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Monday, December 7, 2009

Without heat

As most of you have felt throughout the country, last weekend was COLD. I was at my parent's house, and Chris was up near Ocean City, MD for a tournament so we were both away from the house for the weekend. We figured we'd turn the heat down to 50-55 just so we weren't heating the house while we weren't home.

I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I definitely like to conserve money, and turning down the heat when we're not even going to be home does just that. On the other hand, I knew Chris' tournament was about 6 hours from home and they had a 4 PM game on Sunday which at the earliest would have put him home by 1 AM (he actually got home later), which makes me the first one home after the weekend and the one who has to freeze while the house starts warming back up. By the time Chris got home he would get to walk into a nice warm house.

Practicality won out and we turned the heat down.

When I got home Sunday evening, I dragged my bag inside and went directly to the thermostat. I didn't notice how cold it was because I had just come from outside and was still wearing a coat. I ran back out to get the rest of my stuff from the car (thanks for the poinsetta, mom!) and kicked off my shoes. When my feet hit the floor, they froze! It was SOO cold.

That's when I noticed the heat hadn't kicked on yet.

I went back over to the thermostat and saw that the needle had dropped all the way to the left (meaning it was even colder than the few degrees below 50 that it actually  measures). And that's when I realized...

...we were out of oil.

AH. It was already late and there was no way someone would come out in the dark and fill up our tank. The house was the temperature of outside! I bet the heat hadn't been on at all the entire weekend. I felt a little bad that Chris wasn't going to come home to a warm house (not too bad though, since I had to come home to a cold house, too!), so I placed his slippers at the front door so when he got home he wouldn't have to search hard. Then I went directly upstairs, turned on the electric blanket, and crawled into bed.

Chris called for more oil today but since we couldn't reset the furnace until we got home from work, the house is only just starting to warm up. I've been wearing mittens and a jacket all day in doors! I've finally graduated to just a sweatshirt :)

We also bought a 7 foot pole today so we can start keeping track of the oil tank. BRRR!

5 comments:

LA-jan said...

You poor thing! You are lucky your pipes didn't freeze and burst!

jennie said...

wow that all sounds like a lot of work- i hope your house is warm and toasty now!

Dorothy said...

I hope that small electric heater helps a little bit. Sorry it was so cold!

Elizabeth said...

yikes! i'm glad you are smart enough to have an electric blanket.

maggie said...

oh no! you look frozen in that picture! I hope it is all up and running by now!