I think my desk is in the coldest corner of the house.  It’s definitely the furthest from the furnace, and I think the square of floor under my desk is influenced more by the outside temperature on the other side of the wall than by the heated air blowing down from above.  A slab foundation, hardwood floors, and forced air heat from the ceiling just aren’t a good combination for warm feet.  Any concrete floor that I ever pour for myself, even for a chicken house, is going to have pipes for radiant heat.  That would feel really good right now. Read more »

I haven’t talked much about diet lately, because I was doing kind of a half-hearted job of it.  I didn’t have any real high-carb days (except one Christmas party), because I finally got it through my head that I really don’t want to go into a seizure from falling blood sugar after the peak.  But I was getting a few too many carbs here and there—eating a few of the fries I forgot to tell them to leave out when I ordered a burger, taking a vegetable dish at a potluck that turned out to have rice in it, and things like that.  It was probably only a couple times a week, but if it takes 3-4 days for your metabolism to get fully into a solid fat-burning groove, twice a week is often enough to keep knocking it out of the groove before it gets started. Read more »

My tip for today: if you ever accidentally put something other than brake fluid in the brake fluid reservoir of your vehicle, don’t drive it.  Take the reservoir off immediately, dump it out, and make sure you get it cleaned out well and filled back up with proper brake fluid. Read more »

I don’t think this is my first “Catching Up” post, and it probably won’t be my last.  I promised myself that when all the holiday parties were over (I attended nine get-togethers between Dec. 20th and Jan. 2), I’d get back to blogging regularly.  So I’ll start by catching up on the past couple months. Read more »