Baby, it's cold....inside.

Today when we were driving home from church the temperature on the bank sign read 5 degrees.
I remarked how icky cold it was and we drove on home in our toasty warm van.

And then.....


When we got home I gracefully skidded, shimmied, slid, skated, tip toed and arabesques across our icy concrete patio toward our back door and I could hear the high screech of the fire alarms.

Holy ear drum ripping Batman! What's going on in the farmhouse?!

No, the house wasn't on fire.

I don't know what the heckle happened, but the fire alarms were blaring and the house was cold because our furnace wasn't running or hopping or skipping or dancing. It also appears that our electricity had gone off at some point.

So, Clay tried to fix the furnace blah, blah, blah, cold house, blah, blah blah, had to call the heating fixer guy, blah, blah, blah, can't fix it.

What? Can't fix it?!

April does not like to be cold. April is already in hibernating mode, being cold is only going to cause her to dig deeper into the pile of covers on her bed and not reappear until... April. April has all of the sudden started writing this post in third person. April is a big goon.

Okay, moving on with this chilling story.

Thank God and Jesus oh, why not, let's thank Mary and Holy St. Joseph while were at it that we do have electricity. I propped open our ovens and cranked up the heat and stood in front of the open oven doors. Then I made coffee and went up to my room where I turned on the portable heater and snuggled under my blankets with my four year old, who by the way, is the toastiest little marshmallow ever.

Then the phone rang.

It was Virginia, my octogenarian neighbor, calling to see if we were doing okay. Yes, I assured her we were fine and I told her our heat was out, but we had a space heater and were staying warm enough.

Shouldn't I have been calling to check on her? Isn't that what the news people always say to do when it's too cold or too hot? Call and check on your elderly neighbors. Those news people don't know Virginia. Virginia would make those news people look like nimrods. Virginia makes me look like a nimrod. I am a nimrod.

Virginia told me they had their wood furnace cranked up and had been using a little space heater in their bathroom, but when she got the electric bill it was seventy whole dollars and she decided she shouldn't use the space heater as much.

Seventy whole dollars!

Just when I think I'm being frugal and so very careful with our resources, ,my elderly neighbor proves to me otherwise. Did I tell you that Virginia was hanging out her laundry the other day when is was freezing cold? FREEZING COLD! She told me she was freeze drying. FREEZE DRYING!! That woman makes me feel like a slug.

And that's my story for today. I sure wish we had one of them there corn stoves or better yet Clay did mention the stove that you can shove an entire elephant into and heat your house for a whole year.

A WHOLE YEAR!!