The Laundromat Experience

How long has it been since you've had to use a laundromat?  Here are some images to get you in the mood:

There is a laundromat in Nederland, but the least expensive washer is $4 per load.  This laundromat in Boulder that I use still has some $2 machines.

I have a full-sized stackable washer and dryer in storage back in Missouri that I pine for, although having it here would do me no good since I have neither space nor running water.  I put off doing laundry as long as possible, especially in the winter when the weather is harsh making it difficult to get the bags of dirty clothes out to the car.  I have enough clothes, bedding and towels and wash cloths to last about a month.  But I was really running out of clean clothes and knew yesterday I couldn't procrastinate any longer. 

There are certain things essential for this outing:

Quarters.  There's a branch of my bank just north of this laundromat so I stop there, get $20 from the ATM and then go in the bank and get two rolls.

A good book:

I had almost finished this, so it was just the right amount of book to get me through the laundry.  I had never read any of R.J. Ellory's books.  It was quite good, but he is English and this was set primarily in the U.S. and there were some glitches that a good American editor should have caught...a reference to Mardi Gras being the first week of April, for one.  Think he must have had that mixed up with spring break or something. At any rate, it was good enough that I'll probably read another one of his novels if the library has it or can get it.  I wonder if he could use a paid American reader?

Fluffy Terry Cloth Robes.  Just kidding.  But I did have the passing thought yesterday that this would be a good idea.  Sort of like a spa so mountain people could shuck off everything and wash it.  As it was I had to settle for shucking off my coat and washing it because for about the last month everywhere I went people were commenting that I smelled like a camp fire.  Love that blow-back smoke.

I have been storing all of my laundry products in my car trunk to open up limited space in my cupboards.  The last time I did laundry, the liquids were thick, but not frozen solid even though I know we'd been having freezing temperatures.  Yesterday everything was frozen.  The Woolite Extra Dark Care that I like to use for my black clothes...

was frozen solid and the Resolve was slurry consistency.  The laundromat had warm water and a bucket so I was able to thaw them out fairly quickly while I was sorting my laundry.  

[Note to self:  Next time, put liquid laundry products inside the car and turn the heater on  high for the trip down the canyon].

Do you take for granted the ease of throwing in a load of laundry while you prepare supper or watch your favorite T.V. show?  Teddee

Well, That Was Disappointing

What a crazy day.  The weather NOAA had predicted for yesterday never transpired so I elected to stay at the cabin last night rather than take a room at the Golden Buff Lodge in Boulder, which I considered to insure I would make my appointment at the senior center to have my taxes done by the AARP volunteer service. 

Got up this morning at 7 a.m.  Lifted the curtain.  No snow overnight, no wind.  Great.  I made the right decision.  Forty-five minutes later it is snowing so hard I can't see across the road.  It keeps on snowing.  I decide I'm going to have to cancel my appointment.  I try to call the West Side Senior Center and keep getting rerouted to the East Side Senior Center.  After three attempts, I give up and the snow stops.  Must be meant to be. 

By this time, the water, which has been heating on the wood stove, is almost warm enough to wash in so I clean up, shampoo, decide what to wear, get dressed, get bundled up and head to the car.  The wind is starting to pick up. 

I get to Boulder an hour early, so make a quick trip to the bank and then circle back to the senior center.  I'm asked to complete a form with some basic information for the tax preparer and after about a 20-minute wait, during which I read, I'm called in.  The tax preparer assigned to do my taxes verifies that I've started a little editing business and informs me that filing a Schedule C is not within the purview of the AARP volunteers. 

She's apologetic and spends quite a bit of time trying to get the contact information for a possible alternative, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA), which operates out of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado in Boulder, but cautions that they also may not be able to help me if I'm filing a Schedule C. 

Since I'm combining this appointment with laundry, I decide to go ahead and do laundry and call the School of Business tomorrow and find out if they can assist m, gratis, or if I'm going to have to bite the bullet and pay to have a tax service prepare my return.  I'd do it myself, but last year, having lived in Arizona for the first four months of the previous year, I had to prepare my Arizona return myself--the Colorado AARP volunteer could not do this either--and got a different result each of five times I did the calculations, picked one, paid it in two payments and decided I was never going to even attempt preparing any tax return ever again.

When I finish doing laundry, I stop to get some cat food for the foxes, and from the supermarket parking lot I look toward the mountains and see this right over Eldora...

Yep, those are clouds. Do they contain snow or just wind?  Do I really want to drive up the canyon into this?  Well, I do it and it's all clear until I get right to the outskirts of Nederland where it is windy with blowing snow, but when I get to the cabin, it's perfectly quiet.  However, there's no visible walkway.  It has totally drifted in and the snow is almost up to my knees.  It's about 15F degrees outside and 32F degrees inside the cabin.  I'd left some coffee unfinished in my rush this morning and it wasn't frozen, but was so cold it hurt my teeth. 

I was glad I came home, though.  Both foxes came to eat at the same time this evening.  And, of course, my camera succumbed before I could get a good photo of the two of them together, but I did get one good shot of one of them.

A wonderful ending to a crazy day.  How was yours?  Teddee

A Gorgeous Day for Doing

It was so wonderfully quiet when I awoke this morning.  No wind, no sounds, nothing banging, knocking, racketing.  Beautiful even though it was only 9F degrees when I got up.  NOAA predicted a 10 percent chance of snow after 11 a.m. with wind gusts of 22 mph.  Nada.  No wind, sunny and a high of at least 40F degrees.  They also are predicting a 60 percent chance of snow tonight after 11 p.m. with a possible accumulation of one to two inches and another two to four tomorrow with wind gusts as high as 55 mph.  I hope they are as wrong about that as they were about today because I have that 10:40 a.m. appointment in Boulder tomorrow to get my taxes done...and I hate digging out in the wind. 

I decided, though, based on that weather report, I'd better get out, carry in some wood and do my other regular outdoor chores.

Dixie the three-legged Australian cattle dog came for the second day in a row...

...do you think she feels comfortable here?!!!...but when she saw I was getting my boots, coat and hat on, she got right down off the bunk where I'd lifted her and sat outside while I did the usual outside chores, including loading the empty water jugs into the car.  Dixie loves riding in the car and thought I was going to Nederland, but I loaded her into the car and took her back to her house where her running mate, Jimmy...

isn't he a cutie?...and the household cat were waiting for her.  I didn't want Dixie here in case I decided to drive to Boulder today and take the Golden Buff Lodge Best Western up on its offer to mountain residents of a $60-a-night rate when the weather is bad up here. 

While I was keeping an eye on the sky and deciding whether to go down and stay overnight in Boulder, I got a lot done.  I think I was motivated by being able to have the door to the cabin open--it was that nice--or it just improves the energy in the cabin when the door is open.  For some reason, it just makes it seem roomier in here and when the weather is moderate I can go in and out without fighting all the accoutrements I have to have on the door when the wind is blowing, can easily discard used dishwater and rinse water and even wash some bigger pots and pans outside where I can splash.with abandon.  So I did dishes--a lot of them--I don't even want to say how long it had been since I'd really washed up everything, but I was totally out of silverware!  Then I cleaned up that corner where I store the food and water I don't want to freeze. 

In the process, I finally got around to making a dish we often had at the holidays when I was growing up--corn and oysters.  I'm not all that fond of oysters.  I can't stomach them raw, but grew up eating them at the holidays in oyster stew, which I just sort of mouthed and swallowed, and this corn and oyster casserole.  For some reason, a couple of weeks ago, I started thinking I'd like that casserole.  I fancied this up a bit mainly because I was trying to use up some things that I thought might spoil if I didn't.  So, I started out with my little slow cooker that friend Paula gave me for Christmas year before last.  Drained and dumped in a can of corn and a can of oysters, added some evaporated milk and crushed saltines.  Now that, along with some dabs of butter and plenty of salt and pepper, is the original recipe as far as I recall.  Today, I added some frozen spinach well drained and some lite sour cream, lemon pepper, paprika and salt to taste. 

After I got my chores done I decided I'd try putting some of the cooked mixture into a couple of little tart tins and baking the miniature casseroles in the wood stove oven.  They came out looking great...and taste the same!

It was a gorgeous day for doing.  What did you do today?  Teddee

Camp Pucker

All the members of my immediate family can find things so hilariously funny that we get, as we say, "hysterical."  If you do not know us, or from a distance, you might think we were, in fact, crying.  Our faces contort uncontrollably.  Our laughter sounds like sobs.  We gasp for breath.  We cry real tears.  In a group, we feed into each other's "hysteria," laughing because the other person is laughing and because he or she is having so much trouble explaining what's funny without getting even more hysterical.  But a group, I've found, isn't essential to this phenomenon. 

I was working on my income taxes today in preparation for an appointment with a tax preparer on Tuesday.  Volunteer tax preparers, trained by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), prepare tax returns free through the senior centers in Boulder and other Colorado towns.  I don't know if this service is offered nationwide, but I used the service for the first time last year on the recommendation of my friend Paula and found it very helpful...and easy on the budget.

I have been doing a bit of freelance editing, so thought I'd better go prepared with a list of possible business-related deductions.  I was looking, in particular, for printer paper and printer ink expenditures and knew many of these would be scattered throughout purchases of org milk, grnd trky, salmon flts and acid reducr I had made at Walmart.  [Note to self:  Have these business-related items rung up separately from now on].  I'm very short of work space in this one-room cabin, so was finding it difficult to sort through all these receipts I was balancing on one knee without having them fall on the floor and was getting increasingly frustrated with the entire operation.

About this time I spotted an item on one receipt that caught my attention:  Camp Pucker.  Camp Pucker?  What in the heck had I purchased that would appear on a receipt as Camp Pucker?  I could feel my thoughts careening around my brain in search of the answer like the steel ball in a pinball machine.  Then, the ball shot off laterally and all I could think of was the unfortunate child whose parents had just signed him up for Camp Pucker.  Waay worse than Outward Bound!  I started giggling, then laughing, then guffawing, then crying and couldn't quit.  I'd just get my tears wiped and my nose blown and I'd think about it again and off I'd go.

I finally figured out it was a camp shirt made of today's version of seersucker I bought right before I went to visit my brother in Tacoma last July.

Life can be a lot of fun by yourself in a 200+-square-foot cabin in the Rocky Mountains.

What made you laugh today?  Teddee

I Got Out!

What a difference a day makes.  It got up to 40F degrees today and did it early.  Sunny.  A little breeze, but not bad.  So I got bundled up, did my outdoor chores and started digging out.  Soon had to take my coat off.

The only way to approach this is one shovel full at a time and don't think about the project as a whole.

Made it to the car.  I don't know if the snow plow operator thinks he's helping by shoving this snow up against the front of my car or what.

This really wasn't fun, but I finally got the car dug out and made sure I could drive out onto the road.

Cleaned up a bit then drove to Nederland and returned two library books and checked out two more I had requested.  Went to the spring and filled a couple of jugs with water.  Dropped off some recyclables at the town dump.  I would guess this is the only town dump with a view like this:

Stopped at Ace and took advantage of a 20% off sale to get a couple of boxes of Safe Lite Fire Starter Squares and the bits and pieces I need to make a pot rack.  More about that in a future blog..  I dropped off some plastic bags at the recycle bin at the supermarket and bought myself a chicken sandwich and Diet Coke at the deli.  I was starving after all that snow shoveling.  Got my mail and was pleased to find I had received two books I had ordered, based on the recommendation of Karen Anderson who does readings at the Blue Owl Bookstore in Nederland.  They are DNA Demystified and DNA and the Quantum Choice both by Kishori Aird.  I am interested in exploring DNA reprogramming and am really looking forward to getting started on these.

Decided that since I had freed myself from my snowy prison I'd drive on down to Boulder.  The Salvation Army store had been having a 50% off sale since yesterday.  I figured things would be pretty well picked over I was getting there so late, but found a few things.  I couldn't believe no one had grabbed these two Victorian? Edwardian? engraved silver napkin rings.  Loved the little bracket with the hooks for a hanging sign, what I guess is a silver wine bottle holder and the beautifully colored sphere with the leaves and fruit.

I also got this lapis skirt and Chico's travelers top:

The grand total for everything was $8.77 with tax.

And I got back before dark.  How did you spend your Saturday?  Teddee

Me and Ahab

Ahab and his white whale obsession have nothing on me.  If I had a harpoon I would have used it long ago on this bunk I sleep in.  It's attached to two walls of the cabin, so not only does it shudder and shift when the cabin shudders and shifts in the high winds we have here in the Rockies, but the fact that the mattress is butt up against two walls and one of the two too many hide-a-beds we have in this one room cabin for use by family members when they visit, makes changing the sheets a nightmare.  Getting a fitted sheet on the first corner, the northeast corner, is not too difficult although I have to lift up the mattress to get it on.

But getting a fitted sheet on this southeast corner is exhausting.

I usually eventually end up getting on the mattress on my knees in frustration but that actually makes things worse.

It rarely gets much better than this...

...which is a pet peeve because I like really taut sheets.

Then there are the two west corners.  Many years ago our neighbor installed these bunks and added a couple of clever rustic touches.  This tree trunk on the northwest corner...

...and this slab on the southwest corner:

But mattresses were thinner then and the mattress I'm using now gets stuck under the slab...

 and in the notch he made in the log....

This not only makes changing the bedding more difficult, but occasionally I'll realize in the night that the mattress has got caught and my sleeping surface is listing lower on the west, so if I want to turn over on my right side, I'm turning uphill. 

Then there's the top sheet.  I like to miter the bottom corners of my top sheet, so I must lift the northwest corner up and out of this slot in the tree trunk to do that.  Forget the northeast corner.  And I can't tuck in my electric blanket for fear of fire.

I eventually succeed...folding up the bedding on the wall side...but it usually takes me at least half an hour and I'm ready to get in the bed by that time..


and the white whale always wins in the end....I broke another fingernail today off below the flesh.

Ukh!  Not very many things make me queasy, but my stomach turns when I do this.

If you read yesterday's blog, you'll probably realize I did not go to Boulder today as planned.  It was 9F degrees when I got up and the winds were blowing about 38 mph, according to NOAA, and whipping all that new snow we got yesterday into a frenzy.  I had to cancel my hair appointment because I wasn't sure, even if I could convince myself to go out in those conditions to try to dig out, that I could prevail over the wind.  If NOAA is correct, we might have several more days of this. 

This was my last set of sheets and I'm down to one wash cloth, so eventually I'll be forced to gird myself and trek all of this laundry I bundled up today out to the car in the wind and through the snow drifts whether I want to or not.

Do you allow your weather to dictate your activities?  Teddee

How Wrong Was That?

When I signed off yesterday evening, the dreaded 85 mph winds had not arrived, in fact in was eerily quiet, and I went to sleep expecting them to come up in the night.  Woke up this morning, still no wind and I could tell from the nacreous light coming through the curtains that we'd had snow.  NOAA had said we might get one to two inches.  This was the view from my front door at about 8:30 a.m.:

It snowed lightly all morning, not adding much to the total, then quit, but it started again about 4 p.m and is falling steadily and straight down like rain.  NOAA says maybe 3 inches today with another .5 tonight.  I don't know when NOAA's day ends and night begins, but I'd say they are going to be wrong again.

I did determine, when I read the Denver and Boulder papers on line this morning that those high winds were wreaking havoc at lower elevations all day yesterday or at least yesterday afternoon--18,000 Xcel customers without power and trees uprooted by 93 mph winds, according to the Boulder Camera.

The denverpost.com shows Denver receiving 3.6 inches of snow and Nederland 4.5 inches.  I measured 7 inches this morning on my deck railing.  Eldora Mountain Resort is reporting 12 inches of new snow.  I heard them setting off charges this morning.  I think I counted seven or eight to head off avalanches.  On February 17, 2012, denverpost.com said "Colorado avalanche danger worst in 30 years..."  I believe six people, most expert skiers from what I can determine from the news coverage, have been killed in Colorado avalanches this winter.  This is attributed, in this same denverpost.com article, to "...abundant snowfall...piled atop a very weak foundation.  High winds have built slabs on the older layers, which have created an unstable snowpack."

When we got that really big snow back at the beginning of February, the ski area had to turn skiers away because they couldn't accommodate any more cars in the parking lot.  I expect this weekend is going to be crazy in Nederland.  I'll try not to have a reason to go down there.


Big black dog is loving it and his skillet.  I feed him when his owners come home from work and let him out and then wait 'til he's back inside to put out food for the fox.  With this much snow on the ground I'd think most of the voles and other fox food would be hard to come by.

I have to be dug out and on my way to Boulder tomorrow by 11 a.m. Have to stop at the library, drop off one book and pick up two others they are holding for me then on to a hair appointment.  I'll be advising my hair dresser that I'm going to start letting my hair grow with an eye on the budget so we'll see what she comes up with to get me through the awful stages other than a hat.  After the hair cut it's on to do laundry.  What have you got planned for your Friday?  Teddee

85 mph Winds

It has been deceptively mild so far today and right now it is almost too quiet.  It had been windy this morning, but not intolerable because the temperature is almost 40F degrees (64F degrees in Denver).  But when I pulled up the NOAA forecast at about 8:30 a.m., I stopped everything--didn't even have my coffee--and immediately set about doing my outside chores.  We are supposed to get winds as high as 70 mph later today and 85 mph tonight.  If you hadn't had access to the forecast, the western sky might have been an indication:

 
Something happening up there on the Divide.

Tomorrow the temperature is forecast to drop precipitously (NOAA always slips in that little down arrow as a clue) from a high of 20 F degrees, which is supposed to be the overnight low tonight, to a low of 9F degrees with a wind chill Thursday night of -13. 

So I bundled up and got out and filled the wood box, emptied the slop bucket, the stale dishwater, some vegetable peels and the pot (You can see I'm using binder clips to keep the lid from blowing away)...

...and this is why you need a pot de chambre:

Brrrr!

After I'd cleaned up a bit, I got my sister's hiking ski pole and made my way out to the car through the snow drifts with the water jugs, three library books I had finished and an envelope containing a letter and some clippings for my brother. 

Stopped at the post office, where I think it was actually windier than it was here and the parking lot was an ice rink.  Waited behind a man who was picking up what must have been a pair of skis and a pair of boots based on the shape of the boxes and the REI logo.  Mailed the envelope to my brother, picked up my mail, skated back out to the car, made my way to the library, returned the three books I'd read and picked up three more. 

Drove from there up Caribou Canyon to the spring, another skating rink, and filled my water jugs...

...then stopped back by the supermarket where I bought a few things including a container of light sour cream to mix with some chipotle blue cheese dip I had purchased last week that is so hot I had to mix it half and half with something in order to eat it. 

I unloaded the car, four trips using the ski pole each trip, and put the meat in the cooler in the wood house, along with a very large piece of icicle...

...even though with these temperatures I probably don't need to worry.  Some country style pork ribs I'd had stored out there for at least two weeks are like a rock.

Fed this neighborhood dog, which I am having a lot of trouble befriending.

After all these months, he still will not allow me to touch him.  I think he is having a bad tail life.


So, I've got the fire going again and am finally having my coffee with some veggie chips and diluted chipotle blue cheese dip for lunch...[Those hot peppers sure are making the coffee taste odd]...and I'm just waiting for the winds.  The western sky is getting more and more menacing:

What are you waiting for?  Teddee