Saturday, November 14, 2015

Friday the 13th in Review

Friday the 13th - if this was a script for a play, there would be a notation here to "cue in eerie music"!

But, since this is a blog post and not a play script, Friday the 13th was just another very ordinary day.

Today, I woke up early (6:30 a.m.) after staying up too late, last night (past 2:00 a.m.).  Wrote a note to the gardener, telling him what I wanted done (remove dead lemongrass plant; mow the back yard, weed, etc.; and he had watered the garden as well, he wrote back in the note).  Then, went to the office and had a relatively productive day.

During my morning break, I went to the pharmacy to fill the prescriptions my doctor had given me for a new antibiotic ointment and vitamin supplements, as well as to pick up my other medication refills.  The pharmacist has become a friend over the years; and today, she showed me where she had written my initials on a card put up on a cancer awareness display board, which was so sweet of her.  I am awed by the care being shown me by so many people.

I had a restful, relaxed evening after I got home.  That sounds better than saying I didn't do anything, isn't it?  :D  I had a cup of tea, had a baked yam for a snack, went on-line to read blogs, etc., and video chatted with daughter.  Later, I had a protein-rich dinner of leftover steak and a scrambled egg.

Today, I spent almost $20 on medications (the exact amount was $19.35) and $48.26 for the gas bill (cooking/heating is natural gas).

My gas bill fluctuates from month to month; it goes down as low as $15 during the summer when I don't turn on the heater and don't bake a lot, to around $300 in the winter when I have the heater on most of the time and bake quite a bit.  I know that some people cut down on heating costs by keeping the house cooler, wearing additional layers of warm clothes, etc.  We layer up, too - right now, I am seated near the heater (there is one wall-mounted heater in the wall between the living room and the hallway, with the heat diffusing throughout the house ) and I am wearing sweatpants, a wool sweater with a blouse underneath, socks, and a scarf!  But, I guess, we tend to feel cold more than others.  The thermostat is set at about 70F (it's not a digital thermostat, so the best I can do is move the arrow to the 70F mark).  If daughter is home, she sets it a bit higher at around 75F because she tends to feel colder than I do.  If the house is cold, she falls ill!  I keep the doors to the spare room closed, but the main rooms are on an open plan, so, only the bedrooms and bathrooms have doors.

Daughter and I prefer to economize in other ways.  We don't mind going without air conditioning in the summer, for example, even when the house heats up to over 90F inside.  But we want the house to be toasty warm in the winter.  I generally budget for the higher winter gas bill by allocating more towards it during the summer months.  I add up the previous year's gas bills, divide the total by 12 and arrive at a monthly average of approximately $65.  Then, every month, I include $65 for the gas bills in my budget.  The extra $$ allocated in the summer months help defray the higher winter gas bills.

Today, I am grateful for:

- Caring friends
- A warm house
- Daughter getting a grade of 94 on her most recent midterm test
- Video chats with daughter
- Exchanging emails with friends

How was your Friday?  How do you heat your house and keep warm in winter? Do you tend to prefer to keep the house warmer or cooler?    

8 comments:

  1. So agree Bless, I really like a toasty warm house.. We too heat and cook with gas..Proud you had a good day.. All is good here too..

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    1. Glad to hear that someone else likes a warm house! :) How is all your Fall cleaning coming along?

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  2. We tend to plug in a heater and stay in one room. We try to avoid running the central heat if possible because the ductwork is in serious need of being replaced and blows out insulation and who knows what. I'd like to keep the whole house toasty warm, but it just costs quite a lot, so we'll just do our room.

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    1. That's good that you are able to heat up one room and stay there. Definitely less expensive than warming up the whole house. I tend to stay in the living room when the heater is on, since that's the warmest room.

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  3. It was 2°C when I got up this morning and the same when I got back from a trip to town in the morning. I put on the winter jacket for the first time and reminded myself how it was too hot in August! I have the oil on at the moment but if this November cold persists, I will do what DH showed me before he left for a conference trip, and change over the dampers to make the wood/electric furnace usable. He left plenty of wood. I don't like to use it unless it is really cold as it quickly overheats the whole house. But I do like to be warm, I can't function well if I am cold and my fingers turn white in certain damp weather! I'm hoping for a few more mild days before this becomes winter!
    Bushlady

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    1. Bushlady, brrr! That's cold! 2 C would be 35.6 F; we'd get that maybe a few nights in December/January/February. But, of course, when I was in Wisconsin, it got much colder than that. I still remember how, in the Fall, 40F would be "cold" and then, in the Spring, 40F would be "warm". :D

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  4. We use an electric heat pump, which is fine for air conditioning. It heats ok, but the heat just doesn't feel as warm as gas. I really liked the system in our old house, which was a split system with electric for summer and propane for winter. Heating with propane is expensive though! They are looking into bringing natural gas into our development. If they do, we'll likely get it. That's a few years off though.

    Our winters are relatively mild and short. It's not unusual, like this year, for us to have daytime temps around 70 or higher until well into Nov, sometimes later.

    DH and I have different opinions of a warm house in winter. We've figured out a compromise temp and I wear sweatpants and sweatshirt if I get chilly. Our summers are usually hot and very humid. The humidity makes it feel even hotter. Not using the AC isn't really an option for us. Even as cold-natured as I am, I'd be miserable with 90+ temps and 90% humidity.

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  5. We, too, have mild winters, for the most part. Daytime temps rarely go below the mid-50s, and night time temps rarely go below 40F. We are just spoilt, I guess. :)

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