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Today marks our first real snowfall. About 8-9 inches in about 14 hours. Reminds me of Chicago. It’s light snow but that still didn’t make shoveling the two car driveway very easy. My brother Ray in AZ wants me to say it’s “a dry snow” so he can tease the heck out of me. Not a chance.

There’s a mountain about a mile west of here. I can predict snowfall 20 minutes before it gets here based on when the mountain disappears in a cloud of white stuff.

Cost Of Living:

The cost of living just went down by another $50. Our healthcare provider charges less for folks who live here in Northern Idaho. I guess we live longer or cheaper or something. No complaints.
Observations of Small Town Living:

The snow plow edged off the curb while passing the driveway I’d just shoveled. The result is that there was no pile up of snow left at the end of the driveway in his wake. I don’t know what to say. Maybe I’m mistaken.

• The Golden Dragon serves up some very good Chinese food. I went to pick up dinner. The price was $21.20. I counted out twenty-one and then began to search my pockets for the change. At this, the kind lady said that if I didn’t have the change it’s OK with her. I paused for a second because I didn’t understand what she meant. When I figured it out, I almost hugged her for being so gracious.

Here are some additions to our Observations of Small Town Living

• We finally cleaned out the coins that have been collecting in the ash trays in our cars, along a can and jar in the house. We put the combined mass of coins into a zip lock bag and headed down to the bank. The bank’s coin counting machine is on the fritz and isn’t counting things accurately. The solution? The teller hands you a handfull of coin wrapping sleeves and sends you home to do it your self. No worries about your ability to count accurately, they just trust you.
• Headed down to the local Radio Shack for a phone jack. The phone jack they didn’t have but they do sell hand made leather goods such as slippers, purses and other goodies. It’s a family owned store and the man wanted a Radio Shack and the woman wanted a leather goods store. In small town Idaho, I guess you can do that. While typing this I got a call from the guy at Radio Shack. He found a handful of the jacks I was looking for in back and will leave them up at the front desk for me to pick up. They’re only $2 because they’re not in the package. Now that’s service.
• Got the bill from our ELECTRIC/GAS company. Here, they’re one in the same. For 2 weeks of service we were charged $36.67 which would be a whopping $73.34 for a month. I checked last month’s bill for Com-Ed: $209.41 and Ni-Gas averaged $78 for the last 12 months for total of 287.41. Okay, the cost of living just went down a few hundred dollars per month.