Nothing screams winter like having to scrape the windows on the inside of the car.

The past couple of days have revolved around the decline of my mother's mental state and the frustration of living over 2 hours away and her new habit of leaving the phone off the hook.

And sadly, I don't think I won the washer and dryer from Breakfast Television. I have no idea who did win the pair but seemingly my fetching picture of the Bobbsey twins in the basement did nothing to stir the ice cold hearts barely beating in the chests of Kevin and Dina.

Now interestingly, my contractor has finally promised to come to the house beginning of February to take care of the last items under the long expired warranty of our renovation...for he seems to think he does have a heart. This brings the timing to about one year since we really started bugging him to come over and he would continually blow us off citing busyness, vacation, baby, baby's health, timing with other jobs, those jobs falling through...or just plain out ignoring us and pretending he never got the emails and/or phone calls. I want to be encouraged that he will honor his commitment this time and I can finally change the name of my voodoo doll to something else, maybe stab a few less toothpicks in it...but how many times do you have to be burned before you stop playing with fire?