warm

We're warm again! We had our heat and power restored on Wednesday night, to the tune of $1400. Here's a brief re-cap of the last few days.

On Christmas Eve, we gradually lost more and more power, including all the outlets in our kitchen. Marc had to cook sausage and hash browns in the bathroom! Yikes.

This is one of the low-power space heaters that we could use without losing what power we had left. (If we had to change our clothes, standing right in front of them would make it bearable.)

My mom thought the worst thing was that we couldn't have our tree lights turned on for Christmas. We thought the worst thing was being so cold (that, and not being able to cook a Christmas dinner). When it was still dark in the morning, it was a little depressing to not have the tree lights, but when daylight came, it wasn't so bad.

We were all in good spirits, and it was a pretty good day, but I started to crash on Christmas afternoon. I had taken a shower, but couldn't dry my hair (it takes hours to air dry). I was so cold and couldn't get warm, despite wearing two sweatshirts and a robe and lying on the couch under a down throw. Plus, I was really depressed about not being able to cook a decent Christmas dinner. We ate cold food all day and then risked cooking some pasta at night. Just pasta with sauce from a jar. Not my idea of a Christmas dinner!

When we woke up on Wednesday, the indoor temperature was down to 52 degrees and we couldn't stay here any longer. After taking Eva to the doctor (sinus infection), we all headed to our neighbor Heidi's house.

We put together a 500-piece puzzle.

We enjoyed a crackling fire.

We warmed up to the point that we were peeling of some of our many layers of clothing. Heidi fed us lunch and dinner, she played with Eva, and I even took a little nap!

The furnace was fixed about 7:30 p.m. and we came home to put Eva to bed. After a few more glitches yesterday (the furnace was alternating hot and cold air and we still didn't have power to the kitchen outlets), everything is finally fixed! I baked a giant loaf of sheepherder's bread to celebrate.

Marc and I went to see a movie last night, and discovered that, now that we are finally warm, we want to stay that way! We were irritable about the cold drive and walking into the theater. I even wore gloves and a scarf in the theater! (my mom will never believe it) I guess our cold tolerance has gone down. We're warm and we want to stay that way.

cold Christmas

So, we were running two space heaters yesterday (at half wattage and half power), and it blew our fuses. Totally, completely, blew our fuses. We were left with partial power-- in the kitchen and in our master bedroom.

We turned off and unplugged everything we could, bundled everyone up in multiple pairs of pajamas and sweats and winter hats, and aimed two other, less powerful space heaters into the kids' bedrooms. Then we went to bed and hoped for the best! Fortunately, it only got down to 59 degrees in the house -- I really expected it to get colder.

Today the guy who installed our furnace came over to inspect the situation. It turns out that we have two problems: our furnace needs a new motherboard (I never even knew it had one!), and our main circuit breakers to the house (located outside) need to be replaced. Evidently they only last for about 2o years and our house is 30 years old.

And here's the kicker: we couldn't get any of the parts we need today since it's Christmas Eve, so now we have to wait until Wednesday!

We've had kind offers to sleep over with friends, family, and neighbors, but the bottom line is that we just want to be home for Christmas. We're fortunate in that our friendly neighborhood repair guy was able to rig up the circuits to allow us to have power to our stove. I'm glad to be able to bake and cook, at least.

We decided to go to Jill's house to deliver our gifts and enjoy a warm ride in the car. Her family offered us showers, laundry facilities, food, movie-watching, and basically anything else we might want or need. So we're hunkering down here for awhile, even though they left to go to Eagle Mountain for the family party! It's good to have a home away from home.

It may be cold, but it could definitely be worse. I'm thinking this will definitely be a Christmas we will always remember!

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone!

baby, it's cold inside!

We woke up this morning and discovered that our furnace stopped working sometime during the night. I remember feeling cold in bed, but I chalked it up to the fact that I went to bed with my hair wet...

We talked to the heating/air conditioning guy in our ward (who installed a new furnace for us 5 years ago) and told him what was happening. He got an "uh-oh" look in his eyes. Yikes. He's going to come check into it tomorrow morning.

For now, we're running space heaters that two different neighbors brought by. We can't have more than 3 going at a time, and we can't turn them very high, or we blow a fuse! Good grief.
I just hope this isn't going to be a big expensive repair at Christmastime.

We are all feeling pretty grateful that it's just the furnace, though. At least we still have power! We can cook, we have hot water, we have light, and now we have the space heaters. And our thermostat has even climbed up to 66 degrees! (And, truth be told, I kind of enjoy having a reason to dress in layers and wear warm cozy socks. I hardly ever get cold.)