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These hyacinths haven't bloomed yet; they are from another year.
It's another cold, dreary, rainy day here on the East Coast and it looks like a walk will be out of the question.
So many job opportunities come and gone. Waiting for my next freelance writing assignment. I turned in my last assignment on Monday and here it is 5 days later and I still don't have something new! Not good, but my goal is 4 a month, and we're not even into the month of April yet.
I spent the morning reviewing my grocery price list, which is incomplete at best, but there was enough data in it to make a new list indicating which foods that i buy regularity are best to buy at which stores.
So not surprisingly, Aldi's is the leader, with the cheapest:
Whole pineapple ($1.29)
Salad greens ($3.59 for a large clamshell)
Grapefruit (.69 ea)
sweet potatoes (.89 for a bag!)
Almond and soymilk ($2.19)
Organic jarred preserves ($2.19-$2.39)
Old-fashioned oats (42 oz, $2.39)
Steel cut oats (24 oz $2.29)
They also had frozen baby brussels sprouts which I really wanted to stock up on when i saw them for $1 a lb but they were sold out when i got there.
Shop Rite has the cheapest whole watermelons ($3.88, at certain times)/
BJs has cheap fresh organic strawberries ($2.99, 1 lb), frozen, nonorganic wild blueberries and walnuts ($3.33 a lb)
Trader Joe's has the cheapest Amy's roasted veggie pizza at $4.29 ($8 elsewhere!!)
And Amy's frozen bean burritos, which i like in a pinch, seem so far to be cheapest ($2.69 ea) at Stop & Shop, which I find hard to believe. Surely i can get them cheaper elsewhere.
Blah, humbug. I should plant the parsley seed i soaked overnight but don't feel like going in the chilly garage to get the topsoil and peat pots. Maybe tomorrow.
I watched a PBS show on the Bronte sisters last night. Very interesting.
Can't wait to go to the cacti and succulent show/sale tomorrow. I won't be coming home empty-handed, let's put it that way.
Yesterday I got my NEW CENTRAL AC installed! They have to come back around late April/May to test the system becus it's too cold to do so now, but I assume and expect it will be fine. He didn't tell me about that until he arrived, so I decided to withhold $250 in payment to make sure he comes back for the system test.
If I paid him in full, there's be no pressing reason for him to come back here when he gets really busy. He seems professional in every way, but still, i would feel better having this small $250 bit of leverage. Total cost was $4650 and that includes the cover for it and a new programmable thermostat much like the old one.
He cut down a small dead mountain laurel stump that was in the way. My only regret is that i didn't have them position the outdoor unit a foot or so further toward house corner, becus now if you sit in one of my 2 kitchen chairs at the small table i have in there, you see a large compressor, which looks even larger becus i asked them to put it extra high up on cinder blocks becus in past years with heavy spring rains there was a real torrent of water in that area. (My neighbor put in some drainage at no cost to me, since the water was coming from top of his driveway, so maybe it wouldn't happen again anyway, but better safe than sorry.)
It's a Lennox and has a one-year warranty on labor and 10 year on parts. Servicing it annually will cost $118 but I may skip the first few years since it's less likely to have issues when it's brand new. It will be interesting to see how well it cools the house.
One question mark is how comfortable my family room will be. It was an addition built after the original house, and it's the only house that doesn't have the oil furnace duct work providing heat; it has electric heat. I am hoping that my leaving my 2 French doors open in summer, which i do anyway, and having a large box fan blowing the air-conditioned air from my regular living room into it, will be enough. I also have a portable AC i can put in there if needed as well. Which I may have to do as the family room gets a tremendous amount of heat coming in from the adjacent sun room, which is all windows on 2 sides and facings south and west. Even when i close the doors to sun room and have the windows open or closed.
I know the cats are going to want to go into the sun room becus they love it in there. So I don't know if I'll let them in and out all day long and lose the cool air or enforce a No Sun Room policy during the dog days of summer in July/August when it's often unbearable during heat of the day.
Blah humbug
March 31st, 2017 at 05:50 pm
March 31st, 2017 at 06:41 pm 1490985682
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April 1st, 2017 at 04:03 pm 1491062621
Congrats on the AC!
April 1st, 2017 at 04:51 pm 1491065483
April 2nd, 2017 at 10:53 pm 1491173599