Sunday, January 10, 2010

A Very Cold Sunday

I have the oil bill for 3 weeks and it's $330. And the house isn't even warm. I'm trying to overcome the anger and frustration these oil bills create for me. I don't enjoy being cheated. And I feel the oil company is actually making a high profit, taking advantage of the winter cold and lining their pockets with my money. I'll be stamping around and being grumpy for awhile.

I reconnected with my West Wing mojo last night. Fast forwarding through all the political stuff with the President and just watching the parts with Josh and Donna is very satisfying. I like the parts with Charlie and CJ also. I refuse to watch any parts with the President's wife.

I only have two dates on this week's calendar filled. Art Club on Tuesday evening. Work for a few hours on Saturday morning. I refiled for unemployment this morning. The check I got this week was for the last week of LAST year's claim. That's why I didn't get a booklet of rules and all the other forms. So now, I get to wait. At least, I won't have to pretend to look for work until they process the new claim.

G asked what plans I had for today. Pack the Christmas ornaments, wash his work clothes, iron his work clothes, make pizza for dinner. If I go into the studio/workspace I'm staying in there for the afternoon. It's been a L O N G time since I did any fabric work. I miss it.

I still have the Goodwill bags (in the car) to drop off and a gift to return at the local shopping mall. Not urgent. I finished the second Wallander and it was much better than the first. I could stop by the library and check out another. Or go online and see if they even have the others.

As you can read, I am not very motivated today. I do want a nice hot shower (with my $330 worth of oil). My breakfast was good. A nice warm crusty French roll with butter and blackberry jam, coffee (2 cups) and a serving of nonfat blueberry yogurt. Since it's late, breakfast will be lunch, also. G and Riley are getting ready to go outside for a walk in the woods. G says all the hikers and cross country skiers have packed down the paths so he won't need the snowshoes. It might be 10 degrees out there.

I would like to get the pink piece stitched and the blue/white one with a background and some idea of where it's going. That would be interesting. And the work table cleared off. So I have a plan, of sorts. I also want to do some more painting and collage in the collage book and journal a bit today. I've been doing some very strange but intriguing stuff. Not the usual for me and it's a bit scary but I like it. This could be the new path. And it's messy and my hands and sleeves are covered in stains and ink marks. My fingers have blue ink stains all over them. How artistic!! Most of all, I want to stay warm.

I may experiment with the heat today. Crank it up and see if it's more efficient to get the house warmer or keep it cooler. What do you do?

3 comments:

Hand Quilting Nana said...

Well in the south here we are paying less per therm for natural gas than we did last winter, so I'm cranking up the heat all the way to 68 and it's fairly comfortable. Depends on which room in the house I'm in. Upstairs is toasty. Downstairs not so much and the lower level is cold. Only gets warm when I am cooking as that is where the kitchen is. Built on a cold concrete slab. Not the best idea I think.

Life Scraps and Patches said...

I'm a huge fan of the programmable thermostat, but it wouldn't help as much for you right now because you're home during the day. Tonight I had a meeting of my Art and Spirituality group at my house and the women said it was cold so I turned the thermostat up, but will go down automatically when 10:00 comes. Close-fitting silky long underwear, good socks, fleece, flannel sheets, electric blanket. I'm expecting the gas bill any day now . . .

dee said...

My husband is a research engineer for ny state NYSERTA. We have a programmed thermostat. Since I don't spend a lot of time upstairs during the day, and we don't like sleeping in a hot room, the heat is programmed low up there until about 4 am. Then it comes on automatically and is warm when we get up. We keep a little electric heater in the bathroom next to our bed for those night time excursions in the cold. Downstairs is set to 68 since Roger takes coumadin, it makes him get cold easily. Even with the internal thermostat reading 68-70, he has taken to wearing sweaters and sweats all the time. The temps are perfect, if not a little too warm for me.