After the DirecTV fiasco, I wasn't going to get a new TV right away. But then I got a call from the guys I bought my mobile home from, saying that they were giving away a 32-inch flat screen TV with every home they sold, so they had a TV waiting for me at their office whenever I wanted to come and pick it up. That was a nice surprise! And my good friend bittermint gave me an old DVD player she wasn't using, so all I had to do was buy a TV stand, and I was all set up to watch DVDs.

Currently, I'm rewatching Stargate Atlantis from the beginning. I'm 12 episodes through Season Three at the moment, watching about 3–4 episodes a day. Here are a few brief impressions so far.

First Season: I love how fresh and new everything was. First time around, I wasn't a huge Ford or Weir fan, but in hind sight, I have a new appreciation for them both, and feel bad about the way their characters were taken out. There was very little filler in the first season; they careened from one crisis to another with hardly a break. I've started SGA rewatches several times before, and never got all the way through the series. But I never have any trouble zooming through Season One. Favorite episode: Rising 1&2. I will never not get a rush watching the city rise up from the bottom of the ocean! Or seeing the city come to life as Sheppard walks through it.

Second Season: It was second season that really hooked me on the series. I was only watching sporadically when it was first on TV, but really sat up and took notice when Ronon showed up. He's still a favorite, but there were a lot of storylines and episodes in Season Two that were not favorites. I didn't like where they went with Ford, so the episodes with him were troublesome. Also, while I like Rodney McKay, I like him better in small doses, when he's with the team. His hyperness gets on my nerves pretty quickly, so the episodes that focused on him (Duet, Trinity, Grace Under Pressure) were less enjoyable. Also don't care much for the Genii, or for the Michael storyline. Which basically covers the whole season. Favorite episode: Hm. The Siege, Part III, maybe, although I tend to lump it in with Season One, since it's the conclusion of the S1 final episodes. Inferno was pretty good.

Third Season: I'm really loving this season so far. Ronon starts to come into his own, plus, of course, it's the first appearance of Todd, my favorite Wraith, and the introduction of the Replicators. Favorite episode: Common Ground is not only Todd's first episode, but one of my favorite story tropes: two enemies being forced to work together for a common goal. I watched it twice. Also really enjoyed Sateda, where Ronon is re-captured by the Wraith and returned to his home world, and Phantoms, where we get a glimpse into Sheppard's past. And he gets to shoot everybody.

Two and a third more seasons to go!

I was really happy that my big oak tree survived the fire. There wasn't a scorch mark on it, although most of the leaves had shriveled up and turned brown from the heat. The heat-killed leaves didn't fall off in the fall as they should have, and when spring came around and the other oaks started getting their leaves, all I could see from my window was brown on my oak. I wondered if it would have any new leaves this year at all.



Then one day I happened to look at it from the other side....



Pretty green leaves! My oak is coming back!

It must have had more damage on the house side than the road side. Which is no surprise, since it would have been subject to the heat from the burning house. I'm so glad to see it putting out new leaves!

Today, I am eating the last of the hoarded Cadbury Creme Eggs.

I hadn't been to the Buddhist temple in quite a while, but a couple of weeks ago I got a newsletter from them saying that there was a new abbot, and they'd started having Sunday practices every week again (instead of every 2nd and 4th Sunday, which always confused me so I couldn't figure out when they were so I ended up not going), so I decided to go last Sunday. I hadn't realized how much I missed it until I went back.

While I was there, I asked one of the women, T, if the cats were still there. I hadn't seen them in a couple of years - they roam the property, and don't often come up to the temple buildings. T said, yes, they were still there, and took me out to see them. The younger one, Gami, was still sleek and shiny black, but poor Jabee looked horrible -- he was all skin and bones, he'd lost most of his teeth, and his lovely fluffy fur was completely matted and full of foxtails and burrs. T had only been working with the abbot for a month or so, and didn't know what had happened to Jabee (he was probably just very old and not up to the outdoor life any more), but she was trying to help by hand-feeding him canned food. We tried to get some of the mats out of his fur, but they were too thick. Since she was unfamiliar with Tehachapi, I offered to take the cat to the vet, get him checked out and have him groomed. She was glad for me to help, and gave me some money for his vet bills.

I called my vet on Monday and made an appointment for that afternoon, but when I went to pick up the cat, he was still mad at me for picking at his mats and wouldn't let me near him, so I eventually had to give up and cancel the appointment. I talked to T, and since she was coming back to the temple today, I arranged to meet her there this afternoon to see if she could help catch Jabee. But when we went out to look for him, I found him lying dead under a bush. Poor kitty was just too weak and sick.

We wrapped him in white paper and buried him at the edge of the cemetery with his head facing West so he could find his way to heaven, and put a circle of rocks around his grave. I was glad to be in a place where a kitty's passing was treated with dignity and respect. But I wish I had been able to do something to help him while he was still alive.

The picture above was taken around June 2009, when he was still healthy and beautiful. RIP, sweet kitty.

I decided to call it spring, and cleaned up the wood stove & surrounding area, putting the leftover paper and kindling in bins out on the porch, emptying the ash bucket, washing down the wood stove and hearth, scrubbing the stove kettle. Now, of course, we'll probably have another big storm, but at least the stove area looks all clean and tidy. And the wood and kindling are just out on the porch and will be easy enough to bring back in if I need another fire.

It was hot today, in the 80s. I did an hour or so of digging this morning, filling the trenches we'd dug for the electric and propane lines. The ground could still use some leveling off, but at least there aren't any more two-foot-deep holes across the yard to trip over. I used to be able to work in the hot sun, but not any more. I try to get started early when I want to work outdoors on sunny days, but the sun was already hot when I went outside at 9 AM. Should be getting out there at the crack of dawn, I guess, but erm. I worked until I felt like my brain was going to melt out my ears, then came in and collapsed. It's getting to be lemonade season, I must put lemons on my shopping list.

My brother came over yesterday and helped move my mom's sofa down to my place. It and her bed were larger than she wanted in her little trailer, so she gave them to me. But we couldn't move both of them at once, or she'd have no place to sleep! So we moved the bed first, then after she bought herself a new bed and had it delivered, we moved the sofa. Now she is planning to get a small loveseat for her place. She'd originally planned to just throw the old couch out - it is kind of saggy and the upholstery's faded and worn through on the back where it sat in the sun, so she had thrown an old bedspread over it. But I said, no, I'll take it! I don't care if it's old and worn, I need a sofa! Maybe one day I'll replace it, but for now, it's something to sit on.

The hot weather reminds me of a new thing to add to my list: I must replace the window screens with cat-proof screens so I can open the windows wider than a cat head without worrying about kitties escaping. And put screen doors on both of the doors. I also want to make cat enclosures so all the kitties can go outside. I do have that on my list, but that's a big project and other things come first. But window screens and screen doors I should be able to manage in a couple of days. Actually, if I can just get the screen doors up so I can open front and back doors, that will keep the place cool enough for now.

I still haven't ordered my laundry wringer. I decided which one to buy, but now I'm trying to decide where to buy it. The prices vary from $149.99 to $189.99, depending on where you buy it. Obvious answer is to buy it where it's cheapest, but that guy wants you to use Google Checkout, and I hesitate to give Google my credit card info. So I dither.

My plans for the day were interrupted by my mom arriving to tell me her pump house shed blew down in the wind last night.

I was not entirely surprised, seeing that the shed was pretty rickety and I was already planning to replace it. It was a metal shed with a leaky roof, which had already lost its doors, had a tree fall on it and partially cave in the roof, and had one of the 2x4 supports burned up in the fire. So. It was kind of hanging on by a thread, and last night the thread broke.

The pump wiring, which had been attached to a control box on the back wall, was ripped out, and the water pipe coming from the pump was broken. Fortunately, the generator and gas cans were undamaged, but Mom can't pump water until the pump is rewired and the water pipes are fixed. My neighborhood handyman is going to come in the morning to work on the pump and I'll look at the pipes and I hope we can get her ready to pump water again tomorrow.

Also fortunately, the weather is dry and is forecast to stay dry for the next week or so, so we don't have to worry about the generator sitting out uncovered until we can get a new shed up. I'll talk to my handyman tomorrow about building a new shed, and hope we can get something done fairly quickly.

Other than that, I did get to check off one thing from my list: I installed three new vents in my power shed, to keep it cool-ish so the inverter doesn't overheat. I've had that on my list for a while, but noticed that the weather's supposed to hit 80 degrees this weekend, so I figured I'd better get busy on that.

I also went to the hardware store to get stuff to fill and drain my new laundry tubs with water. Filling them isn't complicated - I just needed washing machine hoses to attach to the faucets and go into the tubs. Draining them was a bit more complicated - they're designed to be hooked up to 1-1/2" home washing machine drains, but I just wanted to hook up garden hoses and run them out the back door to drain the water outside. So I needed about three different things to attach, convert, reduce, and connect 3/4" hoses to 1-1/2" drain pipes. Yay for the guy at Pioneer Hardware, who figured out what I was trying to say, found me the right pieces to do what I wanted, and explained to me how to hook them all together!

So that's one thing almost done - I've got washtubs, water hoses in, drain hoses out, now all I need is a wringer to wring the water out of the laundry. I'm still waffling on which one to get:

"Best Hand Clothes Wringer"

Dyna Jet Wringer

The first one is what I had before, and it was a good wringer, but heavy and needs something much sturdier than my plastic washtubs to attach to, so I'd have to build a stand of some sort.

The second one is cheaper, and has a stand that can be bought separately. But it appears to have been designed to wring out towels and chamois for car washes, and I'm not sure how it would stand up to heavy laundry like jeans and blankets.

I've read online several people say they attached the first wringer to the back of an old wooden chair, which seems like a handy solution and I could probably get a chair at a thrift store for a few bucks to do the job. I'll probably go ahead and try that.

It will be nice to be able to do my own laundry again! Yes, I could have just bought an electric washing machine, but I like doing my laundry by hand and not having to depend on electricity to wash my clothes. So yay! As soon as I decide on/buy a wringer, I can cross "Washing Machine" off my list.

Okay. A couple of months before the fire, I had signed up with DirecTV for a one-year contract that included one year of rebates so that my monthly bill would be around $30 a month for the year. Still probably more than it was worth, but I figured I could afford that much, and by the time the rebates ran out, my contract would be up, so I could cancel if I didn't want to pay the full price.

Then my house burned down, along with my TV, satellite dish, receiver and all. I put my account on hold for 6 months, figuring I'd start back up and finish up my one-year term when I got a new house. I had to call and extend it for an extra month, since I didn't get my house done as soon as I thought I would. Service was scheduled to resume on the 14th, this Saturday.

Couple of days ago, I got an email from DirecTV reminding me that my service was about to resume, and saying that 1) if I was on a contract, it would be extended to cover the time my account was suspended. No problem, I figured that would be the case; and 2) if I had credits/rebates, they would *not* be extended. Oops. So... after maybe another month or two the rebates would run out, my monthly bill would double and I'd be stuck with it until the contract ran out in another six months.

So I called DirecTV to try to find out if there was anything I could do to get the rebates extended or change my service or something so it wouldn't cost so much. Went round and round with several people, got bumped up to somebody who insisted that no, the rebates couldn't be extended. I could switch to a cheaper package, but I'd have to sign up for a new full year contract. Either way, I'd have to pay installation fees to get a new dish and receiver, for about $250. Or, if I cancelled altogether, I'd have to pay an early termination fee amounting to about $140, plus the cost of the old receiver, since I couldn't return it. Because it burned up.

At which point I was about to scream to get bumped up to somebody higher on the food chain, when the person I was talking to suddenly discovered that they have a new policy! People who lose their homes in disasters can cancel their service without any charge! Which I relievedly proceeded to do. Whew.

Will probably still buy a new TV at some point, so I can watch DVDs. Maybe get a Smart TV so I can watch Netflix and such on it. But now there's no hurry, and I'm not saddled with expensive satellite TV I didn't really want but was willing to finish out my contract for as long as it didn't become even more ridiculously expensive.

Don't know whether to be grateful to DirecTV for coming through at the last minute, or still angry for making it such a trauma to disentangle myself. Maybe some of each.

My solar guy was originally scheduled to come today, but because of the storms forecast for the rest of this week, he decided to come yesterday instead to do the solar installation. Which was certainly fine by me! He and his crew arrived around 9 AM and were finished by 4:30 PM, and now I have electricity! (And the storms arrived right on time, I woke up to a scattering of snow on the ground, and now it's raining.)

Now, I finally feel as though I'm actually living here -- before, even though I was sleeping here, I was still spending much of my days at my mom's, using her electricity to keep my laptop going, since my laptop's battery is shot and dies after only a few minutes. When I came back to the house in the evenings, I was pretty much limited to huddling in the floor with a battery lamp and my Kindle Fire for entertainment. It was more like camping than living in a house.

I still don't have much in the way of furniture. I borrowed a couple of chairs from Mom, and I have my little bistro table and chairs, and the bed. Mom also gave me her old sewing machine, which has its own wood cabinet that it folds down into, and it's doing double duty as a lamp table. My mom's new bed is scheduled to be delivered on Friday (assuming the weather holds, which is not looking good, so that might be delayed), and as soon as she has someplace to sleep, we can move her sofa down here. That will make things much more comfortable!

Today, I'm staying in and enjoying having ELECRICITY!

( Here are some photos of the inside of the house. )

I haven't moved into my new house yet, but my kitties have. My two girls, Socks and Jerry, have been staying out on the porch since we moved in with my mom -- Spot torments the girls and tries to chase them away, so they have to be kept apart. We fixed up the porch as best we could, with blankets and boards and cat trees and such, but it gets pretty cold out there and I decided there was no reason for them to stay there any longer. So today we packed up the girls and all their furniture and food and toys and stuff and took them down to their room in the new house. They immediately went to their familiar places -- Socks has a bed underneath the cat tree, with blankets draped around to make a little tent, and Jerry likes to hole up inside the round barrel-shaped thingie attached to the cat tree -- but they don't seem too freaked out. I expect they'll get used to it soon.

I spent the afternoon down at the house, pumping water and washing dishes and burning a fire in my new wood stove. I'm supposed to build a one-log fire first, then a two-log fire, and then the paint will be seasoned and it will be ready to have regular fires. So I had the one-log fire today -- it didn't really warm up the place much, but it was nice to have a fire. My new wood stove has a glass door so I can watch the fire burning. I'm going to enjoy that. I used to open the door of my old wood stove so I could watch the fire burn, but now I don't have to do that, I can just watch through the door.

I also finally got the refrigerator going! The propane guy and I tried to get it lit yesterday after he hooked up the gas line, but the fire would never start. I kept going back and trying it every once in a while, thinking that maybe the gas just hadn't made it all the way through the lines from the other end of the house yet, and today it finally started. I still have to wait and see if it's going to get cold enough. It's an old refrigerator, and has been sitting in my neighbors' shed for the past few years, so we don't really know how well it works. I tried to feel the walls inside to see if they were getting cold, but it was so cold in the house, I couldn't really tell much difference! I'll check it again tomorrow.

My brother's going to come tomorrow and help us move the bed to the new place, so I'll be sleeping in my new house tomorrow night! Eee!

I had really hoped to be in my new home by now, but haven't quite made it yet. Still, things are inching closer all the time. The weather has been one factor -- we've had snowstorms every weekend for the past three weeks, making outdoor work impossible until the snow melted and the mud dried up.

We also had a couple of setbacks in things that had already been done -- the freezing weather cracked the outside water shutoff valve, so that had to be replaced, and then we ran over the propane line with the trencher while digging the trench for the electric line. Oops. So now the propane line needs to be replaced.

Yesterday, I had a new wood stove put in. It looks very neat! All shiny and new. Well, not shiny, exactly, but all clean and black and ready to make heat. I changed my mind about using my old wood stove -- it's not suitable for use in mobile homes, doesn't have proper shielding and can't be connected to an outside air source. I could have snuck it in after the inspector signed off on the place, but I decided to go ahead and get a proper stove for a mobile home.

Also yesterday the guy came from the mobile home installers and replaced the cracked shutoff valve and put better insulation on the line so it won't freeze again. And my neighbor with the trencher came back and dug a new trench for the propane line.

So now all that needs to be done before I can move in is for the propane guy to come and put in a new gas line, and the solar guy to come and install the solar electric system. Actually, I will probably go ahead and move as soon as the propane is connected. I can just bring my laptop next door to Mom's to charge it up until the electricity is working.

We've already started moving some stuff, dishes and towels and things. My mom had an old set of good dishes that she wasn't using, so she gave them to my brother and they never used them, so they gave them to me. My mom says, you could get some everyday dishes if you want to save these for company. I say, forget that. These dishes have been sitting around unused for probably 40 years. What's the point of letting them sit in a cupboard? I'm going to use them. It's not like I entertain often enough to make it worth having two sets of dishes.

I bought a little set of bistro table and chairs the other day and set them up, so I have some actual furniture in the house! Mom is going to give me her double bed, because she wants a smaller bed for herself. She also wants a new sofa, so I'll take her old one. She's been tearing through her house, going through her stuff, seeing what she can get rid of. :) I think she's happy to clear out a lot of stuff she doesn't need, and I need a lot of stuff, so it's working out well for both of us.

...

And, just as I was typing this, the propane guy arrived to put in the new gas line. So I have gas! Yay! While he was here, he hooked up the gas/electric refrigerator my neighbors gave me, but we couldn't get the pilot light to light. Could be the igniter's bad or the orifice is plugged with dust or something. I'll fiddle around with it some more. once I get electricity installed, I can try it with electricity. Otherwise, I can borrow mom's cooler in the meantime till I can figure this refrigerator out or get a new one.

Anyway, I said I was going to start moving as soon as I got the propane in... so I guess I'm ready to move!