A Matter of Principal

It is currently 64 degrees in our house. This is the toastiest it has been in over a week. I was really hoping we would break the 65 mark today but unfortunately the sun stayed behind clouds most of the day.

Is our heater broken? No

Are we insane? I think the resounding answer is "the jury's still out on that one"

We have a Fykes Family Rule of no heat until Nov. 1. I know all of our Texas people are going "Please that is no big deal, its still 95 here." Well bottle that heat up and send it our way because this week we have lows in the 30s and highs in the 50s.

The biggest comment I get about this is "Just turn your heat on 63 to knock the edge off. You'll still be saving money." A lot of things we do in our life are because of their effect on our pocket book.

We play the grocery game and stockpile things when they go on sale because of our pocket book (and because it's fun).

We wash and re-use plastic bags because of our pocket book (and we like to cut down on waste).

We keep the heat on 69 in the winter and air on 79 in the summer because of our pocketbook (and partially the waste thing again).

However, this rule has nothing to do with our pocketbook. This is just a matter of principal. We live too comfortably and too often we let our comfort dictate too many of our decisions. So this is a decision we let the calendar decide. Every once in a while things need to be inconvenient and difficult so we can appreciate the things we have.

No I'm not about to go off about all the people who have less...but now that you mention it. We could be on the street without even a house to keep us out of the freezing temperatures we had a few nights ago.

(Stepping down and putting away soap box)

So anyway, we normally don't have real pain for this rule until the last week or two of October but this year we're having quite a cold October so we've been pushing through a lot of the month. This is our adjustment this year.

That big colorful thing is our quilt and the thing under it is our mattress. We are sleeping in our living room. We normally would just make a pallet but because we are going on night 5 with about 10 more days in the month we decided it was just easier to drag the mattress out there.

Turns out if you shut off the back of the house (thank goodness we decided to keep that door) the room with the windows stays warmer than the back of the house and if you add a fire you can almost sit with only 1 layer of clothes on.

It isn't easy and you have to layer up to go to the back of the house to use the restroom but it is a great exercise on what our bodies can take. You wouldn't believe the difference between 58 and 62.

Anyway, that's the weird thing the Fykes are doing right now - just thought I'd keep you updated.