Friday, February 7

Heat and The Move

          I really don't know exactly what to write. I'm doing pretty well today. A friend of mine here in Burnet reminded me about using the ceiling fans to keep the warm air from the heaters off the ceilings and flowing around the room. Of course I knew that, but a few weeks ago I guess I was just feeling cold, and with the fan on, any air hitting me at all made me feel even colder. So for the last couple of weeks there hasn't been a ceiling fan on. However, after being talked to about it last evening, I figured that I might as well try again. So I turned on the living room fan, made sure it was spinning in the direction that would cause the warm air that has risen, to come down to room level. Decided that since the living room seemed to be stabilized and the temperature was staying pretty consistent, that I would leave it on. Then when I went to bed last night, I turned on the bedroom's ceiling fan. Seemed to stay warmer overnight than it had been. So in hindsight I should've turned them on a couple of weeks earlier. Like I said, I should've known that having them on worked, because we used them in Missouri too, and seemed to stay fairly warm. I just thought that because the house in MO was so much better insulated since it was known to be very cold there, that the fans worked better. However, though this house doesn't seem to hold heat very long, it's doing better with the ceiling fan in the living room and the one in the bedroom remaining on. D'OH! I also just assumed the we had better heaters in MO, but the ones we have here seem to be working better with the fans on. 
          In a pinch one can use the oven to heat the kitchen and then have a fan to send that warm/hot air into others rooms, like the living room for instance. It's been determined, after a photo I posted to Facebook showing how fast the oven loses heat with the door cracked (couple hundred degrees in 10 minutes), that more than likely the oven needs to have the thermostat replaced. So I'll call the landlord and ask him to send a maintenance person to check it out. Hopefully the cold weather won't stay around too much longer, even though we're in Texas, February is said to be one of the colder months. I'm hoping not, but.. Whether it is or not, the oven should still work correctly.
         We didn't have a refrigerator for a few weeks, so we used a cooler and just replaced the ice every couple of days. Well, that got old and we got a little financial help from a relative, so I ordered us a mini fridge-freezer online from Wal*Mart that's been pretty good for us. Because the freezer is tiny though, there's only room for a small ice tray that came with the fridge-freezer and a coulple of 1 pound chubs of hamburger. I want to get a full-size fridge with a full-size freezer so that I can buy other kinds of frozen food. Food like steaks, pork chops, packages of frozen hamburgers, and maybe some of those evil, frozen, microwavable corndogs.
          Anyway, we're settling in pretty well into a much smaller town (6000) than we were in in Austin, TX (850,000+). I think the slower lifestyle and people that waive from there cars, or walking, and also saying "hi" in stores, is good for me. Not only are small town people friendlier than the city people in Austin, but there are so fewer, that the energy is also less, which is doing me good.
           The only things I miss from Austin is my daughter, her boyfriend, his parents, and one other friend. But they're only an hour's drive away, so I can visit often. So it's all good. The move has been good for me, me thinks.
           That's all I've got for now. Rather it's all I can think of to write at the moment. I said I would write, and now I have. I'll try and be more talkative now that we've pretty much settled in.

Take care.

Todd out!

Wednesday, February 5

Almost, but not quite...

I hadn't realized that it had been so long (Dec. 21st) since I had written in my blog. I'm too tired now (it's after 1 AM), but I promise to write a blog post in the next day or three or four, unless you don't want me to. No, you can't stop me! Muah-ha-ha-haha