Tanks!

One thing you don't have to worry about living in the city: tanks. When you live on the Outskirts you have 2 tanks to contend with.

One is the LP tank. Which I completely despise! For a few reasons. I HATE having to go check it when it's below zero. I HATE having to go check it when there's 3ft of snow and I have to shovel off the lid and sometimes scrape ice off of it to get it open to see how much LP gas we have left... I hate the feeling I get when I remember I haven't checked it in a while and it's going to be below zero all weekend and I'm just sure we will run out and have to have an emergency delivery. I hate when I go all summer not even thinking about it because it's not cold and then running out because it also gets used by our stove and water heater...

LP gas is expensive! And the things that you find out once you are forced to live with one: only the company that owns the tank (that you rent for a ridiculous fee of $1.50 a year) will fill it. That means you can't call around and get the cheapest rate. No other LP gas company will touch it. They all will deliver a minimum of 200 gallons. So when the LP prices are up to $2 a gallon, that's $400! And that only gets your tank 40% full. We usually have to get it filled about 4-5 times a winter. Suck fest. And when I say filled, I mean the minimum order of 200 gallons. We've only actually gotten it "filled" twice. One year with our tax money in March and the other was with financial help from the energy assistance program (thank god!!).

This past winter, a week or so before my appointment with the EAP, I realized I hadn't checked the LP in a while. Of course it was a Friday night, and we were having -40 degree temps. And we were expecting company on Saturday... I felt especially cold that night going to bed and thought for sure that we were out of LP gas and would all freeze to death in our sleep. Needless to say I got no sleep that night. I bundled up and ran out to check it first thing in the morning (in about the same way you run up the basement steps imagining a monster might get you if you don't). I was so relieved when I saw we had almost 15% of a tank! Then I just had to worry my butt off and check it every few days until that appointment and hope that it would make it! I think we had just reached the red zone when our funds were sent to our LP company.

Now the other tank... the septic. Grrr. Also hate the septic. I will spare you a photo. It's all underground anyway. The basics: you really can't flush anything except for toilet paper. Which means you have to explain that to all of your female guests if you know what I mean. That's just embarrassing. You have to be careful of what kind of toilet paper you get. You really can't even flush those fancy flush-able toilet paper wipes. Which sucks when you are potty training and using flush-able kiddie wipes. And you have to be more carefully about what and how much goes down all the drains.

There is always the possibility of overloading your system. Say for instance if you go washing a bunch of thrift store wool sweaters to make recycled wool soaker diaper covers for your babies... All that wool fiber stuff can probably clog things up a bit. And then it probably doesn't help if you are having rash issues with cloth diapering and suspect that you have a detergent build up and start washing/rinsing the heck out of the cloth diapers daily... Let's just say that I think I helped kill our septic system. Grrrrr. Hate the septic tank.

The Crafty Side of Life

I like to do crafty things. I've been crocheting for a few years, knitting for a few months and always attempting some sewing project. When we moved up here everyone told me that I needed to find a hobby for the winters. That first year I taught myself to crochet. And we ended up having an unusually mild winter. But since that first year the winters have been pretty typical. You get bound up inside either due to streaks of below zero temps or major amounts of snow (or both). And it's not like in the city - because even the most traveled highways around here aren't traveled enough to be free of snow and ice patches.

Until a few months ago I could get pretty much anything I needed and then some at the local Wal-Mart. Then our Wal-Mart decided to remodel and reorganize. Part of that process included ridding themselves of most of their craft department. Fabric = gone. Most other sewing notions are also gone. As well as their yarn selection. They still carry some colors of one weight of about 2 brands of yarn.

There is one craft store in town (which means the town that's almost 30 miles away). But they cater to mostly the higher class and vacationers around here. God forbid you are attempting something you have questions about. They have knowledge, sure, but for some reason they seem to enjoy turning their noses up at me and acting like whatever question I have is moronic. They are snobby and unhelpful. And a few times I've gone in and had questions but didn't get an opportunity to ask because they were on a personal call that was more important than my business.

I've pretty much sworn off the local craft store. (But somehow I still find myself popping in there!)

Aside from taking a 2 hour road trip to somewhere civilized enough to have a real craft store, the choices are a 50mile drive one way for a yarn store, or a 45mile drive in the opposite direction for a sewing store. Both stores are mom and pop operations. And both owners are very friendly, welcome questions, and love to talk about techniques and such. But it's hard to be able to get to either of them...

I have resorted to buying some things online, a few yarns (brands that I know), a few knitting needles and such. But I am very tactile. I like to go to the store and touch and feel what I'm buying when it comes to yarn and fabric. And I like to have someone to ask questions... once I become a little more experienced and knowledgeable, shopping online for these items will be more of an option.

A Blessing in Disguise

Or How we Got Wise and Hooked our TV up to the Computer...

Last week on "Life on the Outskirts"...I was complaining much about losing our NBC channel reception. We've now been with only PBS for almost a month...

I knew about full episodes online. I tried to watch an Earl that I missed a couple of years ago. It was a miserable stuttering experience. Not worth the effort. Especially for a comedy when it relies on timing.

Then last year I learned about pausing and waiting for it to buffer. A better experience, but still much pausing and buffering. So really I only watched an episode of ER and Heroes that I had missed.

It never really occured to me that I could watch shows on other networks that I hadn't missed on the one network channel that we got. I was seriously bummed that Medium was switching networks. And I just never thought about watching it online.

My husband caught an episode of Medium while he was out of town and thought it was an especially good one. So when he got home we hooked his laptop up to the computer and watched it. It wasn't the best, the lips weren't in sync and even after pausing to buffer several times it would freeze.

We have a wireless connection set up on our desktop for our laptops. We realized that the wireless slows down the connection speed, so we brought the desktop out and hooked it all up to the TV.

And what we got? A little TV bliss!!

We did have to up our internet speed, which costs about $30 more a month (don't even get me started on that - we have ONE option for internet, which the fastest speed is about the speed of the slowest for most other internet providers and costs about 4 times as much [no competition]). But it still beats the cost of satellite.We just have to remember to clear the cache more often.

I feel civilized again.

What you get when you complain about only having 5 channels

Ya lose 2 of 'em.

Yep. We haven't been able to get in the 2 NBC channels (the regular NBC and the local weather NBC) since Friday night. We are still getting the 3 PBS channels in fine, so apparently there is something wrong with their transmission.

We had a big storm, which went from rain to freezing rain to snow on Friday and lots of people were without power. The news on Friday night (the last time we were able to watch news the old fashioned way) said that about 2000 people had no power in the area. We were lucky. Until Saturday morning.

Saturday morning: I look at the time (almost 8am), notice the nightlight glowing in the corner of the bedroom (OK, the real story was that my toddler, sans blanket sleeper, climbed under the chair to try to pry the nightlight out of the socket, while trying to grab said sleeper and pull her out, I realized sleeper was not on her. So I shot out of bed, found her sleeper and put it back on her, then) headed to the bathroom with my little girl and when I flipped the light switch nothing happened. I walked out into the kitchen and everything was off. We have strange issues with our kitchen power, like we can't run the microwave and the dishwasher at the same time, otherwise we blow a fuse. So, thinking we were having an electrical issue, I did my business and flushed the toilet... I made my way through spider webs to the fuse box and saw that none of them were tripped. I found the one I thought was the kitchen and flipped it off and back on. When I got back to the kitchen everything was still off.

I was freaking out thinking that there was something horribly wrong with our electric wiring and we were going to have to call an electrician. I did the next best thing and woke up my husband. He went down and started flipping switches. Then he came back up and asked if all the power was out. I told him that the nightlight and alarm clock were on in the bedroom. He went to verify. Of course the clock was blank and the nightlight wasn't on... In an amazing coincidence our power had gone off somewhere during my walk to the bathroom... What are the odds of that?...figures.

The worst thing about the power outage: I flushed the toilet. We have well water, so when the electricity is out, so is the well pump... we have exactly enough water for one flush of the toilet. We had to pack everyone up to go get coffee. Had I not flushed, the water in the Bunn reservoir would have still been hot enough to make a pot of coffee with the year or more old ground coffee I dredged up from the freezer. I should really buy a bag of decent ground coffee for just an emergency.

Needless to say, we are now getting all of our news from Google and Facebook ;) Isn't that what everyone else does these days anyway?

The Cable Situation

We live in a "no cable service" zone (yes, there are still such places in remote areas). And I just can't bring myself to do the whole satellite thing. For many reasons, which I may explain in more detail later...

So what that means is we do the whole antenna thing. And up until the digital conversion we were able to get 2 channels. Mostly. On good antenna days that was. NBC and PBS. PBS always came in really good. NBC would crash out and get really bad reception sometimes. Mainly on nights there was something good on. And especially on nights of season finales and such. And would totally crash at extremely pivotal moments during the good shows!

Prime example (though this was obviously after the digital conversion, and obviously not a really good show) during the final results show of America's Got Talent, just as they were announcing the winner: "And the winner of America's Got Talent..(drawn out drum roll and unnecessary long pause)..Is..(more silence and pausing for over-effect)..K----------" Luckily there was only one finalist who's name started with a K sound.

That kind of stuff is pretty typical with our reception. Both before and after the digital conversion. It was just worlds worse before the conversion.

So what happened after the conversion (aside from much improved reception)? We got more channels!!! We got 2 additional PBS channels, one of them the Create channel! Truly exciting! It is nice because when the main PBS channel breaks for bigger kid educational programming, one of the other PBS channels is showing cartoons. And we got a weather channel that is broadcast from our local (2 hours away) NBC news affiliates.

Sometimes I really feel like breaking down and getting satellite, like when all my facebook friends are talking about those other network and cable shows that sound really good (Glee, True Blood, Mad Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc...) ... I feel like I'm missing out on something. And when we are having bad reception of course... but then I've heard from people with satellite that the reception gets crappy at times, and that wouldn't really alleviate our frustration now would it? It would just make it all the worse because we would actually be paying for bad reception.

The price is another issue. Satellite has gotten quite a bit cheaper. We usually buy at least 2 DVDs a month, which would cover the cost of satellite...but who am I trying to kid? We would still want to buy movies. And there's the set-up and installation fees, equipment rental fees, etc... associated with satellite.

But I think one of the main reasons I resist the urge to take the satellite plunge is: we would spend even more time watching worthless shows. Because we all know, even when you have 100 channels, there's nothing on! We watch TV too much with the measly 5 channels we have. And I'm kind of glad my children don't have access to all those kiddie channels. Because of the commercials. They already want too much. If they were exposed to all those commercials for every toy under the sun, my living room would house more toys than Wal-Mart. I think it already does. But still, they would want want want more more more. Now they have no idea how many toys they are missing out on.

Totally Jealous!

OK, so my social life totally consists of stalking all my old friends from high school and shortly thereafter on Facebook. That's what happens when you live in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, last night I was busy browsing through status updates (I was totally sitting at the computer watching them come in, waiting and refreshing) when two of my friends, two minutes apart reported that they were getting ready to see David Sedaris in my hometown. Whaaaa??

I'm so stinking jealous.

Jealousy is bad. So I guess I'm envious. Or is that bad too?? Whatever. I feel depraved. Culturally robbed.

Anyway, I wish I would have known!! I would have thought about taking a trip to visit family at the same time. OK, I would have really wanted to, but not have done it for many reasons... (boarding a dog [which means taking her to the vet for her kennel cough booster a few days prior], screaming baby who is not much with the car rides thing, demanding toddlers, bored tweenager, 8 hour road trip, etc... and needless to say I would have needed to have an army and some reserves to watch my four kids and the wiener dog who travels with us while attending the event).

But I really would have talked my 3 siblings who still live there, and maybe even my mother, into attending on my behalf. Because to hear David Sedaris perform his essays...well, who wouldn't be moved to hysteria. And who wouldn't want to go right out and buy all of his audio books and become his biggest fan?

It was pure accident that I happened upon his audio books. I was in a bookstore looking for "Naked," and they only had it on audio book. So I did what I had to do to get my David Sedaris fix immediately. Which was even more about the instant gratification because I opened it up and started listening right away, otherwise I would have had to wait until I got home and wait until it was a good time to read... you get the point.

Up until then I had been in love with his books. And I didn't think they could be any funnier than they already were. But to hear him read his essays out loud? I had no idea anything could be so damn funny!

We spent the next month or so listening to it in the car anytime we went anywhere. Not because it took that long to get through it, but because it was fucking hilarious!! Our favorites were "The Drama Bug," and "True Detective." And I have a soft spot in my heart for "Ticks." I used to think I was OCD until I heard "Ticks." David Sedaris wins the OCD contest.

I think aside from "Naked," "Me Talk Pretty One Day" is my favorite. I love the Rooster!! And his foul mouth! I'm in love with the idea of a "fuck-it bucket!" And I laughed my ass off at the essay on the French classes - trying to explain the concept of Easter to foreigners!

The only thing I didn't like about "When You Are Engulfed in Flames," was no Rooster :(

Anyway, just suffering a little big city envy today. Seriously, it's nice to know I have at least a few Facebook friends with some good taste ;) so glad of that.

Hello from the Fringe!

We moved to the outskirts of society almost 4 years ago now.

We live in a town that boasts a population of under 100!!

The closest "big" city is about 30 miles away, with a population of around 2000.

That city hosts a whopping 3 fast food restaurants: McD's, KFC, and DQ (which finally moved to a location with a drive thru! ~ Yippee! Because with 4 children, we pretty much only do drive-thrus).

At least they also have a Wal-Mart. Otherwise, to do any REAL shopping, we have to either take a 2 hour road trip or buy online.

Most of the downfalls to living on the edge of civilization have something to do with technology, material goods or convenience. Oh, did I forget to mention the lack of social interactions? So that too.

But there are some benefits. One of them being the lack of social interactions. ;) It can be on both lists. Our neighbors aren't within spitting distance. And if we had the partying type of neighbors, they are far enough away that we probably wouldn't even hear them. Which is good because that means they can't hear the foul language flying out of our house or yard on occasion. One of the best things by far has to be that we don't have to take mowing the lawn seriously!

Anyway, sit back and enjoy the ride, it may actually be entertaining once in a while.