Competitive Freezing

Funny. I didn't realize that freezing to death in your own home was a competitive sport until recently. I read this post which I thought was cool because of the story behind it. Then, I had lunch with my sister, and she told me about some friends of hers who see how long they can go without turning on the heat in Boston. I might be mixing my stories, but I think November 1st was their minimum goal for this year. As far as my sister knew, it wasn't an issue of money or economy, but a competitive need to see if they could do it.

As for me, I don't have a target date. My goal is to go as long as possible without turning on the heat. Then, once the dirty deed is done, the goal is to run it as little as possible. For me, it is all about money. I could have had a nice European vacation for what we spent on heating the Devil Queen last winter.

So far, I haven't been tempted yet. However, this week is the first one that has actually been cold at night. Last night the temperature made it down to 48 degrees. According to the thermostat, it was a cool 60 degrees in the Devil Queen this morning. Tonight should be a real weenie shrinker though with low around 38 degrees. But the heat won't be coming on tonight. I'll just wear a sweat shirt if it gets nippy.

What is interesting is how much just being at home adds to the house's temperature. I've been closing the living room door to the drafty main hall this week. This segregates the thermostat and the living room, dining room, kitchen, and the bathroom/laundry from the rest of the house. That is about 756 square feet. Just by coming home and being there, the temperature will rise 1 degree within the first 30 minutes to an hour. If I cook and turn on most of the lights, you can add another couple of degrees over the evening. If you run the dishwasher and run the washer and drier too, you can bring the temperature up by five or six degrees by bedtime.

I'm thinking that if I get the rest of the storms up this weekend and re-hang the transom over the living room door that it ought to be possible to keep this part of the house pretty warm for a while, particularly if I use an electric space heater.
In any case, it ought to be an interesting experiment.

The New Idol for Our Affections

What can I say? When something like this appears before you, you can't help but be transfixed. Like a Jesus Christ grill cheese sandwich or a Virgin Mary liver spot, it evokes strong feelings of love and adoration. It may in fact be the most moving religious experience we've ever shared as a family.

For the first time in nearly a year, we now have the convenience of washing and drying our clothes in our own home. Ms. Scarlet ran them for two days straight in an attempt to wash the huge cache of dirty clothes we've been hording. We actually had a whole dirty clothes hamper full of clothes that was packed up when we moved out of our Blue House and in with my in-laws in June 2006.

Binding the Beast, Demonology Part II

I gambled it all last night, and I hooked up the washing machine. David, you're right. I do love the little beast, but I have to admit that I haven't washed anything in it.

In hindsight, I feel like a retard which really isn't all that unusual. The way that I obsessed about hooking up the beast, the anxiety I wallowed in, and the loathing I felt are absurd. But, I can only say that because the damn thing seems to work. Remember that "simple" hooking up the bathroom sink job we did for Christmas? I do. It was not pretty. Why should this be any different?

I read the instructions about a dozen times before I even touched the thing. I connected the water lines, flushed the lines, connected them to the washer, set up the drain pipe and leveled the beast. Leveling it was actually the hardest part. It alone probably accounted for fifty percent of the time I spent on this project. So far, so good.

Then I plugged it in, flipped the breaker on line, set it on "delicates," and pushed start. I was so nervous that my stomach vaguely entertained the ultimate drama, puking.

No, I didn't load it with clothes or soap the first time out. Cleaning up water is bad enough. Soapy water all over the wood floors? No thank you. And, over the next thirty minutes, I anxiously watched it whirl and slosh its way through the cycle. Everything seems to work just fine, a sure sign something must be terribly wrong. Then, it was over. No puddles, geysers, fires, explosions, or malicious supernatural phenomenon.

Wow.

And, this morning as I got ready for work, I checked it again. Still no laundry room disasters.

Tonight, I'm going to go crazy with it. The question I must now wrestle with is, "whites or colored?"