a message that we'll order cookies. DS2 wanted some and DH loves the peanut butter ones. Gotta support all the scouts, boys and girls.....

 

[dlrcpa]

It is snowing outside right now. Sure hope it changes to rain as predicted. Sick of the snow and ice. I need to go to the post office to see about forwarding dad's mail. Info on the internet is not much help. Hamburgers for supper. I tried to shovel snow/ice from around the grill yesterday but it was frozen solid, so I hope it thaws today. I hope everyone's weather is warming up.

 

[Grammarbug]

It was 73 here yesterday. You never know. I’m going to take some plastic grocery bags to a friend who makes mats for homeless out of them and then a bag of food to the church food pantry. Some kind of chicken for dinner.