Normally, Wednesday is hump day. That day of the week, where
you start to see the weekend in the distance and if you are like me you give
yourself a pep talk reminding yourself how much you have accomplished in the
week, have left to get done and how good it feels to leave school on a Friday with
everything in place for Monday.
Except this week, we didn't have school Monday or Tuesday.
So, here we are with it feeling like a Monday where drop offs take longer than
usual, we are running late as we usually do on Monday and my to do list is just
as long with less time to accomplish everything on it.
So, I thought I would give you a good laugh, at my expense, to start my week or get you through
hump day.
Some background information, our house has two heaters or
zone heating as some people call it- a unit for our second floor and a unit for
our main floor and basement. It is a luxury… I know especially since the wind
chill this morning was -15 degrees. For the record, zone heat and A/C was a must on my list when we were looking for a house.
For the past couple of weeks, I have been complaining that
it is just plain cold in our upstairs.
My feet are cold when I walk across the hardwood floor; the toilet seat
is cold in the middle of the night (tmi right?) and when you walk up our stairs you can just
feel the air getting colder.
The thermostat was set on a program from the previous
homeowner. We went with it because it
was pretty much perfect. But when I started complaining, Glenn would try
to raise the temperature to 70, 71, 72 yet the thermostat would not go higher
than 67 even if the heat ran 24 hours a day. Brrrr…. So, I was initially convinced it was our thermostat. So, I
called the company four times in 24 hours and got nowhere. I did four different
“fixes” and it was doing nothing but sitting on 67. Glenn and I decided, really Glenn did, that it was time to call a
professional. I think he was just tired of listening to me but of course it was now Sunday on a holiday weekend and the first time we had really frigid temperatures. So, needless
to say between the colds we all had which capped off seven days of ridiculous sickness in our house and the temperature upstairs I was grumpy.
Enter my mother in law.
We start to tell her our problems
as we are researching companies that service our brands of heaters when she
arrives on Sunday. And she asks a simple question, “Have you changed your
filter?” I look at Glenn who OF COURSE
blames me and says, “She was supposed to call to have them maintenanced and didn't this fall so no.” Of course I was.
{Yes, I was in charge of this in our old house but I didn't realize I was
in charge going forward of all heat and air conditioning things.}
Glenn laughed the suggestion off but I was willing to try
anything for warm night's sleep. I felt so guilty that it was cold in our upstairs
while our kids slept with colds, footed pajamas and big blankets. So, as
soon as they woke up, I climbed up the ladder in our sitting room (in our
master suite) up to the attic. I saw a
filter. So, I started to remove the old one and the dust was forming a cloud in the space. I put the new one in and I maybe said a quiet prayer
for this to work.
I threw the filter away, set the thermostat to 70 and went
back to playing with the kids. We left and came home and BAM 70 degrees
upstairs. It worked. Who knew? Let this be the first of many lessons in home ownership I learn the hard way. And
further proof that some days I am still not convinced I am old enough to own a
home.
Happy Hump Day!