This Old House

As many of you know, Zak and I live in a rather old house (circa 1930s, at least in my opinion, which isn't worth very much when it comes to putting a date on a structure since I don't know that much about architecture). We like our old, split-down-the-middle house, mainly because the rent is extremely low and our landlord pays for the gas bill due to us having to share a heating system with Donna (our neighbor...obviously). We have control of the thermostat, so we decide whether Donna freezes or bakes. Donna is a swell gal. She's a very quiet retired teacher, and occasionally brings us extra chocolate zucchini cake or corn or strawberries. We like Donna lots. She is pretty much an ideal neighbor. The only fault that she has is that we think she watches Meet Me in St. Louis almost every night. I can only have myself a merry little Christmas so many times... The sound carries right through the vents.
We all froze last week. Our landlord had come to replace shingles on the roof and in the process of doing this he somehow knocked out the power in the front of our house. We had no power in the front room, our bedroom, or the yucky-icky basement that I don't like to go in if it's not light outside. There are mice down there. One of them is petrified. Zak put it in a jar and put a baseball on top (to make me feel like it couldn't get out, even though I know it can't because it is dead and petrified). He says he leaves it down there as a warning for the other mice. I say it is gross and unsanitary.
Coming back from that tangent, what all of that means is that the furnace wasn't running last week. Now, ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem in late September. But we live in Logan where it's in the low 40's at this time of year. Brrrrr.
After 48 hours of heat deprivation, our power finally came back on. We don't know what our landlord did to accomplish this, and as lesser mortals, would do better not to ask.
Through the power outage in the front part of the house, we did have power in the bathroom and kitchen, arguably two of the most important rooms in the house in which to have power. So I really ought to stop my grousing and be grateful for what we did have... Now that a week has passed, I can find it a little funny and laugh at it.
Zak and I enjoyed conference this weekend--many, many good messages. We also celebrated Taylor's birthday on Sunday. I feel that October birthdays are great. No reason in particular... other than mine is in October. =)
Tay is 15! That means it's time to start driving. I feel his pain, at least the pain he will feel before and during the road test. (And possibly after, if he's anything like me and has to take it three times to pass. Now that's embarrassing!) The memory of my own motorcycle road test is still quite fresh in my mind. Whew! Glad that's over. At least that one I passed on the first try.
Speaking of the scooter, I am still riding it. It's darn cold, and I probably look like the abominable snow-woman all bundled up, but it's hard to give up that good gas mileage for paltry things like warmth, comfort, non-frozen hands, and the radio on the ride to work. Sigh.
Zak took his test to get into the teaching certification program on Friday. We will find out in a couple of weeks if he passed it or not. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
School is going great for Zak. He is really enjoying his psychology classes, especially anything to do with behavioral psychology. Work is very quiet right now. I'm hoping that it starts picking up again very soon!
I have been listening to Harry Potter on tape over the last little while. That J.K. Rowling is a rich woman, but she deserves it. I must have read those books five or six times each, and I still love reading them. I am not often a repeat-reader. Another series that I started reading recently is the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini. It's about dragons and their riders. He wrote the first book when he was 15 years old! It's completely impressive for a 15-year-old author. I really enjoyed it. Larry bought the second book (that's where I got the first book, too--thanks, Larry! and sorry about the peach juice that got smashed into the book...) and I will read that one as soon as he is done. I think that Paolini is working on the third book of the trilogy right now.
The peach juice got onto the book because I was trying to squeeze too much into the seat of the scooter. Barb and Larry have an apple tree, a pear tree, and a peach tree that all produced fruit this fall. The peaches are just about too old for eating, and I had put a peach in my little lunch bag with the book mentioned above. I pushed down really hard, congratulated myself at having made everything fit, and drove to work. When I got to work and opened the seat, I had one of those "Oh, shoot" moments as I pulled out the now-dripping lunch bag. The peach had not held up under the pressure and was smashed in half. Who knew I was so strong? We have definitely enjoyed the peaches and apples. I don't like pears, which is why I have not enjoyed those. I haven't been eating them.
Well... now that the boring details of my life have been enumerated here, I will get back to work... not that there's anything to do...