Watcha doing?

[tango]

Just realised I inadvertently closed down my tab for this forum and haven't been here in what seems like forever.

Aside from Christmas it's been the usual clutch of running, walking (not enjoying the Arctic winds much), and breaking my house. I took down the rest of the chimney stack I started to remove some time ago - now it's all the way down to the base slightly below floor level downstairs. That meant another 300lb or so of drywall to smash up and put in bags, and something in the region of a ton of concrete blocks and scraps. The blocks are gone, the drywall is in bags slowly being fed out with the regular trash.

[Sojourner]

I guess most here have experienced the effects of the "Siberian Express". Fortunately, its caboose is in sight, and I won't miss it when it's gone. I like cooler weather, but am not fond of temperatures that require me to remember to leave a fast drip on the faucets to avoid pipe freeze. The snow and ice brought on by precipitation and temps in the 20's and teens are rare here in SC -- even in the winter months. Like Florida, we don't normally have a discernible winter season, but more like a series of cold snaps before becoming moderate again. Looking forward to the "Goldilocks" temps of the mid 60's before summer brings back the typical 90's.   

[tango]

I guess most here have experienced the effects of the "Siberian Express". Fortunately, its caboose is in sight, and I won't miss it when it's gone. I like cooler weather, but am not fond of temperatures that require me to remember to leave a fast drip on the faucets to avoid pipe freeze. The snow and ice brought on by precipitation and temps in the 20's and teens are rare here in SC -- even in the winter months. Like Florida, we don't normally have a discernible winter season, but more like a series of cold snaps before becoming moderate again. Looking forward to the "Goldilocks" temps of the mid 60's before summer brings back the typical 90's.

For a couple of days it got cold enough for me to wear long pants when out for my daily walk.

[Cloudwalker]

Florida even got snow.  Fortunately not in my neck of the woods.  Keep in mind I like snow...in the mountains where it belongs.  If I want to see it I will go see it.  Thank you very much.

[Kingfisher]

Florida even got snow.  Fortunately not in my neck of the woods.  Keep in mind I like snow...in the mountains where it belongs.  If I want to see it I will go see it.  Thank you very much.

I live in SE Texas. We had 5" of snow at my house last Tuesday and the low got in the teens. The high for the day was 32! That's the most snow we've had since I've been alive. I have teenagers still in the house so we had fun with it. Snow ball wars...and hydro sliding behind my brother in laws 4 wheeler

[Cloudwalker]

Florida even got snow.  Fortunately not in my neck of the woods.  Keep in mind I like snow...in the mountains where it belongs.  If I want to see it I will go see it.  Thank you very much.

I live in SE Texas. We had 5" of snow at my house last Tuesday and the low got in the teens. The high for the day was 32! That's the most snow we've had since I've been alive. I have teenagers still in the house so we had fun with it. Snow ball wars...and hydro sliding behind my brother in laws 4 wheeler

Sounds like fun.  I grew up in Central Illinois and never got stuck on winter roads until I lived in Texas.

[Kingfisher]

Florida even got snow.  Fortunately not in my neck of the woods.  Keep in mind I like snow...in the mountains where it belongs.  If I want to see it I will go see it.  Thank you very much.

I live in SE Texas. We had 5" of snow at my house last Tuesday and the low got in the teens. The high for the day was 32! That's the most snow we've had since I've been alive. I have teenagers still in the house so we had fun with it. Snow ball wars...and hydro sliding behind my brother in laws 4 wheeler

Sounds like fun.  I grew up in Central Illinois and never got stuck on winter roads until I lived in Texas.

SE Texas weather can be extreme. 100+ degrees in the summer with enough humidity that you need to wear a snorkel to breath.
In the Winter it can get to teen temps, snow and freezing weather. A local historian recorded that in 1960 Orange Texas (City near where I live) received 10" of snow. That's not the record. In 1895 there was 33" of snow and single digit temps. Sabine Lake froze to the point that recent Dutch immigrants in Nederland Texas near Sabine Lake took out their ice skates...that they thought they would no longer get to use. They were able to ice skate Sabine Lake and Sabine Pass!

[tango]

We got a few frozen patterns on the outside of our windows. Not much, they were confined to a very small area and were very small. I remember as a child, before double glazing was a thing, waking to see frozen leaf shapes all over the outside of the windows.

[tango]

A bunch of running lately. With the cold weather I haven't been able to get out as much as I wanted so when I got a few warm days I went out.

Now my calf muscles hate me. I hate my calf muscles. Tomorrow we're supposed to get a wintry mix so no running for me tomorrow, I'll probably just bundle up and walk.

[tango]

My suggested workout today was "rest". I can do that tomorrow when the weather is supposed to be nasty, so today I ran a little over 10k on a local route. Surprisingly my legs don't hate me at the moment, although that might change in the morning.

[Athanasius]

Figuring out my "10 year to avoid statins" plan.

[IMINXTC]

Am wondering about PCIM. Is site not okay?

[RabbiKnife]

Figuring out my "10 year to avoid statins" plan.

I'm 10 months in to my plan.

I'm vegan at this point.  No meat, no dairy, no added oils, no eggs.  Nothing with a face or a momma.  Mostly whole plant based, keep processing to a minimum.  Bread is mostly lentil bread and pastas are chickpea or lentil based. 

Learned to cook and enjoy a lot of new dishes.

Cholesterol is down a bit, but I don't care about cholesterol.  Your brain needs it, your body produces it, and very little change is brought about by diet.

Only metric for me is cardiac calcium score and health of coronary arteries. 

[Athanasius]

Am wondering about PCIM. Is site not okay?

I haven't heard from Tim in ages

[tango]

Had some fun breaking a kitchen. Having taken out the chimney stack I mentioned a few weeks back I got the kitchen units disassembled. I had hoped to preserve the countertop but it proved to be a piece of nasty chipboard that was water damaged, and it broke when I tried to move it around.

With the units pulled away from the wall I could rip the drywall out and remove the featherboards, and then I found a few more places that the cold air was coming in. Cue the deployment of another can of spray foam to fill the gaps. Then I figured where another draft must have been coming in, but to get at that required removing another baseboard, which was behind a cast iron radiator that weighs a lot more than I do. Moving something six feet wide that weighs somewhere around 3-400lb was an experience, but I got it far enough away from the wall that I could rip out everything behind it and find the hole, exactly as I expected to find it. It is now also filled with foam and the room is definitely warmer. There's still something not right and I'm not sure whether it's as simple as an old door that doesn't fill the door frame completely, or if there are still more surprises awaiting me.

But for now I have a bunch of gaps in the wall cemented up, a load of spray foam filling the holes that used to be there, less money going out in heating to fight the cold air rushing in, and hopefully I also closed the portal used by the occasional mouse that found its way into my pantry. I could never figure out how they got from outside to a space with no exterior walls but in pulling stuff apart I can see the route they may have taken. But now the entryways are sealed up and the route is sufficiently exposed it seems unlikely they'll be coming in any more. I'll leave the mousetraps in place for a while, because you never know with those things. Apparently the smell of cat in the house isn't enough to deter them.