Aside from the snow....

Friday, 9:39 am

By Kate

Mar

28

2008

There is snow out there on the ground! Enough snow to shovel, which I’d like to refuse to do on general principle. The ground is completely covered again and the trees are coated with a thick layer of that white stuff. This is spring, darn it. My snow shovel is retired.The snow is supposed to turn to rain later today. I’m holding the weather man to that. If it doesn’t, well then I suppose the snow shovel could be un-retired. Under protest. What’s with SNOW on the 28th of March, anyway? Where is spring? I’m pining for spring. I’m withering away from all this pining. I need spring. You have no idea how much I need spring.

What partially (only partially) makes up for a snow storm on March 28 (!) is genuine central heating. It’s been a year since I’ve turned on the furnace and I’d kind of forgotten, especially after this winter, what it feels like for every room to be warm. I’d forgotten what it’s like not having to leap out of the shower and dive into 4 layers of clothing before the water droplets turn to ice. We’re talking relative warmth here, not steam room warmth. It wasn’t as if I turned the thermostat up to 70° and left it there. No, I was conservative and left it at 63°, although my fingers twitched for a while, wanting to turn it up. Just for the novelty.

But I noticed the darnedest thing. While my upstairs was freezing all winter (intentionally) and the downstairs was warm, now I have the reverse situation. Even though the thermostat is set at 63°, my upstairs climbs several degrees higher. I used the same thermometer to check both floors, just to make sure that one wasn’t off. No, indeed. My upstairs is a toasty 68.6° while my downstairs stays about 63°. And that’s with the quilt still in place across the open staircase. I don’t think it’s supposed to work like that. Maybe I’d better put some more insulation in the basement.

Because of that temperature difference, I had to set the thermostat back to 55°, last evening around 9:00, so that my room would cool off enough for me to sleep. And, of course, by the end of the evening, I was sitting in my chair, wrapped in a down comforter up to my chin.

Well, I’m not not used to this yet. But I have to say that, aside from the adjustments, having central heating is kind of cool. And it’s sort of liberating not having to feed the wood stove, even though I miss the fire. Central heating is a very different kind of heat, but I think I’ll adjust and enjoy it until spring gets here. Assuming that it will sometime before June.