So....

[Tama]

I'm okay. My amateurishly drawn fan-manga is both harder and easier than I thought to do. My dominant hand is tense and stiff, and I just know it's going to ache like hell in the morning. I was already having wrist pains...what a time to take up drawing!

I have people asking when I'm going to put out another chapter of fanfiction though.

...

Yeah, the snow has really given me a lot of free time.

[WishfulSpirit]

Working the evening shift while fighting a cold. It isn't horrible but I have had an interesting night. Some drunk who wanted me to call him a cab (he isn't a guest here but if it gets you off my property I'm happy to do it) and an actual registered guest who comes down to the lobby to argue with invisible people.

[Bardmaiden]

Just finished crocheting myself a pair of fingerless gloves

[Dreamstalker]

If I didn't have any bookshelves, that's what my room would look like...my dad's does look like that.

[Bardmaiden]

"Insulation levels" of books

Looks like my bedroom!

[Aria]

Not so good today... I didn't sleep well last night AT ALL but I had myself booked at the gym so I went anyway. Huge mistake. Should have gone back to bed...

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Not been too bad . . . been either cooking/cleaning up, watching tv w/Mom or in the office when I haven't been peeking outside to see the snowstorm.

[EricKei]

"Insulation levels" of books, courtesy of "Read or Die."

[mathnerd]

My biggest obstacle is that I can't just buy any old car. I have a kid who uses a wheelchair. I need a van. I really need a van with lifts, but even high milage used vans that have been converted run around $30K. I just ran my credit. It's bad enough with what I've done to it, but there's three items on there that definitely aren't mine. My credit score is below 600. I need to get it up 50 points before my credit union can approve me. If I get those three things off, it'll help, but I don't think it'll help enough.

Right now I'm hoping for a miracle. The special finance guy at the Dodge dealership is looking into things. They have a "new" 2015, base model Grand Caravan on sale for $16K. I can drain the last of my son's SSI backpay account and come up with a $6K down payment, and my current van is worth $1000 as a trade-in, even in the condition it's in. That leaves me with $9k plus taxes and registration to come up with. It's frustrating because that's really not a huge amount for a brand new van, but it seems like it's out of reach.

[Dreamstalker]

Picked our car up to the tune of $1900. Some of the work was stuff that needed to be re-fixed, mechanic showed us the old exhaust clamps that were essentially bits of rust in the proper shapes held together by rust If those had been left alone even a few days longer he said the entire system would have fallen out which would have been even more expensive. Luckily I have a credit card on one of dad's accounts for absolute emergencies (which this qualified as).

One of us needs to hit Powerball or Mega Millions, soon.

[mathnerd]

Two words: Dead car.

I'm gonna go cry now.

[Kogarashi]

One whole wall of their living room is built in bookshelves. Like at least 15 feet.

Jealous!

It was crammed full with DVDs.

Still kind of jealous (though I don't think I have that many individual movies/TV series I want to own.

A nice thing about moving this year to our new place is that we bought a house, which means we actually had the space to put up all our bookshelves and add floating shelves on another wall, so now our entire library is up on the free-standing shelves (instead of half-or-more in storage), and our DVDs finally have their own home on the floating shelves.

I'm currently struggling with a bicycle which refuses point-blank to work properly in cold weather.

My husband can sympathize. While we're now in one of the southern states so it's not a real problem anymore, we moved from upstate NY and, prior to Hubby upgrading to a brand new bike, there was a 3-4 month stretch where the bike just refused to run properly in the cold. I think it kept slipping its chain, among other things. The bike upgrade was necessary because of how old the previous one was, and just requiring more in maintenance than it was worth.

[Aria]

Well, I walked to the grocery store. I bought food, lots of fruits esp. XD These cherries from chile were 5.99 a lb - that's Canadian - wrinkly and likely out of season, but still delicious. So I walked home carrying three heavy bags and that was my workout for the day. Right now I'm eating something vaguely chili-ish that I made with squash, a sausage, onions, frozen kale and tomato paste. And chili powder, garlic powder, cumin and salt. I'm working chats from various departments as I eat. A pretty good day, honestly.

[XCashier]

I got two tall bookshelves for Christmas. Assembled them, put them in the bedroom, and they now hold a good chunk of my books where I can get to them easily. (Some are still in the living room, or boxed up in the storage room.) I've got all of the Harry Potter books, nearly all of the Discworld books, lots of other miscellaneous sci-fi, medieval history books, cookbooks, graphic novels, bible studies, etc.

I'm currently re-doing the kitchen. We've got too many items we don't use, and too many things that we can't find when we need them. Not to mention too much dust on the shelves. So, I'm cleaning, rearranging and now need to figure out storage strategies.

[Chromatix]

I'm currently struggling with a bicycle which refuses point-blank to work properly in cold weather. This is quite a handicap, seeing as it's my main means of transport, the nearest shops are eight miles away, and it's now late January in Finland.

I eventually figured out that the freewheel is of the fancy "roller clutch" type, most notable for its lack of tick-tick-tick noise when coasting - and also its lack of reliability. And, most vexingly, its lack of mechanical compatibility with conventional ratchet-based freewheels that might make good replacements.

Advice from internet experts suggests it may be cost-effective to replace the whole *wheel*. But at least I can probably re-use the tyre (which is new) and gears (which aren't new, but are familiar).