ooh, chilly!

The local farmers have been spraying their crops in anticipation of Sinkhole Season. We are just putting on more layers of clothing. It makes us think of home - we both grew up dressing up pretty warm in the winter, me in the snow belt and her in the Smoky Mountains.

Yep. Mighty impressive storm they're having up the coast from us, and Europe has been hit hard as well. I suppose we can handle a few nights around 0 Celsius. I still haven't seen any ice in the dog dish, or even frost around the neighborhood. We sit in a sheltered pocket (and one must also take Lisa's protective bubble into account). We had cold rain a few days ago, and the clouds were coming in low off the Gulf of Mexico; they looked like snow clouds. I was walking Rocko and decided to pretend that the light rain was snow flurries. That cheered me up.

We had a very nice Christmas with Dad and Velma, and have almost finished the leftovers. It took me a couple of days to recover from the feast; if I eat a lot in one sitting, I find myself hungrier the next day, and the day after that, etc. I have to force myself to endure a couple of days of serious hunger in order to get back to my regular eating cycle.

Changing the subject, for the first time since long before I moved in, we have a problem with German cockroaches. Lisa worked for a few years in pest control and really wanted to wait until we could get MaxForce super-bait, but that stuff is expensive and we both hate roaches. One crawled on me in bed a few days ago. No time to wait for expensive bait. Time for chemical warfare.

This afternoon I took Lisa and Rocko to the dog park so that I could run some errands. I had planned to pick up some insecticide at the dollar store, but all they had was aerosol cans. I took my groceries home and had a smoke (I don't smoke in my new car), remembering that I'd seen Spectracide Bug Stop on the shelf at Ace Hardware in Elfers.

Just last week I got a $5 off coupon for that very store thanks to the Ace Rewards program. I shuffled through the papers, books, clipboards and envelopes on the coffee table and fished out that $5 Ace card. I was able to pick up a gallon of Bug Stop for less than $3. Not bad.

I swore by Bug Stop in Tallahassee. It (along with boric acid) helped me keep the house mostly pest-free after I evicted the thousands of critters belonging to dozens of species with whom I shared the residence for the first six months.

So, when I got home, I walked around and performed a cursory application in the usual high-traffic places - baseboards and door & window frames. Over the next day or two I'll get the whole house treated, but I told Lisa that we should be seeing dying bugs starting within 24 hours.