Category Archives: weather

Bouncing Interest Rates

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We have been thinking about refinancing lately.  You know, get a lower interest rate and save tens of thousands of dollars over the next way too many years, not to mention pay less every month.  We are one of the lucky few to be eligible for the best rates so we have been on the lookout.  It hasn’t worked out quite yet.

Our current interest rate is 6.125%.  That isn’t bad.  We were certainly happy with it when we got that big old loan to begin with.  But then rates dropped.  The first time I really looked, about a week ago, the best rate for our loan holder was 4.75%, according to the web site.  That was less.  I got on the phone to talk to someone about what all this means and what it might cost and while I was on the phone the rate rose to 5.125%.  Of course, I had to wait about 20 minutes on hold, but I didn’t think it would change that much while I was listening to the muzak version of Journey’s greatest hits.

I asked about this, of course, not being one to simply accept that things are the way they are.  The customer service rep told me that interest rates get posted four times each day, and so might change four times on any given day, or not.  She suggested I sign up to get an email when rates drop to the lower interest rate.  I thought that might not be a bad idea.

Interest rates did go down.  I never got the emails telling me this because they got sent to my spam folder.  So the email I most wanted to receive and had asked to get were being junked, while the ones from Melissa Jane Mastel promoting events in upstate New York keep getting through even though I have labeled them as junk scores of times.  I guess I need to accept things are the way they are more often.

Anyway, rates dropped, then dropped again.  They went down to 4.625%, which meant we would save 1.5% off our current rate.  Sign me up.  I called last night to nake it happen and got a message saying the wait would be an hour and a half.  That was bad timing, given the need to get the children to bed and then eat a large bowl of chocolate ice cream.  So I waited.  By the time I was ready to call them back  it was 8:01 PM.  They closed at 8:00 PM.

So I looked again this morning.  Rates were up to 4.75%.  I called and got a wait time of 20 minutes.  After 40 minutes, I had to go, so I hung up.  Then rates rose to 4.875% and ended the day at 5.125%.  What’s up super ball?  Stop bouncing around so much.  So we are right back where we were when we started looking.  Do we do what we can to take this rate now?  Or do we wait to see if rates go down again?  What if they go up?

I know they won’t change until Tuesday, since the markets will be closed, so we have some time to think about it.  We don’t want to change our lender.  They seem to have the best deal, and they certainly have the best customer service (aside from the long wait times).  I guess we wait and see.  We missed out on a way low rate and I won’t let that happen again.  Now that I have been paying attention for a couple of weeks, I understand things a little better.

I just hope that rates keep dropping.  The national average dropped to its lowest ever yesterday, so I am hopeful.  But whatever.  It’s only tens of thousands of dollars we’re talking about.  It’s not like I plan to retire.  Ever.  Or send my kids to college.  I’m thinking that maybe I can harness the power of the cold to make some extra cash for those things.  It was -20 this morning so if I can do that, maybe the kids can avoid the low-paying job after all.

Fourteen Below and Thinking About Gardening

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Garden Beds Waiting for Spring

Garden Beds Waiting for Spring

That was the temperature this morning–fourteen degrees below zero. You might say it was chilly. I wimped out on going for a run. I had planned to do so today but I stayed inside, stoked the fire, got some work done and even read a book. So much for training.

I have been thinking about the garden lately. January is the month to plan it out, to figure out what to plant, how much of it to plant, and where to fit everything. The corn can’t go where it went last year, but it can be planted with the squash. I look forward to sitting down with the legal pad and sketching out the garden plan.

Of course, it is way too cold to do anything with the garden at the moment. It sits under the snow, waiting for spring. I am glad we have snow cover. The blueberries and strawberries will fare batter with the insulation. And the snow adds an element of beauty.

The circle I carved out of the lawn for our garden feels like a work of both labor and art. I want to grow food that is fresh and tasty and that I can’t get elsewhere (Striped Zebra tomato anyone?), but I also hope it adds some pastoral artistry. I want it to be beautiful. That takes work and luck and a willingness to let things grow as they need to grow. Seeing what the plants will do with what they have gives me joy.

So I wait it out and dream of warmer weather. I love this cold snap we are having, even though I chickened out of running today. Winter just isn’t satisfying if we don’t have some days below zero. I have seen the mercury rise to six degrees today and now it is back down to four. Once the sun goes down, I am sure it will break through the zero mark again.

Maybe some of those cucumber beetles will take a hit from the cold. I won’t count on it, but since I am imaging a perfect garden, I might as well dream that too.

Garage and Windshield Wipers

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Our thermometer read zero when we rose this morning.  It read 32 when I went to bed.  That’s a drop.  I walked my daughter out to the bus and we were glad to have snow pants and neck gaitors.  A breeze blew.  The snow squeaked.  It wasn’t a day for the bus to be late.  It was early.

Soon after that I headed to work, sans snowpants.  Well, I did in fact toss them in the car.  You never know.  My legs were cold just walking to the garage.  And this is why we have a garage.  The thermometer in the car (a feature worth having let me tell you) read 20 degrees.  Let me say that again, 20 degrees! That is a twenty degree difference between the outside air temperature and the unheated garage temperature.  That makes having a garage a huge bonus.

And here’s another thing:  no scraping.  When the air gets icy and I’ve got to leave early, that’s when I forget that I need to scrape the frost.  But with a garage, no problemo dude.  No frost to scrape.  It is warmer, I don’t have to scrape, I can get in the car without getting wet in the rain.  It is awesome.

When we bought this house we weren’t looking for a garage.  We knew it would be a good thing to have, but baby I’m so sold on it now.  How cold I ever go back?  Hopefully I won’t have to.

My only problem now is my sucky windshield wipers.  I paid extra, for the first time ever, to have someone else install a set for me the last time I brought the car in for service.  I figured I just wanted to get it done, so I didn’t do it myself.  Way to go Economy Boy.  They sucked from the beginning, and they still suck.  No matter what I have done to adjust them, they streak like nuts.  And on an icy day like this, with salt and crap getting kicked up, I need some wipers that do the job.

Even my awesome garage won’t help with that problem.  I just need to suck it up and get another pair.  I guess it is better to pay a few extra bucks than to crack up because I can’t see what is coming at me.  That would really make some poor financial sense.

Fresh Snow and Cold as Nuts

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We had a couple children spend the night with us last night.  It gave their parents a chance to have some time to themselves.  The youngsters had a good time.  It was even fun for me.  I even got to tell them about the rooster who thought he was useless and so ran away from home and caused all the animals to sleep in too late and miss their farm duties.  They went to bed too late anyway.

When we all work the sky was white.  They ran in excited about the fresh snow.  They played outside, sledding, for a while, although we worried a tad.  They were bundled but it was 7 degrees.  And breezy.  Can you say frostbite.  We pulled them in before they got too cold.

Then, after dropping the two extras with their parents, we went skiing.  We last a while.  Our last run was a cheek biter, however.  The sun had dipped behind clouds, the wind picked up, and brrr.  We headed in after that.

The snow is pretty amazing–beautiful to look at and fun to ski upon.  It was just right for a couple of beginning skiers.  They did great today.  Both of them seemed to take a significant step in their learning.  That was good for my back.  It won’t be too long before we can all ski together, and then they will leave us in a cloud of snow, zooming down the mountain.

This week it should get cold again.  Way cold.  Highs in the single digits for several days.  That’s nuts.  It is now zero.  I’m thinking that early morning run in the dark before work just ain’t gonna happen.  Some cozying in bed won’t be the worst thing.  Maybe I will be a good husband and wake early to make coffee for my wife and to crank the fire to make a warm house.  That will be as satisfying as a run.  And no danger of frostbite.

What, No Snow Day?

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My wife is an educator and, come winter, is seriously crazy about following the weather for the purposes of discovering the perfect convergence of snow/sleet/ice/cold and a school day.  This ideal scenario means, of course, a snow day.  She only works part time so the quest to find this meeting of the weather and the educational system has even more significance than it would were she to work full time, as there are fewer days on which it might happen.

I have some of the same feelings, I admit.  A snow day makes me feel like a kid.  That feeling of another day in the old classroom, suddenly turned into a day romping through the drifts of white, now that’s something to celebrate.  Having my own children these days, I get to experience a little of that all over again.  Plus, I get to do some romping now and again myself.

My wife, however, gets way more excited than I do.  This is a reflection, perhaps, of my own surliness.  Or maybe I just have a little bit less hope, or I hate to get disappointed if it does not happen.  In any case, she keeps me up on the latest.

This morning had real potential to be a snow day.  It started snowing last night and was falling heavily this morning.  The forecast was somewhat squirrely, so it had been continually updated over the past week as a couple of systems converged on us.  As of last night, it looked good for some poor travel.  Poor travel conditions are the key element to the snow day.  School gets cancelled if it seems unsafe for buses to make their way along the slippery roads.

Not only the severity of a storm has to be right but the timing has to be right.  If the roads can get cleared in time, well, forget missing a day of school.  It was seriously a tough call for those school administrators I am sure.  I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.  If you cancel school, some parent complains that it was fine and their little Einstein missed another day of fractions.  If you don’t cancel school, some parent complains that their kid had to risk his neck just for another day of fractions.  Not an easy business.

You might have guessed by now that we did not have a snow day today.  Frankly, that isn’t a terrible thing for me.  Making up a snow day is big fat hassle.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy it.  It just puts a thorn in my tender side.  My wife, as you can imagine, was not exactly thrilled about this.  She even got a tad grumpy, but don’t tell her I said so.  Every school in the state, except for a few here in Chittenden County, was closed.  Apparently, they like to play it safe, while here in Chittenden County feel the need to risk a bus full of children in a ditch to keep the moaners at bay.

Don’t get me wrong, we have some stellar bus drivers around these parts, and I would trust them to make safety a priority.  It’s just that, couldn’t we have a snow day?  That would be so much more fun.  My wife certainly thinks so.  I am not home at the moment and I need to travel to get there.  It is snowing, ice covers the car.  It is slick as a booger rag.  But even if it were 6:00 am, I am sure schools around here would still be open.  Too many little Einsteins to educate.

Message in the Snow

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Surprise Message

Surprise Message

This morning, walking to the bus, my daughter lagged behind.  She was playing in the snow, dragging her hands and feet and, seemingly, experiencing the wonders of learning about something through direct contact with it.  We had enough time.  We can see the bus coming a few minutes before it stops at our place, so we ambled, my son and I, as she dawdled.

At the end of the driveway, right before the bus came, she said to me, in all seriousness, “Daddy, when you walk back, don’t walk in the middle of the driveway;  it is for a surprise.”  She was firm, “Don’t forget, it’s for a surprise.”  Her phrasology, as it were, led me to think that she had something planned for her own return trip down the driveway.  I imagined she wanted a clean slate to do whatever it was she had in mind with the unmarked snow.  She just didn’t have time right then.

After she left, the bus curving down the road with her on board, my son and I walked back to find the message above.  We were surprised.  It was a great surprise indeed.  Both of us lauded her as we crunched the rest of the way to the house.  Now, in the dark, it is still there.  I was careful not to drive on it.

Of course, it looks to snow tonight, perhaps a lot.  The message will be gone tomorrow.  Seeing it was a moment I won’t forget soon.  That kid of mine, she’s pretty great.

Resolutions?

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I have never been one for New Year’s resolutions.  I have thought about the idea of them.  As in, “Now would be as good a time as any to set some goals for myself so maybe I should.”  But that idea has never really panned out, turned into action.  So here we are again at the turn of the year.  Good old 2009 has begun.  Should I make some resolutions this year?

So here goes with a brainstorming session on what I might resolve to do.  We’ll start with the classics and see if any of them fit me.  One of the most common resolutions, or so it seems to me, is to lose weight.  I guess I could lose a few pounds but I feel pretty solid, so to speak,  in that area.  I suppose I could cut down on candy but that will happen with the natural cycle of saying goodbye to the holidays.  And other foods to cut out?  Well, I did make a cheesecake yesterday, but once that’s gone I probably won’t make another for a year.  So much for food.

Another typical resolution is to quit smoking.  I wish my brother and sister would quit smoking, those addicts, but I can’t change them.  I don’t smoke, so that one is out.  Exercise more?  I have been getting the runs in and I plan to do a lot more but I don’t need to resolve to do that.  Join a gym?  Waste of money if you ask me.  So healthwise I think I am OK.

How about feeding the brain?  We get only one channel on television so I can’t really cut down much on the boob tube.  I read a lot of news.  I listen to all kinds of books when I am in the car.  I could read more books, the paper kind I mean.  How about I go with that one?

Resolution one:  Read more books, especially in view of my children.  No, that’s too vague.  How about:  Read at least one good book every month so my children can see that I am doing so.

I like my job so I don’t need to find a new one.  I already am in the process of doing a better job.  I am not too concerned with making a lot more money.  I spend a lot of time with my children.  I like to hike and I could do more of that, I suppose.  Dang, this is tough.  I make goals, but those are more fluid, arising with whatever situation I might encounter and wherever I find myself.  This seems a little forced.

So maybe this is why I haven’t made New Year’s resolutions in the past.  I don’t feel that I need to and if I am going to make goals I don’t tend to do it at an arbitrary time like January first.  Or maybe it is because I have too much champagne and then my mind is too fuzzy to think about that.

But I’ve got one resolution.  I will start right now, the first day of the new year.  Once I am done here I will grab the book I just got from the library and get started on a good story.  I guess I could narrow it down a bit further and just say that I resolve to this day read at least a few pages in a good book.  Since the high temperature today was nine degrees, it is a good day to make that happen.

Happy New Year from this freezing town in northern Vermont.  And happy reading to you, too.

Sublimation

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Finger Painting

Finger Painting

It was a chilly one this morning. Frost covered everything. Snug in our house, we realized it was so cold when we looked at the thermometer right before I went out to haul in some firewood. The thermometer had a low number: 3

It was beautiful when the sun rose. Frost covered everything and the low red sun turned the thick ice pink. Milton’s rosy fingers of dawn tickled the landscape.

Frosty Twigs

Frosty Twigs

More Frosty Twigs

More Frosty Twigs

Snow Piled Up

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Snow on the Roof

Snow on the Roof

We got lots of snow over the past few days.  Today the sun shines.  I have been noticing how the snow has gathered on roofs.  On many of them, it sits in even layers.  On some it lies deep on one side and shallow on the other, the wind having brushed it off on the east side.  Some sport wavy combinations of both.

I keep watching the forecast.  It looks like rain tomorrow.  After all this snow, that is hard to take.  It is a bother on any winter day, but to get rain on top of all this amazing snow on Christmas Eve, well, that is a straight up bummer.  If we get rain, we will still have a fine holiday.  And if we don’t I will consider it a gift.

Until then, I’ve got some admirin’ to do.

Deep on the Eave

Deep on the Eave

Wretched Driving

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I’ve done some driving in bad conditions. More than once I have driven in weather so bad that I stopped driving to spend the night in the middle of wherever. I have seen snow on the road.

Driving from Connecticut to Maine one time the visibility was so poor we couldn’t see the road and had to spend the night at a random hotel. Before I moved to Burlington we spent a day apartment hunting in a snowstorm. The drive back from the queen city was a slow slog on the interstate with swirling snow and cars off the road. A long drive.

Yesterday I drove from Milton to Hinesburg. That was not a speedy drive. I left later than I had planned. Get a little more work in, you’ve been there, no? I was in a windowless room, so I had no cues to how the weather had become so fierce. The snow was heavy on the car when I brushed it off and packed on the roads.

I made two stops before I hit the interstate, so I had time to consider whether I should even take the interstate. Would it be better to travel on roads where others would drive more slowly? Or should I just take the most direct route? Popping in for toilet paper (stocking up for the storm!) then filling the tank with gas (and getting a warm cup of decaf) I decided to go for the big road.

It was some of the most dreadful driving I have encountered, pretty much ever. It is not a drive for which I would have opted if I were leaving home rather than heading toward it. The worst moment of my journey last night was on a bridge, a semi passing me on the left and whooshing a cloud of snow so dense I could just see my hood. When I could see a little more clearly I was way too close to the guardrail.

I moved over soon enough.

When I finally exited that four lane highway, slowly, behind another (or perhaps the same) semi, a car too close behind me, on the icy exit ramp, I was somewhat relieved. Then I had to navigate traffic. To travel about two miles on Dorset Street took me at least an hour. I was passing the mall, along with all that other strip development, and it was the final Friday before Christmas, but still, those traffic lights slowed me down lots. The keystone light on Kennedy Drive must have cycled red and green twenty times before I drove through it.

I did make it home. The car was coated in ice and snow. I was too hot (I had to keep the heater blasting to keep the windshield from icing–it was 7 degrees out there!). I needed to take a leak. I was hungry. It was dark and late after a long work day. But I was home to a warm house and a beautiful wife and some smiling children and pizza hot from the oven.

I ran the gauntlet, and the reward was great. It is enough to make this man happy. Last night, the snow falling heavily through the darkness, I slept well. And in the morning, the snow kept falling.

Snow Still Falling in the Morning

Snow Still Falling in the Morning