Staying Warm, Lots of Reading, and a Little Bit of Artwork
Well, the good news is the new furnace is much more efficient than the old. After a full month of having it run, a comparison of this November over last November shows less natural gas usage, like 18% less usage. And this is with running the fireplace, too. Last November I didn't have the fireplace installed, so it was just the furnace heating the house. Through this November, I used the fireplace quite a bit, so both it and the furnace were consuming natural gas. The fact the two still used less natural gas over the old furnace makes me incredibly happy. I feel like my quest to leave a smaller footprint is happening.
The bad news is the price of natural gas this November is double the price of natural gas last November. When I saw the change, I was speechless. Twice as much. Seriously. This country is going absolutely insane. After lamenting all of this to a close friend yesterday, she said, "Well, I know you don't eat bacon, but it's now $13 a package, and that's for the crappy stuff." She went on to say she rations the bacon through the week just to make it last longer.
Good grief.
To keep my mind off of the price of natural gas, I've been reading. A lot. And really good books, too. A very good friend and I write together, deciding on an exercise that we each then fulfill and share with the other. We've been doing this for several years now. Recently I suggested we add reading books to the equation. My friend agreed, so we started with Stoner by John Williams. I couldn't put it down. I was totally caught up in the book, feeling so many emotions through the entire story. I sat here and cried, and when I reached the end, I didn't want to turn the last page over to close out the book. When my friend and I got together to talk about it, we both just marveled over the writing, the story, the impact. Stoner is a must-read.
The next book on our list is The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford. I finished it last evening, again finding myself so caught up in the story I couldn't put it down. I can't wait for my friend to finish the book so we can get together and talk. Like Williams, the writing is beautiful and packed to the brim with ideas, emotions. I'm still trying to unpack it all. I'll return to it in a few days to reread to get a better grasp on the events, the thoughts. I recently read some of Marcus Aurelius' meditations, and I especially appreciate the advice to read carefully and closely, to not be satisfied with a superficial understanding of what one is reading.
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Old fence posts anchored with cement, stones, and dirt |
Over the weekend I finally finished a project I started back in June. I found some old glass blocks and wanted to create sculptures with them for my yard. At the time, I was planning to make three sculptures of varying height, but I ended up making just the one so far. A couple of weeks ago I finally figured out where this one sculpture could go and how the whole project would end up. The only new materials for this project are the two lattice pieces. Everything else was repurposed.
My goal is to plant climbing, flowering vines that will creep up the lattice panels. On the backside, I'll be able to attach hooks from which to hang small planters. While my dream was to build a deck in this space and replace the small window of the back room with French doors that could be opened for a lovely view of the back field, for now I'm going to settle for spreading a thick layer of cedar mulch and place big planters of flowers in the space. |
My glass block sculpture. Definitely not perfect, but what is? |
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The lattice panels. |
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