checkin' in

I have been taking a break from the old blog because I have been feeling rather uninspired.  It is so wintery around here, and not in a fresh and fanciful way, but more in a humdrum problem-causing situation.  Also time has been moving right along and I am now 27 weeks pregnant, which means that during my afternoon blog time I've been falling asleep more often and spend my awake time mulling over baby things.  Babies apparently need a lot of things.  I am a little confused but I'll hit on that later.

I know winter has its perks and I'm glad to be living in the north for a few years and after this, I think I'll be done with it.  I think it was the combination of canceled flights and running out of oil that have caused me to dread every snow and the potential problems it might bring.  I haven't told the oil story yet because at the time it was a major stress, but in retrospect it was a bit humorous.

Background: Most of the houses here are heated with oil.  Every so often a big truck comes and hooks up to our house and pumps a bunch of oil into the side of our house and into a big tank in the basement.  We have a love/hate relationship with that truck, because while we're thankful for its service, it always means big money.  I think the 'oil' is similar to diesel so if you imagine filling up a 200+ lb tank with the current gas prices - yikes.  At our old house the landlord had us on a schedule so the truck would top us up monthly, but for this house we opted to call when we needed it.  During our December blizzard the day after Christmas, we realized we needed it.

Timeline:
Sunday - settle in while the blizzard starts.  Matt realizes we are low on oil.  We plan to call the company in the morning.

Monday - blizzard leaves us with a foot of snow.  Oil company plans to come the next day, as long as we plow the driveway.  After being quoted some ridiculous prices by local plowers, we chase down a rogue plow man and he plows away.  Later that night, I find out that my flight for the next morning has been canceled.  There seems to be no hope that I'll be able to travel.  I cry.

Tuesday - I wake up at 4am distressed about my travel situation and find a flight that leaves Wednesday night.  I buy it.  I feel cheered.  At 5am Matt realizes he can't hear the radiators and after checking on the basement, it is confirmed - we are out of oil.  No worries, the truck is coming today!  I am leaving to see my family tomorrow!  It's all good!  Matt goes to work and instructs me to stay put and wait for the tuck so that we can make sure our boiler turns back on.  He brings in logs and Moose and I hunker down by the fire and it's fun and feels like Kijabe, only colder.  I call the oil company at 9 am and tell them we're out of oil, they say they'll come soon, and I can put a few gallons of diesel in to hold us over.  Well, that's not going to happen, as I don't have a can to put diesel in and wouldn't know how to get it in the tank if I did.  Matt calls every few hours to see if the truck has come yet and insists I get out the space heaters to keep warm.  We are FINE, I tell him!  By noon I get a little impatient and call again and twiddle my thumbs for . . . four more hours.  At 4:00 I hear the oil truck lumbering its way down our long and freshly-plowed driveway.  Cheer!!!  A minute later I hear the beeping of the truck backing up and leaving our driveway.  I throw on my boots, grab the phone, and rush outside while dialing the company.  I explain to the woman that the truck is driving away and we have no oil!  She gets on the phone with him and tells me that the driveway isn't plowed enough and that he got stuck.  That is baloney, I tell her, he didn't even try, get him back here before I freeze to death.  I watch the truck pull out into the road and drive off.  She talks to him and then asks me if I have some salt . . . I run to the basement and grab our bag of salt and run back to the driveway, proclaiming that I'll salt it myself.  She talks to him again and then to me and says he's out of area and he won't come back until we salt and sand the driveway.  Since I have been up since 4 in the morning waiting for this oil truck to arrive, I don't take kindly to this news.  I burst into tears on the phone with the woman, standing forlornly in the driveway, clutching the remains of a bag of salt.  By the time I get ahold of Matt I am practically in hysterics and he thinks something happened to Moose . . . of course when he gets home he is a bit more rational about it, calls a different company, and we vow never to use the first company again.  Later that evening the new company comes and pours a little diesel in . . . I guess what I should've done in the first place . . . and they hook up the next day and pump our tank full and our wallets dry.

This is why I'm over winter.  It's inconvenient and expensive.  I am prone to overreacting under normal circumstances, but lately I've been even more emotional.  Lucky Matt.

So that was a couple weeks ago . . . and I'd like to say when I came to work a few days later, they had also run out of oil in the night, so it does happen to other people, not just us.  This week brought its own joys.  After getting my car stuck on ice on Monday, I was almost glad to see it rain all day on Tuesday, thinking it would melt some of the snow down.  It did, but it also made a big mess of wet slush everywhere.  It was so slick I couldn't get the car home on Tuesday night, and after spinning out for a few minutes, I got out of the car to walk home.  I didn't get too far, as I stepped in snow up to my knees and slush up to my ankles.  Fortunately Matt had been home all day studying, heard my dilemma, and was coming to the rescue in his pajama pants and tennis shoes.  After a good 15 minutes of reversing and revving and spinning and sliding, he got the car home.  We were cold and wet and I was cranky and I still had dinner to make.  Matt suggested I call the family I work for and ask if they could pick me up in the morning in case I couldn't get out.  At that point I realized I couldn't find my cell phone, and I imagined it in pieces in the slush, having fallen out of my pocket when I got out of the car, and then run over 20 times as we tried to get home.  Matt threw on some boots and headed to the car to see if it was there . . . and returned a minute later, triumphant with my phone safely in his hands, but his toes screaming for mercy.  I didn't realize he'd thrown MY boots on, my little ladybug spring galoshes.  It took the two of us to pry the boots off.  Which is why I had occasion to take this picture:

It snowed again this morning, causing a 2 hour delay and another occasion for me to be picked up to get to work . . . I am not a fan of sliding around on snowy roads!  So now we have quite the accumulation here with temps in the "very cold" and "frigid" for the next week.  But now that I've gotten that out of my system, I'll do my best to refrain from complaining about it.  :)  Stay warm, friends!