Snoring Doormouse

I'm sure most of you have seen the video of the snoring Doormouse?  Well, if not, it is absolutely the CUTEST thing EVER!!!



Link to You Tube:  Link

From the You Tube page:

Don't worry, he's okay! He's just sleeping.

He's a dormouse. Dormice hibernate in the winter in nests that they make hidden away on the ground. In Britain the dormouse may spend up to 1/3 of its life in hibernation. Dormice usually enter hibernation at the time of the first frost, when nearly all food is gone. Dormice rely upon fat reserves gathered in the summer and autumn, and during hibernation they loose about a quarter of their body weight.

Surrey Wildlife Trust Mammal Project Officer, Dave Williams, took this lovely footage of a dormouse in torpor (hibernation).

Ingenuity

Or as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.

For the last few months, I've been under the assumption that my upstairs neighbors were still the father and teenage daughter.  I haven't seen them recently, but I hadn't noticed them moving out either.  It could have happened around Thanksgiving when I wasn't home.  Or it could have happened in mid December when I was in Minnesota.  But I also never saw anyone move IN.

After staying up WAY too late last night (actually this morning), I was expecting to be able to sleep until at least noon.  I woke up about 8:30 and decided to move to the recliner.

After sleeping for about another hour or so, in the middle of a dream, I was awakened by lots of people going up and down the stairs, obviously moving someone out of the building.  I eventually gave up at going back to sleep and got up and semi-dressed.

With all that noise in the hallway, I figured it would be pointless to turn the t.v. on.  Just too much noise.  As I shrugged off a chill, I started wondering why I should be chilly.  Then I realized, if they are moving all that furniture out, that means they have the front door open to all that cold air (It's currently 28F with 20+ mph gusty winds).

The reason I was cold was because I have about a quarter inch gap between my door and the door jam on the top and side.  The cold air was leaking into my apartment through that gap.  Not knowing how long they were going to be keeping that door open, I decided I needed to do something to stop the flow of cold air.

My first thought was, what can I jam into that gap to block it? But I quickly figured out that would be difficult to do not only down the whole side of the door, but on top too.

*Light bulb moment*

I have blue painters tape!  I can just "seal" off those two sides of the door and it should hold well enough to keep the cold air from coming through!

It won't save me from an infectious disease outbreak, but it sure did the trick for cold air.  Very little is coming through and I won't have to worry about being cold or turning up the heat to compensate.

I think it looks nice, don't you?

Wish the Obamas Well for 2012

Link

Should I wait until January 19 and then send them a message that I hope they enjoy their last year at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave?

Or maybe send one each day, with just a countdown of the days?

I can almost hear my mind buzzing as the ideas pour forth!

First Snowstorm of 2012

After all the snow we had last year, and the predictions of a snowy winter this year, I was very happy to have temperatures in the 40's and 50's the last several weeks.  Until today.

Today, the snow started.  And I had a funeral to go to.  My ant's best friend passed away from cancer over the weekend.  I originally wasn't going to go to the funeral, but when the weather turned on us, my ant asked me to go to help her get there and back without slipping and falling.  I headed out to her house last night so I wouldn't have drive in snow this morning, stopping at the wake along the way to give my regards to the family.  I know several of the family members through my ant, so I'm glad I had the chance to offer my condolences.

The snow started falling about 8:00AM, and it's still snowing now at 10:15PM.  Getting to the church wasn't too bad, as the snow wasn't sticking badly to the roads then.  After the mass and luncheon afterwards, the roads were significantly worse.  I dropped my ant off at her house, packed up my stuff and started my trip home.  Normally it takes about 45 minutes on the highway, but since Jan 1 when they doubled the tolls, I have tried to avoid the toll roads as much as possible.  Taking my alternate way home would normally take about an hour, but with the roads it took about an hour and a half.

Once home I got my shovel from my trunk and shoveled a path to my building.  I knew it would be covered by morning, but it would make it easier for everyone when they started coming home in the evening.

That's my car in the top left corner, with no snow on it, and the other car had been there all day.  I'm guessing we had about 2 inches when I took this picture at about 3:00PM.

One of the few things I love about winter and snow:  Pine trees with snow on the boughs.

The wind has picked up so the snow is being blown around, making it hard to determine exactly how much snow we have.  But I find wide spans of undisturbed snow very peaceful.  This is from the stairs on the back side of my building.

With all this snow, I figured the birds would be wanting more seed and fresh water.  Before sweeping the snow off the balcony, I took this picture of some bird tracks.

After filling the feeder with fresh seed, then cleaning and filling the bird bath with fresh water, the birds were ready to come fill their bellies.  I had Chickadees, Northern Juncos and even House Finches eager for me to go inside.  Here's a picture of what I estimate to be a Female House Finch.  It can be difficult identifying a brown bird, because they all look so alike.

Tomorrow morning's commute should be a doozy, so I'll need to get to bed soon if I ever hope to hear the alarm and get up when I need to.

For those of you wanting snow, I'll have plenty to send to you.  If you're one of the lucky ones that will be getting snow or already have snow, be careful out there.  Enjoy the awesomeness of Mother Nature.

U.S. Debt Disaster

I keep hearing in the news about how bad things are in Greece, with the austerity measures and the continued money being thrown their way to prop up their economy.  Then last year, S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+.

Now comes word that our debt has officially met and is surpassing our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the entire economic output of the country.  We're not quite as bad as Greece (their debit is about 144% of GDP), but we're getting ever closer.

At what point is it enough? At what point are we going to start bringing fiscal sanity to our government?

$15.23 trillion!  And it's going to go up due to the most recent debt ceiling agreement!  Do you know how many zeros that is?

$15,230,000,000,000.

To put it in perspective, imagine your annual salary is $15,230.  Your credit card is maxed out, and the MINIMUM payment on that is $15,230.  How can you pay for anything else without borrowing more?

I think I just found the one thing I can focus on to help me determine who I'll vote for in November.

Early Spring Cleaning

In between football games today, I started looking for the boxes for some of my knick knacks.  With the loss of my coffee table, end table and entertainment center, I have no room for most of them.  I found one mystery box that I don't know what it goes with, and one box for a Tigger/Rabbit figurine.

I also dug out five decorative plates with kittens and puppies on them.  Would you like to have them? Pictures can be provided upon request.

I think I might be getting back into a clean and toss mood.  This will be a good thing, as my last one didn't last very long, and not much was tossed.  And there's only so much room in an apartment.  There's also the storage closet downstairs that right now is filled with Christmas decorations that I'm not using and may never use again. What to keep, what to keep.

This sure would be more fun with helpers.  Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?