BRRRRRRR!

Okay, I'm normally a fan of winter. I love skiing and the snow is just so pretty when everything is coated in a nice layer of it. But there's just no point in tolerating the cold when you can't take advantage of any of the finer parts of winter. Another day around 0 degrees with a wind chill below zero and the apartment is FREEZING. The windows are old and even though there are storm windows over them, they're still quite drafty. And yet I can't get myself to crank the heat up. Last month, the gas bill was $230. Yup, $230 to heat a 4-room, 700 square-foot apartment. Oh yeah, and to cook and have hot water. But since the summer gas bills are only about $30 (we turn the furnace off entirely in the summer) that means I spent $200 to heat this little place to only 67 degrees last month. This month it's colder... I cringe to think what the next bill will be! Last winter, I think we had a $300 gas bill one month. CRAZY! I know people who heat whole houses that are more than twice as big for the same, or even less! Darn inefficient furnace and drafty old house... So here I stand, freezing in my sweats, waiting for the 6-20 inches of snow we're supposed to get in the next 24 hours and hoping it doesn't get much colder in here.

At least I had a project this morning to keep me busy (and therefore warmer). I did some decluttering again. I have these hormonal cycles I go through where once every 4-6 weeks I HAVE to organize. I'm not particularly good about it normally, so it's usually a big project by the time I get to it. Plus, Brian doesn't organize at all, so his portion of the work is always a lot bigger. Today I put his stack of pay stubs, bank statements for his personal account, and 401K paperwork into order and away. He brought home this pile from work a month or two ago, and I left it there for him to go through. Silly me-I should have known I'd be the one to do it in the end! Pay stubs back to 1998 in no particular order, interspersed with debit receipts just as old and recent paperwork, too. It was not fun at all. But there will be a new rule when he gets home-no more dumping stuff on the kitchen table. I'm sick of seeing piles of his junk on it. So I made a place for his basket (that I tried getting him to use to contain the mess) on the potting bench that I use as extra counter space in the kitchen, and that's where it will go from now on. I always wanted a nice clean kitchen table that one could actually eat at, and I intend to get it! I also went through more of my books today to donate and threw in all the remaining VHS movies I couldn't get myself to part with when we had our tag sale this summer. We never watch them so there's no point in allowing them to take up space that we need badly for other things. I'm not done yet with the bigger picture of this, but I made a big dent. Time to take a break and eat (I tend to forget to eat when I get involved in these projects and without morning sickness to remind me these days, it would be really easy to go the whole day without food if I didn't force myself to stop and take a break). The hardest part with taking a break, though, is losing interest. As I said, these tend to be hormonal cleanings and if I don't take advantage of it when I have the impulse, I don't feel like doing it for another month or so. I know, I'm terrible...