Homecoming

There have been times in my life when I think I would like to live primitively. But the older I get the more I am glad for luxury and convenience.

Usually when we travel away from home for a length of days, I turn the heat way down. Like to 50 degrees or so. This year I was just not in the mood for deprivation. Who really wants to arrive home after dark, with 8 strung out kids, and then have to unpack and come up with some sort of supper, all when it is only 50 degrees in your house?

So I gave into temptation. I turned to furnace down to a toasty 60 degrees. I was thinking of this and looking forward to it when we arrived home on New Year's Day evening.

But alas, at some point while we were gone, the switch on the furnace itself got tripped. It occasionally happens when the wind blows strongly from just the wrong direction or if too much snow is drifted up against the vent. The furnace just turns itself off.

And so arriving home on a below zero evening, with tired and strung out kids, anticipating a toasty warm 60 degrees inside, we instead arrived home to a house that was a mere 41.

I had the older kids bundle second layers on the younger ones, we as quickly as possible got a supper that involved turning on the oven and included hot chocolate as a primary beverage. After 3 hours the temp was up to the nice and toasty 60 degrees. After 6 hours it was up to 68. By then, with all our layers, we really were rather overheated.

As I exhorted the kids while they shiveringly ate their supper, we can be glad we don't have to look up to see frost on the nails in the ceiling each night; we can be glad that our water pipes did not freeze.

When somebody commented on the cold toilet seats, I reminded them, "We can be glad we don't have to use an out house all winter." And that was followed by various jokes about needing to make sure the seat is dry before sitting when it is this cold so we don't stick to the seat.

I am glad to have the blessings we have!