Fossil Fuels Suck!

My brother-in-law in Kansas was without power for three days, and apparently, there are still people in Oklahoma and Kansas who don't have power. And unless you have a generator, without power, you don't have heat. Which makes it pretty cold, even inside the house, right? Since we've moved out in the middle of nowhere and now heat our house with propane, we've become much more aware of our energy consumption. Our tank is now depleted down to 20% - and it's not even January yet! Which means we're going to have to buy more propane soon. Again. In bulk. Which means another $500 we're going to have to pull out of thin air. (I wish!)

So Michael got the idea... why don't we just turn off the propane? Let's see how cold it really gets? I mean, nevermind the blizzard we just had and all. Really. Because our bedroom and the upstairs are SUPER warm when the heat's on. Sometimes we'll even crack a window at night. We have steam heat, and man, does it rise! Maybe we don't even need heat, we reasoned... I mean, the people in Oklahoma have gone ten days now... how cold can it get?

Let me tell you. Really fricking cold. Finger-numbing cold. I can barely feel mine as I'm typing, actually. Standard framed houses were built for fossil fuel heating on the grid, period. Cold seems to seep in from everywhere. So, no luck on the "Let's do winter without any heat" idea.

The thing is, when Michael turned it off, the pilot went out. And since we haven't had this kind of setup before, he's not sure how to get it back on. So he's going to call today and find out. In the meantime, I'm freezing. Two sweaters, two pairs of socks, a down comforter, and my nose and toes and fingers are still frigid.

So I decided to start a fire. I've started fires before. How hard can it be?

You see where this is going, don't ya?

No, I didn't blow up the house. Thank god. But my fire sucked. It sucked so bad I called Michael at work, my teeth chattering, to complain about my fire-building skills. He said, "Let me call you back in ten minutes."

Instead, he came home. Nice, that he works only six miles away still. He came home and built me a big, warm, toasty fire that is still burning two hours later. All I have to do is keep putting logs on it.

Don't I have the sweetest husband ever?

And thankfully, I'm not blue-faced and chattering like Alvin and the Chipmunks anymore. Now I just have to cough up the dough for more propane. *sigh* I'm seriously considering Michael's talk of moving off the grid and building solar!