January Birthdays and Shedding Some Light

January has come and gone and in addition to paperwork I'm trying to dig through, we've had a couple of "snow events" that have added to my challenge of being alone.  I have secured a landscaping company to do the heavy plowing but they only come if more than 3" has fallen.  Otherwise, it's the broom and the shovel being pushed by yours truly.  No, I am not doing any lifting - just sweeping and pushing enough to get back and forth from the house to the garage to get the car out, and if it's light enough, pushing a path down the hill to the mailbox and up the hill on the other side of the driveway for the garbage and recycling cans.  Anyway, enough about the weather.  We have two family birthdays in January - Ryan's and Rachel's and I have gone the easy route with very simple cards.  

Ryan is a Cowboys fan and I used some background paper I recently picked up at $Tree for the background, added a glittered star and Happy Birthday in silver as those are the Cowboys colors.  Maverick and I put together a card for his dad when I was there at Christmas but I forgot to take a picture of it.  We had picked out a piece of scrapbook paper with footballs on it at Hobby Lobby and he had me cut out the footballs and he decorated the card with them.  He really enjoys doing art projects and I'm glad that Rachel is not squeamish about him making an artistic mess.

Rachel's card was made using some extra die cuts that I had from a card I made for a friend a few months ago.  I found these little star nail jewels in my stash which already had adhesive on the back and added them to the card to sparkle it up.  I did have plans in my head to do more elaborate cards for both of them, but my creative mojo is at an all-time low right now.  There were several artistic challenges that I wanted to do in January, but the life challenges that I've had lately have been draining me so I've put the art on hold temporarily.

One of those challenges seems like it should be pretty easy - replacing lightbulbs - but trust me, it was not.  This is our light fixture in our dining area where I spend most of my time as I have full view of the kitchen, living room (and television), and the stairway to the second floor as well as the hallway and bathroom.  I also get the view of the backyard through the sliding glass doors from here.  During the day, because I don't have any elaborate window treatments, the sun provides me with great light but once the sun goes down, the light has to come on.  We had been ordering lightbulbs online the last couple of years because they no longer carry halogen lightbulbs in the stores and have gone to LEDs.  Well, that phasing out has reached all the online sources also by now and I probably could get halogen bulbs for this fixture if I wanted to pay $20 or more for each bulb which I didn't want to do.  So it was time to switch to LED lights.

Finding the right intensity of the LED's was the issue - there are 5 different "levels" of intensity and all I really wanted was something that would give me the same effect as what I had.  I went to Home Depot and after checking out the plant section first as we would always do, I asked a salesperson where the lightbulbs were thinking that he'd tell me the aisle number and I would just go and take a look at what they had.  But instead of telling me the aisle number he said "follow me" which I now was obliged to do as he took off with me following with my cart.  Then, instead of leaving me on my own, he started to explain the display, clicking the switches as the lights showed the different intensities.  I decided to go with the one in the middle thinking that that would be best and he asked me how many I needed.  I told him that my light fixture needed 5 bulbs whereby he informed me that they came in a box of 4.  I said okay, I guess I'll need two boxes then.  And his comeback was - but you'll have 3 extra.  As this gentleman appeared older than me and said this with a deadpan face, I held back a snarky comment about being able to do math and told him that I had no intention of only replacing the two that were out and wanted the fixture to have all of the same kind, so I guess I'll just have some extra,  He proceeded to further tell me that I should know that the new LED lights last a long time and I told them that I was sure I would be able to find a use for them in another lamp in the future.  Then I made the mistake of asking him where something else was and after looking it up on his phone said "follow me".  

He got distracted in that aisle by a couple who were looking for something and I thought I was free, but I wasn't fast enough and he was back to my cart in a flash as I pointed out to him that I had found what I needed.  At this point he asked me if I knew how to use it - it was a siphon hose that I was getting to use on the pool cover.  I said yes, I had seen my husband use it many times and knew how to use it whereby he proceeded to read the directions out loud to me before he put it back in my cart.  Then I had to ask one more question - where do I get a key made here?.  He told me that there was a kiosk near the check-outs where you could do it yourself but suggested that I ask the cashiers to do it for me.  

I went over to the kiosk and there was another couple there making a key so I turned to go find the next thing on my list and nearly ran the sales guy over with my cart.  He decided to follow me this time as I looked for a cheap solar light which they didn't have.  I thanked him for his assistance and went back towards the check out.  Since the key kiosk was free, I pulled up along side it, read the directions and proceeded to make my key only to turn around when Paul (it was at this point that I noticed he had his name written in Sharpy on his orange HD apron) the saleguy said - I guess you decided to do it yourself.  I wanted to say yes, just because I don't know where things are doesn't mean that I don't know how to use them.  I ran a school for crying out loud - I can do math, I can learn by observation, and I sure can read directions, but instead mumbled something about it being easy and that I had to go.

It wasn't until I got home that I noticed that the filaments in the clear bulbs that I needed for this particular fixture were not clear or white, but yellow and was not pleased with that at all so I new I was going to have to return them.  I tried ordering some from Amazon that said they had white filaments, but the ones that came had the same yellow.  After looking it up on the Home Depot website, I found that they did have bulbs with white filaments that came 2 to a box which were a little more expensive per bulb but I'd only need 3 boxes and have one extra which was less than the 4 to a box - see I can do math.  The only problem was that I did not want to go back and encounter that salesguy again so I made sure not to go back on the same day of the week in hopes of not running into him.  

The return went without a hitch and I found the right bulbs and actually bought them in two different intensities so that I could try them and see which was best knowing that I would have to return the ones that I didn't like.  It took me three weeks to make that return - I just could not bring myself to go in there but I did.  

Since then, I have another light (one of three) out over the sink and when Rachel and the boys were here last weekend one of four blew out in the kitchen fan/light.  I think there are spares for them in the cabinet but since there's plenty of light right now and I want to take a lightbulb break for now.

But as I'm writing about light, I thought I'd share some sunlight phenomena of late like the way the sun lit up the head of this angel I have hanging on my gypsyrod.

And the beautiful rainbow halo around the sun I noticed after getting out of PT one day.

And as if this post wasn't long enough - I had another light experience this week.  I haven't been able to get to sleep very well at night which keeps me up even later than my normal late night and it was just about 2 a.m. when I went into the upstairs bathroom and took a look outside.  When I looked over at the garage I could see that there was a light on which was very strange.  I had put the car away in the early afternoon and I know that I didn't put any lights on other than the light that automatically goes on when you open the garage door and closes several minutes later and it was daylight then so I didn't see any light on after that and hadn't really looked at the garage since then.  So immediately I thought that either I left the door to the car slightly ajar or the headlights on (I do put the headlights on when I pull in because they help me to know how far to pull in when I can no longer see the light line on what's in front of the car).  In my mind I knew though that the car would let me know if the headlights were on, so it was more likely to be that I may have brushed the button for the inside light when I was getting out.  

Not wanting to run down the battery in any case,  I went back downstairs and got my coat on and went outside to investigate.  But when I got in the garage I could see that it was neither the headlights or the car light.  I had to sit in the car for a few minutes and wait for the automatic light to shut off so I could see what was on.  When both of the bay lights went out I could see that the light was coming from the storage attic above.  

Now, I didn't even know how to turn that light on so it became a great puzzlement to me.  But at 2 in the morning, I was not about to do any more investigating.  I went out yesterday and pulled the car out and checked the windows to make sure they were locked and the sliding barn door to Thad's workshop was locked so no one could get in.  Rachel said that "Dad must have been working up there last night" when I asked her if she'd been in there when she was here last weekend (although I would have noticed the light on before that I'm sure).  So then I went looking for light switches and found two switches near where we keep the recycling cans.  One was for the attic and I couldn't tell what the other one was for, but the attic switch was up so I think that I must have inadvertently brushed up against it when I was putting the recycling in early that day.  I'm so glad that I did not call the police to tell them that I thought someone was hiding in my garage.  

The title of this post references January and it is now February 23 when I am finally finishing writing and posting.  Today is supposed to start the 100 Day Project and I am still deciding on what I want to do so I may be starting a couple days behind but my intention is to actually do and try to find my artistic mojo again.