How Do You Rate | How Do They?

I received a piece of mail from my gas&electric company. (I handle the household billings.) I get e-statements so I was apprehensive about official snail mail from them. It turned out to be a paper congratulating me / reporting on my low energy usage. According to their little graph, over the last two months we used 4% less power than the top 20% most efficient neighbors. (“Neighbors” are “occupied, nearby” houses “similar in size to yours” which “have both electricity and natural gas service.”) We rated a "Great :) :)”.

Is this awesome?

__ yes

__ NO

Precious and Few | Seek After These Things

I have given up my meta-stress. It has been about six weeks now.

I might have expected to feel triumph, or arrival, or having overcome. Yet I don't; I don't feel that being this way calls for extra celebration. It is its own reward.

How many things are truly that? Rather, which other things are?

RE: TLA .COMs

My favorite site in the whole world wide web is Mark's Daily Apple. Some other sites I enjoy: a certain webcomic, and Mr. Money Mustache; the personal sites of people I love; Goodreads. When I use the Internet, I still site-check my comic, my fam/friends' blogs, and Goodreads. But MDA is the only site I really miss reading.

(If you read MDA, you don't need MMM. MMM is just a tiny, money-focused slice of how to build a beautiful life. MDA is the whole enchilada. I have derived a few things of great value from MMM. Nevertheless, I don't miss it since ditching the Internet. Maybe I've become so much more BadAss than Mr. BadAssity himself that I've outgrown it. ;)

XTC, Season Cycle

Bjorn and I wintered our house in the fall. We moved couches in to our kitchen area and made a hearth-centered home. The kitchen adjoins a little living space with a gas fireplace. My cooking generates much warmth. We have drapes (sewn to fit by Bjorn's ma) in the kitchen doorways to keep the heat in. We set the heat low in the rest of the house. We don sweaters, wool socks, hats indoors.

We did not move our bed into the kitchen. I shiver at night while we get into bed.
   In the winter, it is well to shiver, if it is cold, no?
   So. I shiver, then cozy up. I have Bjorn, and the dog, but now I have ALSO the hot, plush caress of microfleece sheets. J'adore!

2014: Triple Goodnesses

in chronological order

• I figured out that my body can't tolerate the least bit of dairy, and I have been sleeping through the night scratch-free since Passover. (I have now a strong fondness for Passover.) I have had ZERO eczema flare-ups since then. This, after 2+ years of utterly unremitting urticaria and atopia. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

• I retired.

• My sis [Mona], brother-in-law, niece, and nephew moved right into my neighborhood.

These grand events make my life — day-to-day, night-to-night — peaceful, rich, and gladsome.