The weather outside is frightful...

As in the air quality.  Yesterday and today were particularly bad. Most days I don't bother to go to the US Embassy's air quality index, because, well, it doesn't do much except make me worry.  Austin does NOT have TB, thankfully.  I have not seen much change since he has tried this inhaler, so we are hoping he does not have asthma.  But a new doctor we saw for this TB reading said often several colds together seems a likely explanation, but the air outside an certainly irritate or cause a reaction.  For years we have been talking about getting good air purifiers.  So yesterday we had a free home assessment from one of the top purifier companies. A(n american) woman came to our house with 2 air purifiers and a air quality tester.  So she came on a particularly bad day.  The US "healthy" air level is 100,000 somethings units of particles.  When she came is was 1,500,000 outside and one million inside our home.  Yikes.  After 10 minutes of running the smaller purifier in the boys' room, it had cut to half a million. So, we are thinking about getting them.  They are a chunk of change - sometimes 1/2 to one times more than in the U.S. (where you don't need them nearly so much), though the ones we are looking at seem the best buy for good quality ones.  You can get three of them- one large and two smaller, bedroom units- for the price of one of the most top of the line brand, IQ air. And from research we have done they are almost as good at filtering out the junk.

In addition the to frightfulness of the air, it has also been very cold.  I don't have an iPhone or any weather update I regularly look at, except for this spot outside my kitchen window.  This pipe carries away steam from our heating system.  If it is pretty cold outside, there is usually a little icicle formed on it.  When I looked out today and saw 4 large icicles, I knew it must be cold.  Sure enough we looked it up and it was a whopping 14 degrees F.  However, we did have a clearer day today with some blue sky showing.  As much as I dislike the cold, I will take it over pollution. And as you can see beyond the icicles, red lanterns have appeared for Chinese New Year.  The big day is Monday, which means fireworks have already started and we are in for a noisy week, to say the least. 

No post would be complete without a peek at Lucy...this is her favorite toy at the moment.  She can grab it and chew it and loves to hold it.  We also are confidant that she will be a brown eyed girl now...they are mostly brown now and so pretty.