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it was 8°F when i woke up this morning. it wasn't too bad, when i went outside to get some avocados from star market in the afternoon, my hands would hurt if i didn't put them in my pocket, and i wanted to wear my face mask outside because it kept my face warm. you know it's cold when it dehydrates the outdoor air and leaves behind white salty dust on the roads.

the few people i saw outside were all bundled up, it was very interesting seeing each individual's strategy when it comes to negative new england wind chill.

no matter what i do, i can't seem to dissolve the matcha powder for my latte. when i use the milk frother, it just can't dissolve the powder completely and i'm left with bitter matcha bits at the bottom of my latte. i went online looking for solution, i saw one technique where you dissolve the matcha powder (and sugar/honey if using) in a small amount of hot water first, then you pour it into your warm milk. i'm going to try that tomorrow. at this point i seem to be wasting my matcha because most of it goes undissolved.

i made an english muffin sandwich for lunch. i also tried the badia brand linden leaves tea i got yesterday from stop & shop. badia sounds like a foreign company but it's actually american based in florida (the founder was a cuban exile). so this linden tea is not the tea i was thinking of. this one is made from linden leaves and orange leaves. i was thinking more in line of linden flowers. it has a nice yellow color when brewed, but the taste isn't anything special, nondescript is what comes to find. so i'm still in search of linden flower tea.

the cold weather allowed me to spot minute cracks along the of my bathroom window frame. i managed to patch those areas up with squeeze-tube latex caulk. later in the evening i found some spots along the edge of the window itself that was leaking cold air; those i patched up with squeeze-tube silicone caulk, but i need to replace the pile weatherstripping along the sides because i can feel the draft coming in through those.

i turned off my holiday lights yesterday, and i took them down today.

i thought with the weather so cold yet sunny, the solar panels would perform at peak efficiency. that however would not be the case. we had our best production last tuesday, the production graph a near perfect bell curve. the graph line for today had a more rigid shape, with abrupt cuts. worse, we made more electricity yesterday, even though it was an intermittently cloudy day. my personal theory is some snow had changed the shape of our backyard trees, causing them to partially block the sun in the morning. that wouldn't explain why our highest production wasn't able to match tuesday's or even beat it.

i had some cheese and crackers for a late afternoon snack. i heated up a large brick of oncor lasagna for dinner. what i should've done instead is finish the rest of my virginia ham and make another english muffin sandwich. that ham has started to go bad, getting a little sticky. i'll finish it tomorrow morning but i hope it doesn't give me the runs.