Flameo

As Shaggy Hair Boy and I drove home from campus today, I kept saying, "I'm so glad the winter weather is finally here!" November this year was a dark month, filled with dreary rain, so I was happy to see all the white. The snow makes late afternoons so much brighter.

When we entered the house, I noticed that it seemed chilly. I changed into sweatpants, heated myself up a bowl of soup, and went to look at the thermostat. After twenty minutes of fiddling with the thermostat, staring at the furnace, and sitting hopefully by the heat vent in the kitchen, I came to an awful realization. We were without heat.

Soon the house was cold as a grad student's apartment.

The furnace guy will be here tomorrow morning, and hopefully, we'll get if fixed. In the meantime, I've piled wood on the fire. My first priority is keeping the room warm enough for With-a-Why and Shaggy Hair Boy to practice their duets on the piano. The second is making sure the pipes don't freeze.

It's not too much of a hardship: the fireplace seems to be doing a fine job. My husband is sitting on the floor with his laptop, and leaning against my chair, so his body is keeping my feet warm. My sons are keeping their fingers warm with their furious piano playing. I'll probably sleep by the fire to keep it going all night. I'm thinking I might need to bake some chocolate cupcakes or something in the morning, just to warm up the kitchen. I've got two cords of wood in the garage, so I don't think we're going to have to twist straw into sticks or burn up the furniture. It looks like we're going to survive.