Winter weather 2013-2014 - UGH.

[Derrel]

I use salt water nasal spray, have delt with sinus for years. But the spray works. Have Netty Pot but it sucks. Later Ed

I keep forgetting about saline spray. I used to use it too. Should probably break it out again. I've heard about netty pots but they seem so messy so I never tried them.

Forget the netty pot, and got to something that's far easier and less messy: the old standby, the ear and nasal blower bulb, or, the evern more-modern plastic squeeze bottle. Mix your salt and baking soda with warm water, and use either one of those much more efficient methods. Works splendidly.

 

[terri]

Well…my winter weather UGH just turned into DOUBLE UGH.

The coldest we got to was 0 degrees, with a wind chill of…oh who cares, it was friggin' cold.

My mother's heat had gone out back in November, so my sweet brother had paid to have a brand-new gas furnace installed in her house.
About a week ago, that nice new furnace quit working. They gave my 87-year-old mother a bit of a runaround about when it would be fixed. My brother (who had been out of town) called on Monday, the day temperatures were still warm but about to drop like they were caught up in a vortex, and they said they'd had to order a part which would be there that day or the next.

So, my brother picked my Mom up and took her to stay at his house Monday night where there would be heat.

Consequently, they didn't know until sometime LATE on Tuesday, when they went by her house for a few things, that the pipes had burst from the cold. The pipes, which were IN THE ATTIC. So, for HOURS, water had been cascading down from the attic, through the ceiling, into her house, from the frozen, burst pipes. The water was over their ankles.

WHAT. A. STINKIN'. MESS. One that could have been avoided if the furnace company had just:
1. Done the job right the FIRST time
2. At least made sure to FIX the problem BEFORE the freezing temps hit. Maybe they really DID have to order a part, but the fact is, they did almost NOTHING about the problem, even to diagnose it, initially. If they had come out as soon as they were told it was broken, they would have been able to get the part and get it replaced long before this cold spell became an issue.

We are conservatively estimating about $10K in damages--carpet, flooring, much of the furniture, ceiling tiles, light fixtures…
Yes, she has insurance which will likely cover most of it. But what a great big, freakin' PAIN. For ANYbody, never mind for an 87-year-old. And all the stuff of just sentimental value; you can't replace that through insurance and after 87 years old, you have a LOT of it.
And yes, she has a place to stay, at my brother's…but that ain't like being HOME, and there is no telling how long it will be before she can move back in to the house.

One "good" thing. She told me that she was afraid most of her photo albums were ruined, because they were on the bottom shelf of a bookcase and probably at least partially submerged. I'll have to look at the albums in question to be sure, but I'm reasonably certain that I have scanned well over 90% of all the old family photos she had, so at least, even if the originals ARE ruined, we will have digital copies. But, I had made her a 50th anniversary scrapbook and a Memory book full of old letters from her father; those are NOT scanned anywhere, so I'm really hoping they are okay. Last time *I* saw, they were higher up in the bookcase, so I'm hoping they hadn't been moved.

Ugh. Double Ugh. Ugh to infinity.

OMG - that sucks! I can't imagine how she's feeling right now. My in-laws got slammed by Hurricane Ike in 2009 and were out of their home for 8-9 months (granted, the delay was due to wreckage everywhere in that storm's path). Here's hoping the photo albums are okay - good for you that you scanned so many of them for her!

 

[nomibucha]

The long range CFS charts are showing severe northern blocking at the moment which would mean very cold winter. They are not very reliable so you can't trust them really but at the moment they are showing similar(ish) pattern to 1962/63 winter!