Reno Day 6/7 and other Musings

Brrr.

Words don't do justice to how cold it is outside. Here was yesterday's forecast:

It was so bad, I had to take a picture of the laptop screen. Seeing those 5 suns in a row would have been nice in the summer (where I don't think we had 5 days of sun running...), but in the winter with HIGHS of -20C, it's evil, just evil, I tell you.

This infernal climate.

The upside is the snow looks mighty pretty, and as an added bonus, squeaks under your feet as you walk (the sound does to my psyche what the sound of nails on a chalkboard does to others):

Everywhere you look, the light plays all sorts of turns on the landscape. Maybe if I stare at that photo long enough, it might remind me of a sandy beach and warm temps? Or is that wishful thinking combined with a hefty dose of cabin fever kicking in, a sort of winter delerium?

Probably the latter.

You have to experience cold like this first hand to understand. Your first breath outside catches your lungs off guard. Planes overhead whistle as they cut through the sky. Everything sounds so clear, and the snow squeaks under your feet as you walk. Cooper walks on three legs as he goes out to make his pee-sicle, as I like to call it in these temps, and the cats don't even go near the front door.

Anyhow, it is the middle of winter, the days are getting a bit longer, and with these temperatures, when it warms up to -10C, it's going to feel like a heat-wave. That's the upside.

Inside, things are humming along. There is an inevitable fine coating of dust that has settled on every surface of the house, and I will turn a proverbial blind eye to it for the sake of my already shaky sanity. In these conditions, ripping open windows to air out the house would get me committed. I just can't wait 'til it warms up...

Eric started to put up the Roxul on the east-facing wall. Roxul is a user-friendly product that is easy to install and easy to cut. One of my bread-knives was expropriated as "the" item to use to cut the batts, and it does a wonderful job, so it was worth the sacrifice. Eric looked at me sternly as I handed it over, saying, "It will never be the same, you know, so are you sure?" (I feel like I have an inappropriate fixation with my kitchen utensils). I think I have had that bread knife for 20 years now, and I am sure they don't make 'em like they used to, but it's okay, Eric, slice away. (Actually, it's a Wiltshire Laser-Sharp knife I bought at Canadian Tire for something insane like $3, if there ever was a product to endorse, it would be this).

Eric in action:

One of the nice benefits of working with Roxul is that it isn't nearly as scratchy as working with fibreglass. It's not nuclear science, installing this stuff, but Eric does it with such precision, I jokingly ask him how his origami folding is going.

Well, it's another 2 days of work under our belts, with no end in sight. Just like the weather.