I remember what seems like eons ago writing an entire page of a blog post every day. I called them "rambles" because they were generally not about any one thing in particular, just whatever came to mind. Then came this feeling of just not thinking that people *really* were all that interested in what I had to say, especially from someone who lives on 10 acres in "the boonies" (i.e. very rural) of South-Central Missouri. It isn't like there is a plethora of exciting happenings around here. Most days we, the family, just hang out in the house playing on our individual computers. Every so often we'll all decide to play a game of Wii Bowling as a family. That hasn't happened for over a month (at least) now because the Wii system isn't new anymore. Although the kids and I had a good time playing each other games of tennis and baseball last evening. Oddly enough it occurred to us that since we have two controllers we could play each other in Wii Sports. That was why we got the second controller a couple of months ago after all. What can we say, we're easily distracted. LOL. In case you're wondering, my 14 year old son kicked my ass several times in Wii Tennis. *sigh* Then he and I played a game of Wii Baseball that surprisingly *I* won. Then I played my 17 year old daughter a game of Wii Baseball and she totally obliterated me 6 to 0. LOL. Ah, if only I could be that "athlete" I was back in my teens and early twenties, but alas I haven't been able to find the fountain of youth. LOL.
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Something weird has come to pass this winter, after 8 years of primarily heating with wood. When we were doing that we thought is was too chilly in the house unless it was *over* 70 (F), usually around 75. But two winters ago, midway through, we decided to give electric only a whirl as the way to heat, the living room specifically. We have been using thermostatted, electric space heaters in the bath and bed rooms since we couldn't comfortably leave the doors open in those rooms because of the cats. See, a couple/few? years ago we had upward of 20 cats before deciding that was too many, and a couple of those cats which are no longer living with us, were males who sprayed things indoors to mark their territory. *sigh* Plus we also used to have a *female* cat who sprayed, mostly outside, but we didn't trust her. Any hoots, when we had way too many of those feline creatures we couldn't watch them all 24-7 and really didn't like the smell of cat urine in rooms they frequented, nor the feeling of being covered with cat hair after a shower because they'd lay on the towels on the towel rack in the bathroom, we began closing ALL the doors. That meant that the heat from the living room's heater couldn't get into said rooms. We've had all the doors closed for several years now. Although we're now down to only 3 cats and a small dog, we just still don't trust them not to climb on, spray on, or chew on stuff in those rooms. All that babble simply to say that since we've gone to ONLY electric heat, which keeps the living room and kitchen close to 70 (F) the majority of the time, we've acclimated to the heat being right at or just a smidge under or over 70 (+/- 3-4 degrees) and generally don't need to put more layers of clothes on to get warm like we (mostly me, what can I say. lol) did when using wood heat only. I just find it interesting that there have been times this winter in particular that the living room morning temp. has been *below* 70 and we've not been "freezing". LOL.
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3 comments:
I have to say 1) I always liked your daily writings, and 2) I am way jealous of temps near 70. We are about 10 degrees less than that!
I hear ya Todd, I sometimes feel like my rambles aren't really interesting to anyone else but me... but I post them anyway lol. It's a little chronicle of my life I figure.
How do you find the electric heating vs firewood has impacted the old budget? It would have used a LOT of wood to keep it that warm I'd imagine, so wondering if the steady/thermostated heating is working out actually cheaper?
Not that I really need to worry much about heating down here lol.
I don't if it's cheaper, rather I'd say it costs about the same. Because I/we just couldn't keep-up with cutting trees down, making logs, then splitting them, we had to BUY a couple of cords of wood every other month or so, which wasn't too bad, but we got tired of the constant worry of "will there be enough wood for the month", hence trying elec. I think because the temp stays warm more consistently it does save a little money. Mostly it's been a lot less stressful by NOT worrying about the wood.
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