CHRIS ARVIDSON

It's January. It's raining and in the 40s - my very least favorite winter weather of all. Give me snow any time.

The pipes broke at the cabin. When Henry opened the garage door, water poured out. The garage and part of the basement are wet and soggy. Fortunately, there wasn't much damage to anything stored in either place. But really, wet drywall and insulation smell bad fast. And to make everything even more fun, a circuit blew in the kitchen here in town and it included not just some kitchen fixtures, but also the garage door opener. This, even I, Miss Electrical Family, could not handle. An electrician had to be found and called.

In an attempt to get out of this January funk, to feel a sense of accomplishing something, I tried doing a bunch of stuff that needed doing. You know, the kind of things you think about when you're falling asleep, the items that you can conveniently put on the back-burner with a wave of your hand -- for months at a time. Crap stuff like changing light fixtures in the kitchen, taking massive amounts of recycling (from before Christmas) to the dump, getting the spare tire taken off (from the flat you got running over something somewhere around Christmas) and the proper tire put back on Snowball the Subaru.

All the dukey got done and in doing so, Henry was motivated to do some of it, too. We are on our way to getting the cable/satellite situation straightened out finally for example.

So, some positive effects were realized around here, just not the desired ones. The funk remains; it's still raining out there. Freezing rain is on the way. Damn it.