Tomorrow's Memories: The Gibsons: 1

Our house is 100 years old. Well, the downstairs is anyway, the upstairs where we live was added in the 1940's during the war and was literally a "Mother-in-law Suite." As with many old houses, the windows can be a bit drafty. That's where Frost King comes in. I have distinct memories of my dad putting these up in our old house in the wintertime. Turns out it was a good thing I remembered that because Dan's never used the stuff before and wouldn't have thought about it. It's pretty simple, the box has sheets of plastic and double-sided tape. You line the window frames with the double-sided tape, spread the plastic over the window, seal, then using a hair-dryer you heat the plastic until it becomes taut over the window (until all the wrinkles go away). This gives you a inexpensive weatherproofing that your drafty windows wouldn't normally have.

For 9 sheets of plastic we paid around $13 at Home Depot. It helps to have the brand name when you ask for it, and it also helps if you ask someone with gray hair--we learned that the hard way, the young guy we asked first sent us to the window aisle where they keep sun-blocking film. Usually it's near weatherproofing or winterizing stuff though. We did the three windows in our living room, the two in our bedroom (including the one with the AC unit in it, I'm particularly proud of that one), and had to use two sheets on the door in our bedroom that leads to the outside (let's more air in on nice days when opened, but is almost more drafty than the windows!). For a couple of first-timers, I'd say we did pretty good. I've been keeping an eye on the curtains to see if they move with the wind since we put the plastic up and I'm proud to say that they haven't moved an inch, even with the high winds we've been having today. This is totally a step up for us from last year, where we didn't even think about it until it was too late, then we just had blankets up over the windows to help keep the air out, which didn't help much.

I also cleaned today which makes me feel a whole lot better! I hate clutter and both of us have been letting it pile up a lot lately. Me with being so tired all the time and Dan with, well, never wanting to clean ever ;) There's still a lot that needs to be done, but I'm satisfied for now. The living room looks better and the dinning room table has been cleared off to the point where if we had guests over for dinner, we could probably eat there again XD I also tidied up the bathroom. I didn't so much clean it as I dusted and swept. I'm still unsure about cleaning products vs. fetus so I only used a tiny bit to help get the hard water stains in the sink up. The shower is a never-ending battle with the hard water so I'm not even going there unless it gets super gross. Even then, baking soda and vinegar work just fine. All the dust is off the floor and the sink is shiny again, which are the two things I need to fool myself into thinking that the bathroom is cleaner than it is. Tomorrow I have a photography gig, which is awesome, but that's in the morning and I'm hoping I'll be able to motivate myself into putting clothes away. They were piled up in front of the door in the bedroom to help with the draft (and because I was lazy) but now that the draft isn't an issue, I really have no excuse not to put them away.

And finally, a couple pictures from my pre-Thanksgiving playdate with the coolest kid in the world ;) The bearded guy is a friend from church who was back from college for the holiday.