The Other Side of the Water Situation

In all seriousness regarding my water situation, I really didn't have it bad at all. I just liked the camping comparison. A friend of mine had his pipes burst, a man's house burned down when it caught fire as he tried to thaw his pipes, I'm sure there will be people who passed away because they were trying to use their ovens for heat, people had their cars stuck in ice from water main breaks, and there are so many other people who have much tougher things to worry about when it gets this cold. People who don't have a warm place to sleep and would be thrilled to have a place like my little house with or without water.

Then there was little Nyia Miangel Page who froze to death after her father hit her over the head and then put her outside because she got out of her bed before he was ready to get up. There's really nothing I can say that expresses the horror I feel when I think about that precious little girl and what she must have gone through.

Camping Out At Home

Pittsburgh is coming out of its coldest spell of weather in 10 years. It was cold. Not Minnesota or Buffalo cold but cold enough that ice started to form on our 3 rivers. Cold enough that my pipes froze underground where they couldn't be thawed out with a hair dryer or a space heater. I basically had to wait for the water to start to flow again.

During the time I was without water (a whopping 2 whole days) I felt like I was camping out in my own home. In the past few years, I've discovered that I really enjoy camping. I have my own tent and everything. Of course, I also have an air mattress and a ceiling fan for my tent so I'm not totally roughing it, but I'm still outside with no running water and the closest toilet being a port-a-potty. Anyway, for two days I carried water over from my parents house to fill up the toilet tank so I could flush, to wash my hands, face, dishes, etc and make sure the kitties had enough to drink. I went to my parents house to shower which is more like using the bathhouse in a camp ground than you might think. I have radiators and were afraid they would run out of water so I had the heat turned down and was using a space heater - so that was like sitting around a camp fire.

All that was missing were marshmallows and a growler of beer. Oh, and the bugs. I didn't miss the bugs at all.

The water came back yesterday evening. I took a hot shower just because I could and turned the heat back up. Life goes on as usual, but I left it running at a trickle all night just in case.

my blog's title says it all

It's true, I never really wanted a blog and probably won't post all that much, but I read Jami's blog and wanted to be able to leave comments for her.

I'll try to keep things positive here welcome any advice on what goes into the making of a successful blog.