All is not unlucky on the 13th

I needed to attend to some business today. I found out that State Farm, my auto insurance carrier, does not do business in the state of Maine. Funny thing is, there are agents right across the river in New Hampshire. They just can't write policies for here. State Farm simply does not do business here.

At any rate, that meant changing carriers and I had no idea where to start. Wanting to keep business local, I went to an insurance agency in York. The agent ran some numbers and because I would be combining it with renter's insurance, I got an extra discount. The end result is actually better coverage than I had with a lower deductible AND $200 a year less! So car insurance is $620 for the whole year and my renter's insurance was only $200 for the whole year and covers everything -- fire, flood, theft, anything that happens in the apartment, as well as anything Lily might do. :). Even if the basement floods...

Tomorrow I go to get my driver's license. I have to surrender my WA license. I'm told it will be about $50 and should only involve an eye test. I have to go to Kennebunkport to get it, abut 30 minutes away. After that, I have 30 days to change plates and I am told they are prorated by value of the vehicle, so I should expect about $445 in fees...far cry from what I was used to...

The insurance agent told me about another great Chinese place, so of course, I had to check it out. It's about 10 minutes from where I live.  The take out prices for lunches are pretty good, and run all weekend. Dinner prices are higher. I tried the chicken in black bean sauce and a small serving of won ton soup. At this place, you have to order and pay for rice on the side. Food was indeed good, with plenty left over for tomorrow. When I get brave enough to pay for it, I may try something with lobster in it.

I called the cable company today....online they could not recognize my address. Time Warner says the duplex is known as left and right, not A & B. Because I couldn't get the system to recognize the address, I couldn't take advantage of a few extra dollars of savings by arranging it myself. The cable guy took care of everything and not only that, they can come tomorrow for installation! Online, it would have been two weeks out. I just didn't want to miss work after having so much time off.So, I guess it's worth a couple of extra bucks. Since my landlord provides Internet and I don't really need a separate phone, I am saving about $60/mo in cable bills than if I'd taken their three on one package. Their rates are still higher than Comcast, dammit. At least I will have my HBO and Showtime....

I went to a place called Stonewall Kitchens today. Very famous place in York for food products they make and sell, and they sell nationally. Started by a group of chefs in 1991. I can't eat a lot of the soups and sauces, but some of the dressings, jams, chutneys and mustards are within what I can eat. Of course, I had to sample them all.... I did come home with some nifty tri-color couscous and a pasta blend that has couscous, orzo, quinoa, and split peas -- cheap and it looked interesting. Other things were quite expensive...$10 for salad dressing? $8 for jam? I don't think so.... They also offer cooking classes at their special huge cooking school. As much as I would like to take a class on the weekend sometime, everything involves that evil product butter....and the classes are $50! They are observation and sample classes, not full meals. They have a cafe where you can get panini's and soup -- let me tell you, panini's are HUGE here and can be found everywhere, even freshly made at the convenience stores.

Lily has been longing for her toys...all she has is a couple of bones which she rigorously gnaws on, and her little stuffed bone she had as a baby. She sleeps with that. Because our delivery will be so delayed now, I stopped and got her a new stuffed fox with a squeaker. She has been happily pouncing on it all evening. I am also running low on her dog food which cannot be bought here (Costco is 60 miles and I'm not going in the snow...). So, I found a high protein (30%) called Nutrisca that has no grains, only chicken, chickpea and potato, as well as other veggies.

I blended a little into her food to stretch it tonight. She carefully picked out all the new food nuggets and put them on the floor next to her bowl. She then ate her regular food and came back to the new food as if it was dessert. She is currently napping contentedly on the kitchen floor. I hope it sits well for her...

She has developed this habit of falling asleep ON my feet, up on the air mattress. She stays like that for hours and then goes to her mat. I didn't tell you, but yesterday I sprained my ankle while shoveling snow. I missed the front step that was hidden in snow and boink, the ankle twisted and immediately swelled up. I've been taking Aleve and can put weight on it now, but the weight of Lily did NOT help it at all last night!

She is so sweet in the morning. She hears my alarm go off and hops up on the bed, full length to greet me. She snuggles that big head of hers on my chest and licks my chin. She is just so affectionate! Then she bounds down the stairs to wait by the back door to go out. The snow is still very deep so she sort of leaps up and down in it until she finds a spot. She has her sense of privacy, though...I was standing at the door and she'd started to go, saw me and took off for a darker corner to finish up.

Today, the sun was actually out. It was a brisk 26-28 though, with winds. We are supposed to get down into single digits at night the next few days, with another storm coming on Saturday. Everyone says there have been more storms this season than ever before. Geez, I hope I didn't bring those with me.

New view from the kitchen window, the day after the storm. Note the blue sky above, and yes, the VERY deep snow which is halfway up the trees.

Well, I need to get busy and do some work on the online class....kind of dry stuff bout the origin of computers and how this all relates to electronic medical records.

Until next time...and I'm starting to be on EST -- it's 9pm here, yawn....