i woke up feeling better than i did yesterday, but still recovering. i had to sleep with a trash can next to the bed last night because i kept needing to blow my nose. it took me a while to fall asleep but once i did i slept fine (went to bed around 10:40pm, didn't sleep until 2am). as part of my new daily routine, i woke up and checked the status of the solar panels. the forecast was for mostly cloudy, but there seemed to be enough daylight for energy production.

the temperature today reached the lower 50's. i felt well enough to bike down to the cafe i grab my grand uncle's cable box equipment to return to the comcast office. my mother also gave me my cousin's handbag she wanted returned (long story short, my taiwanese cousin made us order two but then decided she didn't like the color and asked us to return one for her). i went home to print out the return shipping label before stopping by the UPS store to drop off the package before going to the comcast office. on my way back i went to market basket for some groceries. i heated up the remaining two slices of leftover pizza for lunch. i made a fruit smoothie, as it was warm enough today to enjoy a cold beverage.

in the afternoon i did a thorough cleaning of the fish tank: rinsed out the filter, replaced the activated carbon, increased the water temperature, pulled out the live plants to give them a detailed scrubbing in the sink, scoured the glass aquarium interior, siphoned out a bucket of dirty water, and added fresh water. i did something new this time: normally i take the water from my cistern, but i decided to just pour a bucket of warm tap water directly into the tank after first treating it with seachem prime. the advantage of doing it this way is i don't need to keep a cistern anymore and i can adjust the temperature of the water since the cistern water is usually a different temperature than the aquarium water. the water in the cistern can also get slimy if i don't use in a long time. the tetras didn't seem to react negatively to this freshly treated tap water.

i went to star market to buy some apples on sale. coming back, i noticed an ice dam creating pools of dirty water along the curb by several parking spots outside my house. with a shovel and an ice chopper i broke apart the ice dam and watched the water drain away.

the solar panels generated 11.43 kWh of energy today. i'd predicted maybe 10 kWh, so it exceded my expectations. it only produced 39% of the amount of energy made yesterday, but keep in mind that today was a cloudy day. just how cloudy? the production for today was just a series of jagged lines. around 11am it must've gotten seriously overcast because energy production dropped dramatically. it will be rainy tomorrow, but even then i expect a little energy production. my prediction is 500Wh to 1 kWh.

last night my father had several space heaters and the stove running to see how much electricity they use together. after several hours, the usage was 5kWh. if we can produce 30kWh on a good sunny winter day, it's more economical for my parents to heat their house using electric space heaters instead of using oil heat.

for dinner i heated up some mushroom ravioli mixed with a simple jarred tomato sauce. i had a new snap dragon apple, which they say was developed from the honey crisp. they seem a little old so they're not as crispy, but definitely sweeter. perhaps too sweet, i still prefer the honey crisp.

going to go to bed even earlier than yesterday, 10pm!