50 degrees and holding

my brother jeremy recently blogged about the first snow of the season, which reminded me that on the day of that same snow i failed to uphold my annual tradition of putting on my Carpenters record and playing "the first snowfall of the winter." i thought about why it was that i didn't do it. at first i blamed it on forgetfulness because i distinctly remember intending to do it on my way home from work, but then i realized that it was for the same reason that i haven't blogged in quite some time, and why i'm not cleaning my house right now: it's just too darn cold.

my husband and i are what you might call thrifty; the thrift in this case is by necessity. our house is heated by propane and our tank was getting quite low. apparently you're not supposed to let the tanks get much less than 25% full because they lose pressure and that's a bad thing. the tank when we moved was at about that. my new job pays next to nothing and we were worried about how we would fill it when the time came so we decided not to use it at all. we have two space heaters; one in the bathroom and one in the bedroom. that strategy worked fine until it snowed and the temperature plummeted to the teens during the night and low-thirties during the day. the indoor temperature fell into the forties, so we kicked in the furnace to hold at 50.

a fifty degree day in the spring is beautiful. you can almost go around without a coat. even in the fall fifty isn't bad. but inside your house fifty is pretty chilly. like i said, not much gets done around here at that temperature. cooking in the kitchen is tolerable because in a pinch you can turn on the oven; dishes, when i get around to them, aren't really that bad because the hot water feels nice, but most of the time all i feel like doing is sitting in the recliner bundled up in blankets. which is what i do a lot of the time. sometimes it's while watching tv, sometimes it's with the intention of reading, but a lot of the time it ends up just sitting and dozing. it's especially nice with a warm kitty or two in your lap. if we don our coveralls we're a little more mobile, so i've taken to doing that more often as of late. it's not so bad. i'm hoping to get acclimated so my hands can maintain circulation enough to type or write. i always think of long winter evenings as a time of fun productivity, maybe sitting in front of the fire sorting through wedding pictures to put in an album or playing a game of checkers. a lovely picture, except when there's no fire.

i exaggerate a little bit (not much). we did just fill the tank and now allow ourselves the luxury of 60 degrees in the evening and morning. i'm holding at 55 at the moment because my husband is not at home, and you see, i still have dexterity enough in my extremeties to type this to all of you. still, i'm praying for a short winter.