Could you go somewhere else for the couple of hours between school and yoga, Erin? Library or coffee shop or something, just to not be home and settled.

I can get most of my staples at TJ's, but I am one person and really buy hardly any groceries. I get my produce either by CSA delivery or one of the local farm stands, chicken and eggs direct from the farm. There are specific things like garbage bags that I have to get from Raley's or Safeway, a few things like peanut butter I very much prefer to get from TJ's, but most things on my list I can get either place, so I more or less alternate. They're also very similar distance from me.

I just checked my bank account and there is a credit covering that bad charge. Yay.

Yay, Suzi!

I think Dixie was a thing in the 70's but Abita is pretty much our beer now. I'm fond of their root beer too.

We have a cheapie semi-farmers-market a few blocks from our apartment that has a Wall of Spices behind the cash register. 4-6 oz. bags of just about everything you can think of for 99 cents each. I love it.

And since the food everyone in our household is willing to eat involves a lot of beans, rice, pasta, eggs and dairy, and we're all constant fizzy water guzzlers, TJ's is a weekly staple for us. It's also my go-to work lunch source; I can get a week's worth of tasty and reasonably healthy lunches (mostly repackaged Amy's frozen items) for what it costs to buy a single day's lunch at work. The few times I've forgotten to grab a frozen lunch and had to buy one at the cafeteria recently, it's made me all surly and disgruntled.

That's a possibility, -t. I could bring my yoga clothes to school, change and then run errands or grade a few papers at a coffee shop down the street.

Dan could just be on his own for dinner that night. And I see that there is a 5:30 class at a place between school and home, and there is a coffee shop only 3 blocks away.

They have a beginners Th. class, and also have a 4 pm Sunday class. Hmm. They have a good deal on a new student deal -- $33 for 3 weeks unlimited classes.

Aannddd I think the furnace is off.

Liese, you could try removing a car battery and taking it inside to warm up for an hour or two, then put it back in the car and try to start it then.

That's not a bad idea. I'm going to start with warming up the charger and see where we go from there. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will be outside in the cold at some point, so we'll see about the battery.

I also now have to resign myself to climbing up in the cold attic to look at the furnace. Not that the odds are good there is anything I can do about that.

we're all constant fizzy water guzzlers

I gotta say -- and I am in no way a shill -- buying a fizzy water machine was a fantastic investment, because I, too, drink fizzy water like it's...well, water. After about a year, it paid for itself, and there's the liberal-hippie-greenie good feelings about not contributing to the plastic bottle waste (not all places recycle them), AND it's a freaking joy to not lug full bottles of water home every week.

Yeah, I need to reorder CO2. The boys depleted my supplies last time they were here.

I love our Soda Club beyond reason. It's not quite as nice as the seltzer delivery man (I miss the old-fashioned glass bottles), but it's cheaper in the long run and the Soda Club doesn't complain about the stairs.