January Chill

The three of us were lying in bed this morning -- early this morning, before 5:30 -- and Tiger whispers in my ear, "Mommy, I'm cold!" We pulled the blankets up higher, trying not to wake up Baby Sister. She began to stir, so we all snuggled closer. It was really cold in our room. Cece woke up, so we "played" camping, and we all cuddled under the blankets. Finally, I decided I better get up and go take a look at the furnace.

The furnace is in our basement. Our basement is cold. I stopped at the thermostat to see what the actual temp was in the living room: 60F. I grabbed my coat and put on my slippers to go downstairs. I had been "fixing" the furnace for a few weeks now. I try to make it a habit that whenever I venture downstairs, I take anything down that needs to go there, and bring anything up that needs to come up. I took a sack of canned food for my expanding basement pantry.
Once downstairs, I give the furnace its needed whack. This generally ignites something (and it scares me every time -- doesn't it seem like whacking something to make a fire start isn't very safe?) and the furnace kicks on. I hear all the familiar noises that indicate my whack was successful, so I move the laundry I started last night into the dryer. Then the comforting your-house-is-getting-warm sound ends. I whack the furnace again. Nothing. Crap.

So now here I am, back upstairs, in my winter coat, extra socks, slippers, and my warm laptop computer sitting my extended legs. I'm waiting for anybody to "Facebook" me and give me the names of someone, anyone, who might take a look at my furnace. Tiger has on extra pants, socks, and a jacket. Cece is snuggled up in two blankets and has gone back to sleep on the living room floor. I closed off all the doors to the outlying rooms -- our house is tiny, less than 1000sq ft -- and we do have a Duraflame space heater, so it should warm up in time... but it makes me think of all the people around the world who live this way every day. Although I am freezing by my standards, I am grateful.

It looks like it is warming up... 62F now. Maybe I'll fire up the oven and start that turkey pot pie I was thinking of making.