For one thing, I'm not a morning person to begin with; I just get paid to pretend to be one (like many, many other people, no doubt). I don't tend to sleep enough, so I'm inclined to hit a snooze alarm or two (or six) anyway. But on cold mornings, the temptation to rush back underneath the covers after hitting the snooze button is almost irresisitible.
Ever since I moved into Casa de Kev in '01, I've kept the winter thermostat at 70 degrees; my parents have theirs at 68, and it always seems too cold to me (and those who know me personally are aware that it takes a lot for me to feel cold). But after reading the horror stories of natural gas prices rising and winter heating bills anticipated to be double what they were a year ago, I decided to try and acclimate myself to 68, just to save money. I haven't had enough "winter" gas bills to tell a difference yet (and the true difference may be in the fact that I've had a totally new heating/AC system installed since last winter), but those two degrees certainly add to the likelihood of hitting another snooze alarm.
Oh, and the coldness doesn't go away when I hit the shower, either. Like many of the houses in my neighborhood (during the construction of which, I'm pretty sure, the builders were in "experimental mode"), I have a room with a tall ceiling and a skylight. Unfortunately, that room is the bathroom. It was a little weird when I first moved in to look up and see the sky above me as I showered, though we fixed that with a screen. But the tall ceiling means that the bathroom will never get fogged up during a shower (good, at least in the summer). It also means the bathroom will never get warm during a shower either, so I have to step back out into the coldness once again. At least the hot water has been staying hot for the duration so far.
All of the above could pretty much serve as a preface to the fact that we're evidently getting some bitterly cold weather in a few days. They've been talking about a "wintry mix" for Wednesday, for crying out loud (no, I won't be holding my breath waiting for school to get called off). All I know is--lows in the lower 20's? Highs only in the 30's? It's beginning to
Is there anybody out there? I'm not sure when this post will be readable; Blogspot appears to be down, even if Blogger isn't. (UPDATE: Fixed now--yay.)
Blowing out three sets of candles: Happy birthday to my good friends Chris C., Wyatt, and Andrew D., who all lay claim to the same day (the latter two were even born in the same year). It's also a major birthday for each, being the Cheap Auto Insurance Birthday for Wyatt and Andrew, and the Doesn't Matter If I Get Carded Anymore Birthday for Chris. I was going to catch Chris's jazz concert (and happy hour afterwards) in Waco tonight, seeing as how they had Maria Schneider as a guest artist, but the timing was just too crazy right now. Instead, Maria's newest CD arrived in the mail today, so I'll have my own little concert in a minute, and we'll hopefully catch her next semester when she brings her whole big band to Austin.
4 comments:
Parts of my house are cold regardless of how well the heater is working. The back door is in the utility room and it is always frigid in there when it's cold outside. My bathroom gets rather toasty because I always shut the door to it so the dog won't get in. We keep the thermostat at around 72 degrees and it's perfect.
I like a warm house as well. I tend to put it up to 76 or so just so I can immediately feel the heat in my basement room, then it gets too hot and I must turn it down. Oh well. The cold is very cold this week. Too cold. My family decided to tile the kitchen and therefore I am elected to rinse out the dirty buckets every few minutes to get the grout nice and grouty. However, I must go outside and splash water from the outside around and it gets rather cold as well. I can't wait to more further south.
Eric--Is your heater electric or gas? I'd be interested in seeing how much more expensive it gets to keep it there this year. If it's not too bad, maybe I'll be more generous to myself next year.
Shawn--76 degrees...wow. I'd probably do that too, if other people were paying the bills. ;-)
Oh, and the talk of basements got me all nostalgic about my days in St. Louis when I was really little. (Generally speaking, there aren't basements in Texas--we're too close to the water table--though Bruce Hall kinda sorta has one, since it's built into the side of a hill.)
I believe our heater is gas. I'm not 100% sure though . . .
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