Domestic Geek

I didn't know that outdoor fire pits even existed until I went to that party at Laura's house last September when Colleen was in town. Laura's husband, Paul, installed theirs and he did a mighty fine job. It was so fun sitting around the fire on a chilly evening while chatting, roasting marshmallows and cooking weenies. I've been noticing lately that a lot of new homes are offering Outdoor Fireplaces as an option. I told Marcus that when we get this house of ours on land, we need to look into getting either one of those. I'd love to enjoy a nice soak in a hot tub to the glow of a fire.

When I got out of the shower yesterday, I looked in the mirror and the skin all over my face was dry and flaky. Ewww. I've also been scratching a lot and have noticed a couple of dry patches on my arm that aren't usually there. Since I don't have these problems in the summer when we're running our swamp cooler most of the day, it's got to be the result of the dry Colorado winter air. I do have a small vaporizer than I run when I'm sick, but it barely puts moisture in my bedroom, let alone the whole house. Plus, the dang thing is noisy! I know I need to get a humidifier to run when we kick the furnace on for the winter, but have you seen all the choices in the store? While hunting around online, I found a complete guide to buying a house humidifier. There's a page that breaks down the different types of home humidifiers as well as desirable features in a model. There is also some information on the top brands of humidifiers. If you suffer from dry skin and sore throats every winter as well, a humidifier just may be the answer—check out all the useful information at HumidifierInformation.com.

When Marcus and I get around to moving again, I'm going to check out the local water before we settle. Aurora has got some of the hardest water I've ever had to deal with. Thank goodness for that CLR cleaner (Calcium Lime Rust) or I'd be screwed. Every couple of months I have to soak the shower head to get it to flow, run it through the coffee maker, etc. Combine those mineral deposits with the soap scum in the shower and its a nightmare. I hate to see what the inside of our water heater looks like after four years of this. I just soaked the head of the sink sprayer because I noticed yesterday while filling Skippy's water jug how little water was actually coming out of it. Byers and Colorado springs has had the best water of any place we've lived. It never took a whole day to clean the shower at either of those locations. Deer Trail's water wasn't hard, but it smelled like sulfur. Ick, I hated how I smelled after showering there.

Not in a sports sense like Floyd Landis did that one day in the Tour de France, but I actually hit the wall of my bedroom. Anybody who has slept in a waterbed knows how you have to hoist yourself over the edge to get out of it. Well, that's how I've gotten out of bed for years. The new mattress sits up above the frame. It takes a little jump to get into bed. Well, when I got up yesterday, I gave myself that little hoist and sent myself flying into the wall. Whoops! I almost did it again this morning. This is going to take some getting used to!

Well, we went to Denver Mattress and got ourselves a new mattress. We were toying with the idea of getting a Select Comfort bed, but after reading lots of bad reviews on epinions.com, we decided that they're just too much money to spend on something that might suck. I hope this one works out. We went there because Marcus had a Furniture Row credit card. Turns out they've changed banks since he last used it and he had to end up reapplying for a new card anyway. Would've been nice if the company had sent him a letter or something telling him the account was no longer valid.

Denver Mattress had a waterbed insert in stock from their Doctor's Choice series so we wouldn't have to get a frame. I'm in the process of putting the protectant on it, then we'll see if our sheets fit. I'm a little concerned that they won't. I really didn't want to have to get new sheets, too. *sigh*

Marcus also got us a couple of new pillows. Yay for new pillows.