Cold. Dreary. Grey. Let’s not forget depressing with all the dead-looking foliage. Welcome to winter in the Midwest. It looks like a cold week ahead.

As I type this it is snowing – first one of the year here. I have gotten to hate snow…AAARRRGGHH! Glad I did laundry this morning and also glad that I don’t need to go anywhere tomorrow morning. We are supposed to get buried under an inch of snow. Stock up on canned goods! Fill up containers, pans, bowls – ANYTHING – with water. An inch! Can you just imagine the destruction that will bring?

I have been getting quite a bit more cooking done and meals prepared for the freezer. I have bought some different local pasta sauces to try. So far, my favorites are Taste of The Hill and Zia’s was a very close second – almost a tie. The vodka sauce from Hy-Vee I liked and would eat again. But, it doesn’t have the flavors for me in it like the first two. Scimeca’s (out of KC) has an interesting & unique flavor that I also like because it is so unique.

Yesterday I traced down the antenna cable for the rooftop antenna. I wasn’t sure if it was wired up or not since there’s satellite TV here for the last many years. But, it WAS cabled into the basement so I poked the wire up through the floor and hooked it to my TV.

I did an auto scan for DTV channels and actually got a few out of KC. Most of them are sub-channels of the network affiliates and they are running shopping channels or nostalgia networks playing old crappy shows that were horrible when new in the 60s. Haven’t gotten any better but they get that content cheap. But, I was able to get the local ABC, NBC, and fox affiliate stations. Two out of three ain’t bad for free.

Myself, I don’t really have a need for TV. First, I’m not paying a ridiculous amount of money monthly for TV. Second, working in TV for many years I really have little desire for pay TV. It is nice to have local news available in case of bad weather, especially since I don’t have the interwebs here or a weather radio (yet).

I hooked my Mac Mini up to my big screen TV so I can watch downloaded movies from my Mac on my TV now. With winter coming in it’ll be kind of nice to have these other options for video watching, especially since my DVD player is apparently not working any longer. It’s nice having a 50”+ monitor for my Mac! I just need to take my Mac somewhere to update it and re-download my movies on it.

I have moved a few more things around in the house. Since I have the Mac on the TV I decided to move the desk in by my bed. I was able to move my bistro table in the dining in the kitchen; a “Chef’s Table”, as it were. I’ll move it outside to eat when possible but it’s inside for now.

I got a couple of armchairs for my bistro table last week. I got a screaming deal on them plus free delivery. They are black metal (👹🤘🏼) with an off-white, muslin-like fabric. They kinda match the table so the setup looks good., but the table legs are painted brown to look like wood instead of black. I guess I could fix that easily with a can of spray paint.

Tomorrow, while everyone is spooning their cars out of the drifts from a powerful overnight 1” hellsnow, I just might be getting the plumbing fixed. I got the pipe and assembly parts to do the repairs today when I ran back to town. Along with that I picked up some gutter drain extensions to get water farther away from the house. I put those on when I got back.

That’s all for today’s update.