In one day,
my laundry went from shorts to jeans, and evenings of walking the dog in tee
shirts and sandals faded to a distant memory. I woke up Sunday morning to a
chilly bedroom in a chilly house. Fall had arrived but our heat hadn’t. I still
have a knee-jerk reaction to the first round of cool weather, telling myself to
dig out my socks and sweatshirts and get on with it. The house was 62 degrees
but I hadn’t turned on the heat yet because our storm windows weren’t down,
thus resulting in all that oil-burner coziness leaking outside.
On the plus side, I was driven to make a really good batch
of impromptu minestrone and onion/dill bread.
All those
years of watching pennies make me feel really guilty if I move the thermostat
past 64. This year, however, I declare to the world that like Scarlett, “I’ll
never go hungry cold again!” I am no longer going to shiver under a lap
blanket while watching TV, or sit on one hand to warm it while the other holds
the book I’m reading. At this point in my life, I deserve to be comfortable in
my own home.
Another factor is that we have a
house sitter coming while we’re away for a couple of days, and while I might be
willing to shuffle around in fleece, I won’t ask that of someone else. For all
I know, she’s that delicate species, an apartment dweller, who lives in a
blissfully steady 72 degrees year-round..