Tom's Diary

Today’s Chores

• Cat duty
• Gather up and take out the garbage (for pickup tomorrow)
• Showering
• Dispensing Mom’s meds
• Checking with our primary pharmacy about Mom’s Humulin insulin prescription to make sure they received the order for it.  They have not as of yesterday.  DONE.  They have it on file for when we need it, later this month.
• Activate my new bank card and update accounts with vendors that have my old card on file. 

Log

05:00 AM: Woke up prematurely this morning; no doubt due to too much pizza last night.  I got a lead ball in my stomach today.    Anyway, I may stay up here a bit and blog.  But perhaps not, as I’m still quite tired and could sleep another four hours easily.  *Yawn*  We’ll see.

05:55 AM: Created a  Deferred Projects   sub-heading in the sidebar for this, the   Tom’s Diary   blog, and moved some projects under that, which I’ll not be able to work until sometime in the new year.

06:00 AM: Headed back to bed for the few more hours that I missed in the first round of sleep.

10:15 AM Okay, I’m up for the day now. 

11:20 AM: Just talked with our primary pharmacy.  They’ve received Mom’s prespription for the long-acting insulin.  The lady gave me the prescription number so that we can use their automated phone system to order it as needed.

11:45 AM: Updated the address the phone company has on file for Mom, per the emergency-911 project, to our new one.

11:50 AM: I had done the same a month or so ago with my telephone.  However they keep sending my bills to the wrong zip code.  So, while I’m on the phone with this fellow, I’ll see if I can’t get him to fix the zip code on my own phone account,  as well as Mom’s.

11:55 AM: Just talked with Rich at our phone company.  He’s made the address changes to both Mom’s and my accounts.  We’ll have to see, in January, if they got the correct zip code.  I guess as long as we’re receiving the bills, the zip code doesn’t matter, really. 

01:30 PM: [Jack] called an hour or so ago, and we just got off the phone a few minutes ago.  We typically have at least one of these “marathon” talks a year, and one almost always happened during the Christmas holiday season, as this one did today.  He filled me in on the good time he had at the foot party last weekend, passed along regards from friends we both share from when I lived in Philadelphia, and he caught me up on the goings-on in his neck of the woods. 

03:25 PM: I’ve spent the past couple hours filing papers, receipts, bills, letters, and junk mail (filed to the trash can), here in the office.  Now I hadn’t planned on doing this today.  But I couldn’t find my new bank card, which I had planned on activating this afternoon.  So I had to plow through the “muck” to see if I could find it.  So while I was doing all that, it seemed like a small additional task to just file everything where it should be filed.  However, I’ve stil not located the card.  So I’ll give the search for it a few more minutes.  Then, I’ll have to call the bank for a replacement.  Indeed, I learned long ago not to look for lost items for too long; causes highly elevated stress levels.  If it’s easier to just replace them, I opt to do that where practical these days.

03:40 PM: The bank is sending me a new card.  I’m glad the agent was particularly understanding and polite, because he waived the normal $7.50 charge for a lost card.  I was lucky, indeed.  Yep, I really have to improve the filing system for cards and papers around here.  Perhaps this will inspire me to step up work on the   Household Organization, 2009    project.  In fact, I think I’ll finish filing all the rest of the loose papers here this afternoon.

04:45 PM: Debbie just arrived for her weekly visit, a day early.  She says that the weather’s supposed to get bad tonight and into tomorrow.  So she wanted to get our   shopping   out of the way before the snow arrives.

05:00 PM: Worked the   Christmas Lighting, 2009   project.  See today’s comments   there   for more details.

07:55 PM: Back from   tonight’s shopping trip.  It’s snowing pretty hard at the moment such that the drive down I-99 had low visibility.  Got a few Christmas gifts and groceries, which I’ll summarize later.

09:06 PM: Watched today’s episode of   The Young and the Restless   on the DVR.

09:15 PM: Mom just got home from her Tuesday night trivia outing.  A couple inches of snow had accumulated on the ramp.  It’s really coming down.  So I shoveled and salted the ramp.  We can’t afford to have the walkway become slick, what with all our helpers coming in and out each day. 

10:40 PM: Talked with [Emmy].

11:25 PM: Posted the list of posts that I either added or revised today, here. 

12:50 AM: Posted the   Roof Heaters On: 2009-12-08   piece to this, the    Tom’s Diary   blog. 

12:55 AM: I’m now running low on steam.  So I’m off to bed, although I think I’ll look out my bedroom window at the falling snow for a bit before retiring.  Hmmmm.  I wish we had some floodlights on the north side of the house where my windows are, that would light up the snow flakes.  Might this possibly be another project for next summer?    See you tomorrow.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Christmas Lighting, 2009
• Diary Revisions: 2009-12-08
• Household Organization, 2009
• Mom’s Status: 2009-12-08
• Roof Heaters On: 2009-12-08
• Shopping Trip: 2009-12-08

11:40 PM: Turned on our roof heaters tonight, as around four to six inches of snow have fallen.  With that much accumulation on the roof, I want to make sure we get minimal ice build-up in the gutters.  This can result from that snow melting on the warm roof surface, running to the edge of the roof where it’s cold, dripping into the gutters, and then freezing solid.  When this happens, the gutters become clogged with ice, and therefore are no longer effective at carrying the melting snow away.  So, any water subsequently flowing off the roof gets dammed at the roof’s edge, when it hits this gutter ice, and then it flows back up the underside of the roof, which is actually inside our attic. 

Such build-up has, in past years, caused water damage to the interior ceilings on the first floor below. Needless to say, I’m therefore hyper-vigilant, perhaps even anal, when it snows.  Thus, when snow falls, I quickly activate those heaters when the temperature reads between fifteen and thirty-two degrees.  Above thirty-two, roof runoff won’t freeze before it reaches the ground through the gutters.  So when it’s balmy, the heaters aren’t needed. 

The same is true at the other extreme, but for a different reason.  When the temperature falls below fifteen degrees, the heaters do not generate enough BTUs to melt any accumulated ice and snow.  Plus, when it’s this cold, we don’t get much roof runoff, as the heat escaping to the roof from inside the house is not enough to melt the snow on the outside.  So, since there’s no appreciable runoff at sub-fifteen-degree temperatures, there’s thus, no water to freeze up and clog the gutters. But even if there was runoff, the heaters are not hot enough to keep it from freezing.  Therefore,  running the heaters under these conditions would do little good, and cost lots of money besides.

Our heaters draw 16 amps at 120 volts, which is roughly 1920 watts of power.  At roughly ten cents per kilowatt hour, this means that we pay around twenty cents per hour to keep the gutters warm.  This can add up at $4.80 per day.  So let’s put it this way: You don’t want to forget that you have these things energized, lest you find later that your wallet is empty after paying your high electricity bill. 

They make automatic switches that turn on and off the heaters based on temperature and the presence of water in the gutters.  But as of yet, I’ve not purchased them.  The are a little costly and require some labor to install.  Besides, I like that the house “needs me” to care for it, by manually turning on and off the heaters. 

Tom Hesley 

Related Posts

• Roof De-Icers
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-09

Today, I either added or modified the following posts in  the   Tom’s Diary    blog for improved brevity, clarity, categorization, appearance, indexing, removal of duplicate titles, and search-ability:

Tom Hesley

04:45 PM: Had a nice surprise: Debbie came a day early.  I remember last week now that she said she would be coming this week on Tuesday.  However, I’d forgotten about this until she showed up today.  That worked out well for shopping, as I would not have been able to go had she come on Wednesday, her usual day, as I have the WPSBC Alumni Association board meeting to dial into.  But we got the shopping finished tonight, and here’s what we did:

First stop: Wal Mart, where we purchased tht following items:

• Dasani bottled water (1 case)
• Pepsi, diet, caffeine-free (8 liters)
• Pepperidge Farm pumpernickel bread (1 loaf)
• Great Value brand instant oats (2 canisters)
• Sun Maid raisins (2 canisters)
• Sargento muenster cheese (2 packs)
• Sargento aged Swiss cheese (2 packs)
• Sargento sharp provolone cheese (1 pack)
• Minute Maid pulp-free orange juice (1/2 gallon)
• Cherries (2 pounds)
• StonyField fat free organic milk (2 gallons)
• Small Sterilite 1.1-liter latch-lid storage boxes (16)
• Shoe box-style Sterilite storage boxes (21)
• Sterilite model 1626 storage basket (6)
• Campbell’s cream of chicken soup (8 cans)
• Fancy Feast cat food (10 cans)
• Christmas ribbon (4 rolls)
• Bulk brushes
• Christmas cards

Total cost: $148.32

Next we stopped at Staples to pick up the following for [Emmy], for Christmas:

• Swingline stapler.
• Refill staples for above.
• Scotch tape.
• Reese’s peanut butter cups (2 bags).

Total cost: $37.35

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Household Organization, 2009
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-08
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-09

Pending Appointments And Issues

• Verify that her NPH insulin prescription has indeed been placed on file at our primary pharmacy; if not, work this issue until it has been.  DONE.  They received the prescription order yesterday.  So now, it will be available whenever we need to have it filled.
• 2009-12-11 @ 3:45 PM: Appointment with podiatrist. 
• 2010-02-04 @ 11:30 AM: Appointment with orthopedist for a quarterly checkup on the progress of healing of her charcot foot.

Log 

07:09 AM: Blood sugar: 154.  Coverage unknown.  She didn’t remember what she took, and I was sleeping at this time.

10:20 AM: Dispensed Mom’s morning meds, although she appeared quite groggy, and in a scratchy voice, said, “I can’t do them right now.  I’ll take them later.”  Well, I guess I’ll have to check back later to make sure she takes them.

01:25 PM: Blood sugar: 273.  Covered with 17 units of log insulin.

02:00 PM: Dispensed Mom’s lunch-time  meds.

05:28 PM: Blood sugar: 182.  Covered with 10 units of log insulin.

05:40 PM: Dispensed Mom’s evening time meds.

06:30 PM: Debbie took Mom and I out shopping and then we dropped her off at trivia night.

09:05 PM: Mom’s friends dropped her off hack home just a little while ago.  As usual, she had a great time; she always seems to be in great spirits at the conclusion of these trivia outings.

11:30 PM: Blood sugar: 133.  No coverage.

11:35 PM: Dispensed Mom’s bed-time meds.

 Tom Hesley

Related Posts

•  Today’s Business: 2009-12-08