New Wind Anemometer
Updating Technology On A Budget-
Recently we did some updates of some of our technology, on a budget of course! Our TV was getting a bit old and it always had terrible sound. It was a great deal seven or eight years ago but it was time for something bigger with our aging eyes. We looked around for a while and I had always told Dave I wanted to get something with some decent speakers since I love music! For my birthday in December Dave bought me /us a new TV! We wanted one that fitted in our existing entertainment center since we didn't want anything too big. I'm not a fan of huge huge televisions. Maybe if I sat around all day and have nothing to do but watch programs, but hey, I have other things to do! We got a great deal at Costco and got a perfect size. It's a Roku Smart TV, and since we already had a Roku stick on the old TV and account it was easy to transition over to it. The sound is amazing!
We donated our old TV, hopefully someone will give it a new home!
For a Christmas present Dave got me something I have wanted for quite a while. Being the Weather geek that I am Dave got me a La Crosse wireless weather station with an anemometer (solar powered) or wind measuring device. It's on the top of our house's garage peak! Pretty easy install, works great!
It has a really bright LCD tablet that's easy to read. He also got this at Costco apparently. Truly accurate which is nice and I'm always watching the winds because we can have some pretty severe wind gusts here. That can affect our chickens and the coop and whatever we happen to be growing at the time. It's nice to have the app on the phone too, part of the set up process, which was pretty easy.
Our Keurig coffee maker was on its last legs. We wanted to be more environmentally friendly and David said he really preferred French press coffee anyway. I did some research on electric teaa kettles on Consumerreports.org. You can sometimes find their test results for free. If you ever have to buy a car I highly recommend spending the $5 a month subscribe for 1 month and do some research. We've been super happy with our Mazda hatchback after doing research and buying one. It's 11 years old and has had hardly any problems of all, super reliable. Anyway I did some research and I we bought an electric tea kettle. Some of them are glass, which makes me a little bit wary, if you drop it's dead! So I went with Consumer Report recommended as a best buy-
It's funny some of the most expensive models out there had poor testing results...
Some winter kitchen decor
Winter Project Time-
I decided to take a four-day weekend and work on some projects this week. One of them is deep cleaning my kitchen counter, back splash, my spices, and re-organizing part of my kitchen drawers. Some painting too, reveal coming soon! Good things to do when it's winter! It's been cold, but then we had two days where it was in the low 50's! Almost felt like spring, but back down to the 30's tonight.
Dave and I will also be cleaning the coop this weekend replacing the old deep litter Pine shavings with fresh. This method works so well I cannot even tell you! No smell, biodegrades/composts and I only have to clean off the top roosting area about once a week in the winter. In the summer I do it two or three times a week. A bale is about $9.00 locally, with some leftover. We do about 4"-5" in the winter-
Debbie on the right, Sunny on the left
Sunny says what's up!
Next going to hit a couple thrift stores on Friday when I'm off look for a couple things. I've been trying to find a simple nice wood twin headboard for our spare bedroom where our grandsons stay. It doesn't have one, want to dress it up a little bit. I'll look to see if there's something cute that I can either rehab or retrofit. If not we make break down and build one-
I bought this online from Ikea several months ago, a Moppe Mini storage chest, Birch plywood, 16 ½" x7" x 12 5/8 "-
I had plans for it, but kept changing my mind! I finally found the perfect thing to finish it. It's bare wood and I wanted some kind of finish. Will post it when it's done!
Busy, busy lady! You are one busy lady! But doesn't it make each day so rewarding? I can't imagine just sitting in front of the TV or computer all day and I know you can't either. People ask me if I never stop and just do nothing. Uhhhh . . . no. Why would one do that? So many ideas, so many interesting new things to investigate and learn, so much satisfaction accomplishing a project and "doing for yourself!" I know you can totally relate.
ReplyDeleteOh yes Mama! Working everyday TV is something I crash out in front of after dinner for a few hours then boom hit the bed. Actually watch live TV on the weekends unless it's a documentary kind of stuff that I can learn something from
DeleteI will buy that storage unit ! I am arranging my "futon/fiber" room. I would drive to Idaho for that one perfect! Lol
ReplyDeleteYes they're great! I bought one online since there is no Ikea in Idaho. The shipping is pretty minimal oh, I think it was $5.
DeleteI'm doing a lot of deep cleaning and organizing as well. I'm getting ready to take a load to town this weekend. Looks like you are staying busy this winter. Have a nice weekend.
ReplyDeleteI think January is one of those months were a lot of people deep clean! Good for you, I'll be having donations too, nice to recycle things that other people can use
DeleteNancy I enjoyed your whole post and the photos, but I'm LOCKED on your weather station!!! That is so neat! I've always wanted one too, what a great gift!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks rain! You might see if there's a Costco somewhere near you or they may ship them too
DeleteI too like your weather station and might have a look around here in the UK to see what's available. We have 'Which' magazine/on-line for excellent consumer reports and if I'm going to make a large purchase I got to the library to look at 'Which' for free. (That was in the days before lockdown, here in Wales we can't do anything apart from the essentials.) Electric kettles are standard in the UK but we have a different electricity system, voltage or something, so they work well. Basic ones cost £10-£20 and I prefer the ones with a light inside. The Ikea storage box made me smile, back when I was teaching I knew a number of teachers who had one on their desks. Re your bed headboard, do you have a local FB give away/sell page? Even now we've moved to a much smaller village I see headboards quite often on the local selling/free page.
ReplyDeleteHi Ruta! Being part Scotch-Irish I'm happy to see your comment! Yes I've seen some of the different tea kettles that we have here too. This one has a light inside of it as soon as you turn it on and it shut off which is automatic which is nice. Yes Ikeas are really popular and i did a fun finish I'll shate when it's all done. Yes there's Facebook pages but I haven't really used them before for buying or selling. There's a lot of them on Craigslist an online sales platform here in the US oh, I see quite a few of them there so I might look at those. I haven't seen too many free ones around so far but you never know I have been getting a bit of a fix watching The Great British Railways series on public broadcasting here on Scotland. Always wanted to visit there and ride the rails. I really admire the British love for their trains and their heritage. Thanks for stopping by and cheers!
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