Huff. No one called yesterday to further my cause. That is to say, there are a couple appointments hanging by threads. One of them I took care of myself after I found out there was a health crisis involved. I called the company and made other arrangements. So that's one more item on the calendar. The other will probably call me today because I'm leaving the house. Isn't that always the way? 

I've come to realize that as long as I have appointments for things, I deal with the chaos a lot better. Though some of the outcomes are unknown, at least I know the expected time of arrival. Or dismissal, as each task is handled and either dismissed or dealt with in an orderly manner.

And this is random, but juggling unknown events reminds me of giving birth. When pregnant, we never really know when or how the baby will decide to come out. I feel very much the same way with managing home improvement projects. I'm allowed to use that analogy because I've done both. 

But hey, what about that crazy weather last night. One minute it was raining, the next it was snowing and we got about an inch in 15 minutes. Our lives were on hold until this morning and we discovered the only indication there was a problem is the leftover snow on the grass. The roads were fine, my oldest headed off to school on time. 

Today is Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras. I think I already fulled the fat part, because the last two nights my youngest daughter's friend was over and made chocolate chip cookies. She was here last night because the weather suddenly dictated driving her home may not be a great idea, so she made cookies. There really is something to be said for the comfort of a really good cookie. 

My crisis this morning is I noticed my espresso isn't very hot, it's just warm. I think perhaps there is something wrong with my espresso maker. Another life and death issue to deal with. This is my morning coffee we're talking about. Isn't that always the way?

I have taken on an unsettling calm these days. The new furnace is in and it's very lovely with its futuristic thermostat I can program to go off and on as my day proceeds. I can even choose the screen color, which I'm not sure is a necessary feature, but it kind of makes me feel like someone is watching out for my comfort. It's purple at the moment. 

I love how it doesn't constantly kick on and off like the old one did, which was rather unnerving. The new one has a variable speed, so when it fires up it reminds me of a jet engine slowly ramping up in order to take off. But not in a disturbing way, as it's not as loud as a jet, it's just got a comforting aura of progressive movement. The whole contraption looks rather futuristic like a time capsule. I almost expect someone from the future to step out and greet me, "welcome to 2018."

The unsettling part comes from the can of worms we opened by installing a new furnace in our 50 year old home. Our hope was with an extra heat duct run through the bonus room, we could get rid of the pellet stove that currently heats it. It didn't help, or at least not warm the enough to work in there without freezing fingers. So when I mentioned it to the installer on the second day, he tested it. It was indeed getting plenty of heat through the new vents, then he asked about our insulation. Worm one, there is very little insulation in the attic in that area. 

Then came the dilemma of who would shoot some insulation up there, worm two. My husband opted to do it rather than hire someone. He took a long time to research it, worm three. Once he figured out how he'd do it, he had to create a crawlway (like a walkway, but the roof too hangs low to stand up) to reach the very front of the uninsulated space, worm four. 

He did those things on Saturday. Sunday he went to a friend's house to watch the Daytona 500 and didn't accomplish anything for the good of my psyche, worm five. This worm wasn't because he went off with friends on a playdate - uh, annual car race event, it was because I am an anxious person, especially when things need to get done and my house is upended. When something is hanging over my head that there's nothing I can physically do to take care of it, I get in a frenzy and my family members need to peel me off the ceiling. This worm made me question my sanity and how my own energy leaks out through my uninsulated emotional ceiling. Oh what the heck, that deserves another worm, worm six.

Yesterday, as my husband enjoyed his time with his friends, I ruminated over my attitude. By the end of the day and several chocolate chip cookies later, I finally settled into being unsettled for the next month. It's not like everything happens at once and it's not like it won't be fine soon, which is the lesson from my brother-in-law I try to hold close. Besides, my sister is visiting this month and really, what would it be like to have company without having my house in chaos? It's just not right. 

Worm seven is back to getting insulation blown with my husband working overtime this week.

Worm eight and nine are the two inspections I'll have to endure. I pray both the inspectors are having a good day when they visit. 

Worm ten is the duct cleaning at the end of March that hasn't been done for too many years. Followed up by worm eleven, the duct sealing we'll have the next day, at which time we will be insured not to have any other ducts loose and heating up our crawl space. 

There is a possible worm twelve due to the inspections. The dirty dozen, indeed. But I'm not going to go there. I'm choosing to think good thoughts about these worms. One of the people I was dumping my stress on over the weekends, did remind me that inspectors are here for our personal safety.

​Worms are good for my garden, they'll be good for the house, too. Right? Right?

I just want to state that there haven't been Good Food Fridays these past couple weeks only because I haven't cooked anything new. I have been cooking consistently. Well, except for that errant day of all-consuming Creative Memories sales - I'm just going to overlook that phase of my life and not let it define me. Even when I don't cook, there are always leftovers to eat anyway. 

I can, however, talk about food today. My oldest daughter and I have been in the kitchen together early Tuesday and Thursday mornings solving important world issues. I'm making my breakfast, she's packing herself food for the day and preparing her own breakfast. 

We've stayed away from the current political climate, determining there's not much we can do about it but curl our toes and ride the wave. However, our most recent discussion has been a dilemma many people have struggled with for centuries. I'm not sure we'll solve the problem, but I think it's time we addressed the elephant in the room.

Citrus fruits. More specifically when and how we know when their season has truly ended. I hate peeling a nice clementine and biting into a dry, woody piece of fruit. So do I keep buying them until we get a bad batch or do we stop at some point in the next couple weeks while we're still on top? 

Because of my weight loss journey, I've taken to eating a lot more fruits and vegetables. They add bulk to my diet and keep me full longer. I've been enjoying eating clementines with my breakfast every morning for several months now and I discovered how much I like peeling and eating a grapefruit like one would an orange. But I know, and the citrus knows, their time is near. They will become unpalatable very soon. 

What will I replace them with? Am I willing to push the envelope to the point of cutting into that first grapefruit at the end of the season only to find it unappetizing? If that happens, will I take the time to return them to Costco (because Costco takes everything back) or should I just chalk it up to experience, add them to my yard waste bin, and note the date on my calendar for next year? "Citrus should not be purchased past February or March such and such."

It is an issue to be sure. I don't think my daughter and I ever came to a satisfactory conclusion, but it will probably be glaringly obvious in the next month or so. After that, our Tuesday and Thursday mornings will be dilemma free - we'll be taking requests. 

As I write this I feel like I'm about to explode. I'm very freaked out with this whole process of replacing our furnace. I just feel like there are so many variables that can go wrong. The worst being after it's all said and done, there must be an inspection. 

We've never had good experiences with inspectors in the past. They've made us jump through hoops for various projects we've undertaken or attempted to undertake. Sometimes even rejecting our intentions. We've scrapped a planned addition onto our house, scrambled to clean roofs, and leapt tall buildings in a single bound for inspectors. They really do have all the power. 

With this particular type of installation the inspection comes last. It makes me even more nervous because if something goes wrong, my old beast will have already gone out the door and I won't have the option of retreating. I'm assuming the furnace company will take responsibility for anything that could go wrong on their end. But this is an old house and electric panels and their integrity come to mind (the electric panel, not the inspector - though that's not totally off my radar either). 

So my anxiety is through the roof. I relaxed a bit when grown ups showed up at my door this morning. I don't mind young people making an honest living, but when I encounter 12 year old professionals (because I'm getting to be that age where all young people look 12 to me), my faith is shaken. 

Upon talking to said installers, there a a few things I understood to be true that they didn't know anything about. They talked me off the ceiling (though they didn't know they were doing that), and I just have to trust the system. 

I'm going to hole up in my office and let them do their jobs. I will maintain my sanity, I will. 

I didn't get my newspaper column out on Monday like I normally do and was so focused on finishing it yesterday morning I just plain forgot to blog. Also there are big doings in our household this week and it's been a bit all-consuming. We are getting a new furnace/air conditioner tomorrow. 

My husband and I finally agreed it would be better to replace it now, before it craps out. I've felt that way for years, but I think I was pushing more for it because I'm alone in the house with it all day. The furnace talks to me and roars at me and has just generally been a beast I haven't enjoyed living with. Pondering its intentions takes a lot of energy and paying its growing bill hasn't been a joy ride either. 

So I called The Guy. That would be the furnace guy that came out last summer to fix the air  conditioning unit  (here's the back story on that). He and I threw around the idea of replacing everything then, but my husband wasn't on board. It wasn't really worth The Guy's time, because you really don't want a thorough replacement estimate unless you are about to replace it. Things change so quickly. 

So The Guy came out last Friday, measured, calculated, drew pictures. He quickly became "Da Man", when he crawled under our house and reattached a heating duct that had completely fallen off. He noticed when he was out last summer that it was particularly dirty. At first I was appalled and thought he was commenting on my lame housekeeping, but he wasn't. If a heat vent is that dirty, it means there is no air coming through.

What promoted him to Da Man was that at the point where the duct is located, the crawl space narrows down to extra claustrophobic conditions. He didn't have to do it himself, he could've instructed one of the installers to take care of it later this this week. On top of that he didn't flinch when our house became warmer before he'd even crawled out from under it and we jokingly said, "Never mind, now we don't need a new furnace." 

But really, we do. When Da Man was standing next to our furnace as it kicked on, it gurgled at him, and told him things only he understood and the rest of us didn't want to know. 

As far as the process being all consuming, I'm grateful my husband didn't insist on a million estimates, because I really like this company, Pacific Air Systems, and their customer service. It's just been a lot of paperwork, pictures back and forth, and just now a text that said their suppliers are out of units so they've upgraded us at no extra charge. 

Who's Da Man now?

It's just a wonder anyone ever thinks it's a good idea to leave me alone in the house. I went outside to get a pork roast from the freezer for dinner, and ended up wandering in the yard to see if the carrot nose from our snow woman Gladys, the busty Irish gal from Cape Cod, got eaten by the bunnies the cat spots every evening through my bedroom window. The carrot was gone, but then I spied her eyes, which were dried poppy pods I hadn't planted.

I picked one up to see if there were any seeds left. It was soggy and if there had been seeds they'd planted themselves where they lay in the middle of yard, which then reminded me I had more, safely under the patio awning. Upon observation of said dry pods, I really couldn't tell if there were still seeds in them because I didn't know what they looked like in the first place. So I took one out to the garden, in my pajamas and boot slippers, boobs a floppin', opened the seed pod and shook it out. I think it's a month later than they should be planted, but the pods are at least four years old, so either way, it doesn't really matter. They will do what they're supposed to do or not. 

I went back in the house, wondered what I went outside for, decided I must've taken care of it, and sat down at the computer. Then I remembered the pork roast, retrieved it from the freezer, and returned to the computer. 

Last Saturday, I decided that the items left on my Creative Memories Garage sale on Facebook weren't going to sell, so I'd make up some albums with my loose, odd-sized pages. That meant I had to buy albums they would fit in, so I claimed a couple from other people's posts. Thing was, I didn't take down the sale items on my own album in the site. 

By the time I got to scrapbooking with my group, someone requested a couple items from me, one of which odd sized pages I'd just told someone I wanted an album for. What do you do then? Well, I really got a charge out of selling all that stuff, and the sellers I'd contacted about the albums hadn't responded, so I told the gal who was buying that I'd send her the stuff this week and deleted my requests for the albums I wanted to buy.

So this morning, besides randomly wandering in the yard in my pajamas, I packaged up the Creative Memories order and started looking at other posts for the one oddly sized album I decided I could make something wonderful out of. Rest assured I took those pages off my garage sale post. 

The decision to do something with the pages in my possession was partly in response to finding one album I'd made up for myself that I never put page protectors on. Yes, the same page protectors I'd just sold. Oh well, the album went this long without them, it will probably be fine for years to come. And the person I sold them to was so happy, how could I not be okay with that? However, I will not repurchase what I've just sold. 

In my Creative Memories Garage Sale surfing, I saw a ISO (in search of) post for something I knew I had extras. I dug them out, took a picture, and replied to the gal. Then I wondered what else I had that I could sell and contemplated going to Goodwill or St. Vincent's to see what I could find that I could sell on eBay. I was obviously having way too much fun.

Uh? I thought I already established that the eBay merchant's life wasn't for me. If only I could get that engrossed in my writing. Which sometimes I do, but the thrill of the chase isn't as rewarding as it was selling on the garage sale. 

Someone should just stop me now. I think I need an intervention.

Well, I know what I DON'T want to do to make a few extra bucks. I couldn't sustain being a seller on eBay for any length of time. Little did I know how crazy I could get over a couple sales.

I was sorting through my office drawers last week and unearthed a few Creative Memories scrapbooking pages I no longer had albums for. Back in the day I bought as many pages and page protectors as would fit in any photo album. For family albums I always used anything I bought, but for specialty sized albums, I rarely used the entire amount of pages.

It was those odd sized pages I needed to sell, so I pulled them out and set them on my desk and found a Creative Memories Garage Sale on Facebook. That was last week, maybe even a couple of weeks ago. This afternoon, I was in limbo with my day and wondered what was something productive I could do to fill my time. I'm always deterred by trying to figure out how to do things, and that was no exception. 

I was counting what I had and wondering at the mismatched pages/page protector ratio when I noticed another drawer. More bundles of specialty pages. 

I jumped in and started posting. then sat back and waited. I laughed at myself, because I figured it would be like Craigslist's and take several days for the good word to get out. 

I checked back about twenty minutes later, still laughing at my ridiculous expectations and the whole thing exploded. A buyer snagged the largest sized album pages right out of the gate, then the medium sized page protectors went like wild fire. Unlike eBay, there was no bidding war because I posted the prices. I wasn't looking to rip anyone off, anyway, I just really wanted to have someone use what I couldn't. 

My eyes were glued to the screen as I tried to field requests in the order received and make sure it was first come first served. It was extremely addictive. I felt like I was watching a football game and getting way too involved by screaming and jumping up and down at the action. It's the real reason I don't watch sports. I wonder if that's how a good day on Wall  Street feels. I had a hard timing coming down from the adrenaline, or a sugar high from Reese's Krispies. Whichever, it was a wild ride.

I realized if I had a job that kept me that riveted I'd never come up for air, and my family would rarely see me. However, maybe they'd be a lot more self-reliant. When my daughter came in to ask if I was making dinner, I practically yelled, "Does it look like I'm making dinner?" She backed slowly out of the room. I did not make dinner. 

When the most popular sized items were mostly gone, the frenzy ended. Everyone left me staring at the screen while they went and made dinner for their families. Now I have a pile of things to ship (paid for by the buyer).

It will be nice to have a little extra cash for the coffers, but really, after this stuff is gone, this cannot be a regular activity for me. I don't think my heart, or my family, could handle it. 

“As it were”—a curious, parenthetic phrase. As if it were so. A phrase used “to indicate that a word or statement is perhaps not formally exact though practically right”. 

Yeah, that. It seemed right, but I had to look it up. And it's correct given this day. My husband is working overtimes, my kids have school, I have an appointment later this afternoon. 

But no matter what we are doing on Valentine's Day and no matter how we feel about this commercially prepared day, we all want to be remembered. I will treat it like any other day with our family's fractured schedules, but with a tasty flare. 

I'm making lasagna and Reese's rice crispy treats and leaving Valentine's chocolate out for my family when they each land home in their own time.

​Because really, that's all anyone wants on Valentine's Day - chocolate.

I cannot believe I got the cold my family has been passing around. I don't normally get whatever they have, being determined such things won't alight on me. I simply refuse the presence of any such bug.

I'm always trying to get everyone to understand that you shouldn't ever say out loud that you think you're getting a cold. It just gives it permission to stay. They all scoff at me and say it anyway.

However, I have become more sensitive to my family's ailments these past years, understanding when they aren't feeling up to snuff and responding to their needs. In past years, I was so determined any snuffle or cough was all in their heads I refused to take them to a doctor immediately. 

Don't worry, they weren't exhibiting symptoms of death or anything, but I'd kind of tell them to buck up, "It's just a flesh wound" (a funny quote from a Monty Python movie). I'd urge whoever was suffering to get out of bed, take a shower, and see how they felt after that. Until my oldest barfed in the shower on one such day and I had to clean it up. I caught that virus head on, and I probably deserved it. 

Of course a fever was an immediate stay-at-home situation, but everything else was in question until they passed out in front of me. Okay, I didn't let it get that bad, but when I look back on a few incidences, I feel like a bad mom. 

Unfortunately for my oldest, it always seemed to involve her. The tab for her future therapy at my hand is growing by the day. Another time, when she was a teen, I was avoiding taking her to the doctor. When I finally did she had double ear infections and strep. Oops, my bad. 

I'm not sure why my youngest has slipped by without such situations. Maybe she barfed on my feet first, which then made the decision mine in the first place. 

Anyway, now that they are in college and I don't have to call the cranky attendance lady who never believed that anyone's child could be sick, it's not really up to me. It's not a very bad cold and only one class was missed by only one of the girls.

With this particular bug, I think it's come to me because it's been hanging around awhile in my family and is ready to move on. I will send it on its way in the next day or so. It will end with me.

I really do have to do everything around here. 

This has been an insane week for me on the cooking front. The kids are going to school, they're not going to school. It's snowy, will the electricity hold out (it did)? But my husband's work schedule has been the most difficult to live by. 

He's not really sure why, but the powers that be wanted them to work overtime every day last week, then they didn't, then they did, then they didn't..... 

It made me crazy. One day he was sure he was working overtime, so I figured I had a couple hours longer in the office and then he texted me that he was on his way home. It stressed me out. My youngest asked me why I should be stressed over that. I don't know. It's just the way I am until I recalibrate my thought process and dinner schedule. Fortunately, I had dinner already planned and it was an easy recipe. 

Do you know those days when you have something you're anxious to make and then it's a flop. I felt that way when I made a potato bake recipe this week. My husband loved it, but like my daughters said, "he's the white guy of food," meaning the blander the better and no surprises. He just married the wrong person. He never complains about anything I cook,  but if he doesn't take the leftovers for work, I know it wasn't his favorite. 

Ultimately, if I'm not happy with the results, it was a failure. It filled everyone's belly that day, but it's not one I'd offer up to you or repeat. I won't post that one because I want a do-over. I didn't have cheddar cheese only mozzarella and I didn't follow the order of the instructions, so I'll do that next time. So you may see that one in the near future. 

For today, though, I have one of those surprising recipes that a person thinks can never get better, but then the angels sing on high and it is so. It made up for my flopped potato bake. So in deference to Lent looming over us (only 19 days away), here is the most delectable tuna fish casserole ever. I changed it, so I'm just going to print what I did: 

Tuna Noodle Casserole

• 12oz uncooked egg noodles
• 2 - 12oz water-packed tuna fish drained
• 1 cup(s) frozen green peas, thawed
• 16 oz fat free sour cream
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbs dried parsley
• 3 cloves fresh garlic, minced or pressed
• 1⁄2  tsp table salt, or more to taste
• 1⁄4  tsp black pepper, or more to taste
• 1⁄2cup(s) shredded Parmesan cheese or grated

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350ºF.
• Cook noodles according to package directions; drain and transfer to a large bowl. Fold in tuna, mushrooms and peas.
• Whisk sour cream, soup, mustard, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper together in a separate bowl; fold into noodle mixture. Transfer to a 4-quart casserole dish; top with cheese. Bake until top is golden and bubbly, about 30 minutes. Yields about 1 cup per serving.

Bring on Lent!