Second Week of November, and Counting!

Yay! It's the second week of November, and we still haven't turned on our central heat. My grown son that lives with us has had the gas heating stove on a few times in the mornings (he lives in the finished basement area, and it's always colder there) but we have so far been able to avoid turning on the central heat for the rest of the house, in spite of an early cold snap and three early snowfalls. Our house is a split level with double paned windows, and a large greenroom/sunroom on the southeastern side - so between that and the sun, plus human activities like cooking, the house stays a very cozy 60-70 degrees.

We will have to turn the heat on eventually - our winters temps here can dip pretty low at times - sometimes into the minus teens. But for now, it feels good to eek yet another day out of the natural warmth of the earth and the sun. The next step for us is for me to conduct an "energy audit" of all the appliances and such in our home. I want to unplug things we aren't using, so they don't "vampire" power out of the system even when they aren't on. I plan to grab a few more power strips so I can plug things like the TV and DVD into that, and cut them all off from the power supply with the flip of just one switch.

I'm also learning how to live with fewer lights on during the day. If I want to read, for instance, instead of lighting up a dim interior room, I can go out into the sunroom where there is always plenty of light even on rainy days and a nice comfy couch to boot. Heck, reading out there with all the green stuff and the tiny goldfish pond isn't a hardship. Make a nice cuppa, bring a small table to put things on, and I'm all set for a lovely afternoon.

What's surprising to me is that instead of adding more stress to my already over-stressed life, doing more of the "home-y" things I've been doing lately (baking, making wine and vinegar and such) seem to be reducing my stress load. I'm not completely sure why this is so - but I suspect that it's concentrating my mental and physical energies into more productive things, giving me a greater sense of control over my destiny, and also giving me a sense of security and stability that helps override the stressy stuff. Whatever the reason for this change for the better, I'll take it!