Dot`sThoughts

Too cold to work in my shop!
This was written 5 days ago. Today, Sunday, January 18, 2009, wasn`t a total waste. This time the snow we got was dryer and lighter so my tiny little foot wide snow blower came in handy. I was out blowing snow so that Sassy would have room to still make it out back at least a little way from the house. My son-in-law heard my snow blower and came out to tell me he intended on doing it for me with his larger snow blower. I told him I was just doing room for Sassy, plus I wanted to work in the shop. So, I did in front of both the shop door and the garage doors. I needed to use the ice scraper to remove all the snow way down , as one garage door never opens far enough to back the car out if there is even a little snow or a tiny bump of ice for it to glide over. A friend once mentioned those hinges that swing a door upward as it opens. But I haven`t been able to find any strong enough to hold the weight of a 4x8 sheet of plywood on a wooden framework. I even checked my books and also on line with no luck. Guess they just do not make them for doors that large or heavy. Last year I shaved a little wood off the bottom of the door to allow it to open enough. The cold and moisture must be getting under the driveway and heaving up that side a bit. The other side was made with a better slope so the door raises farther off the driveway as it opens. I wish they had done that on both sides.

I went to the shop and started the heater, then came back inside to rest while the shop warmed up. About 35 minutes later I went back out, only to find the heater just couldn`t handle this terrible cold we are getting lately. We didn`t have -37 below during the daytime when the heater was heating the shop so great last year. So, I just measured and cut the board for the bottom of the slide out shelf and shut off the heater and decided to give up for today. I decided I could still add the casters on the bottom of that shelf. When I opened the 2 sets of casters I discovered they didn`t come with any screws to put them on with. Luckily I had bought lots of different small size screws last year when I was ordering from the Rockler catalog. I found one small bag with the right size to fit the board I was using. When I had three of the casters screwed onto the board I discovered I only had three more screws in the bag. So, I had to go hunting through all my odd screws to find one the right size to finish that last caster. So, now that much is finished. I did cut some thin slats about 2" high to fit the longer two sides of the shelf board . These I can glue on for edging, but I was getting too cold out there to hunt up and cut another narrower , higher one to add up the back to keep the bottles from falling our when the shelf is rolled out and back in.

Now for the next plans. Do I want to leave it a single shelf and just add edges around the three sides so the bottles can`t fall off when I pull the shelf out? Or do I want to add another higher shelf and make it a two shelf slider section? It can only be about 7" wide by 24 " deep. But I can make it as high as the cupboards on each side of where it will go. I had cut the cupboard top long enough to cover both cupboards (both the old one and the new one I made a couple months ago) plus the space between them. Wish I had more spare wall space there so I could have left a wider center section, but then I wouldn`t have been able to open the doors on the large beautiful divider that goes between the kitchen and dining room. So there will already be a top over the shelf space. I do not want to lose any more width so I do not want to make a very strong framework to hold up the top shelf section. There would be advantages either way. Leaving just the one bottom shelf would make it easier to see exactly what was left on the shelf without pulling it out to see under. I used to buy a lot of soda, but now I buy very little. When I was going to the expensive exercise center the owner provided plenty of cold flavored water drinks for anyone who wanted them. That got me off the soda so much and more drinking the flavored water. But since I buy both the quart size and the smaller bottles, the higher shelf would come in handy to hold the smaller bottles. I like the smaller bottles to take in the car with me. Well, no rush in deciding as it looks like it will be a while before it will get warm enough to work in the shop. Last winter I was able to work out there all winter, but it sure is much colder this year. So, here I sit with the electric lap robe putting heat on my spine. hip, legs and knees. Heat does wonders with alleviating the arthritic pain. I also have the small heater running behind my chair to get the chill out from being outside so long.

It has now warmed up to 14 with a wind chill of -23 degrees F and I thought they said is was going to be warmer today. Guess it is much warmer than the -37 we had without a wind chill. My D-In-Law told me yesterday that they are now getting our old temps. I just saw on TV that it is now only 23 degrees where she lives in North Carolina. That would feel warm to us here, but must feel awful cold there when they are not used to our chilly weather. Back in the 50`s when my oldest brother first moved to New Jersey they had never had snow in that state. I remember their first snow storm. It was so bad that the workers in my brothers lace factory couldn`t leave the factory and the second shift couldn`t get to work. New Jersey had no snow shovels or even town or city snowplows. The large snowplows from New York State went to N. Jersey to dig them out. You can bet the stores and the cities and towns started ordering snow equipment real fast. Then a lot of the residents didn`t know how to handle driving in snow and schools would close with just a little snow on the ground. Today N. Jersey is used to driving in snow. Now other states further south are experiencing what it is like to drive in snow and on ice.

I remember a couple years ago they had a movie showing Greenland and Iceland and how the ice was spreading further and further every year and they announced that we were heading for another ice age. They said not in our time, but possible in our kids life, but most definitely during our grandchildren's age.
I am wondering if that has changed now. Recently I heard that the ice was melting worse each year in the northern end of Alaska due to the global warming from the pollution and gases in the air. They are worrying about the animals living there becoming extinct if the ice keeps melting more every year. Keeps one guessing which is going to happen. Weather sure looks more like the ice age with the changes and how some of the warmer southern states are getting the cold weather we used to have up here while we are getting much colder than in the past. But, this year we are back getting the large snow amounts more like we did when I was a kid, but I do not remember temps going as low as -36 without a wind chill to lower it - at least not where I live. I remember it being below zero, but not for weeks at a time like it is now. We used to say it was too cold to snow, but can`t say that anymore. It has snowed at -36 degrees below zero. Just saw the weather report for the coming week and we are expecting snow every day except for Thursday, if it doesn`t change. I am hoping Thursday is snowless so I can go back and try doing the exercises again. I know that exercise is very important for anyone with the many kind of arthritis. I once told my old Dr that my mother was asked what kinds of arthritis she had and she wasn`t sure. My Dr responded by telling me if anyone asked me that question I could tell them I had all kinds. I really wasn`t asking him about myself, but guess he read it that way. At the time my mother, in her late 80`s, was having an eye replacement. She had bought new glasses and one of the lens popped out hitting her eye and damaged the eyesight in the eye. She had wonderful success with the eye replacement. A few years later she had an operation to repair a broken hip which never healed strong so it re-broke, and about three months later they had to do a complete hip replacement. I was surprised that she healed so well at her age - almost 90, when her arm had never healed back in her late 40`s. But she was always an active person. She stayed on the Bowling Team till she broke her hip. I think all her staying busy doing things must have helped to strengthen her system to keep her going. I remember my Dad kept Bowling for quite a few years even with the bad hands. I had to stop going years ago as the arthritis was enlarging the finger joints so they just didn`t fit into the finger holes in the bowling balls. I never joined a League like both my parents did.
Yesterday I noticed there was cold air leaking around one side of my kitchen door. Funny how every time I had checked it during the past month I could feel no leak before. I had the new metal weather strips still upstairs. I had originally bought them for the back door, but was able to fix that door by just adding a thin strip along the opening side so I still had the set . Yesterday I noticed it also fit my side door frame so I added the right side strip up the outside of the door to correct the air leak. I did`not finish adding the top and the other side yet because it is too cold to stay outside doing something that is not necessary right now.

It was so cold yesterday that my fingers started to freeze onto the hook on my dogs chain. I had to run my fingers under cool water a while before I could warm them with warmer water. I had frozen three of those fingers years ago when my nephew never showed up back at my home. He has epilepsy and I feared he might have had an attack and it was in the winter time. I couldn`t find my gloves as I had let one of the kids wear them to play outside and I was too scared to keep hunting. When our son`s German Shepherd also never came back home, I knew it had stayed with Ed. I did find Ed- all confused, sitting on the ground and the dog stayed with him. Funny part is my nephew had always been afraid of the dog before this. A neighbor who lived on the next road belonged to a snowmobile club back then and he contacted his friends who all showed up to hunt the woods for my nephew, but just as I saw the lights as they were entering the woods I located him. It was getting dark by the time I found him. My fingers use to freeze for years after that whenever they got too cold. Been years now since that has happened till I started to take the dog chain hook off the wall hook, (where I hang it on the house), so I could put the dog out. Sassy had to wait till I got my aching fingers warmed up again. Then I put on my gloves and did a lot of rubbing to warm up the hook before connecting it to Sassy`s collar.

Hope it warms up soon so i can get nback working in the shop.