Thursday, Feb.9/2017

Feb.9/2017

Well, good morning! And that is sarcastic by the way. I woke up early (for me). Actually I always wake up around 5:30 am which has been my lifelong time to start my day, but for the past couple of years I have not gotten out of bed until much later. This morning I decided to put some time in writing and went downstairs to heat my bean bag to place around my neck. I find it does help to relieve the tension which translates to pain and is severely affecting my quality of life. I have many sources of tension at present.
But back to the immediate source. Nick heard me up as I put the dogs out while I waited for the microwave to do its thing. I was just settled comfortably back in bed with my housecoat on and pillow all around, quite pleased I was doing something other than sleeping, and he suddenly opens the door - so suddenly he startles me. Like I am doing something sneaky or private. He asks if I saw the Chris person after work last night. Of course I didn't, as I never have and never will, considering I have no idea who this person is he talks about all the time. So I felt compelled to explain that I was late getting home from work because it got busy the last hour or so and as I was off today, I stayed after close to tidy everything up and leave notes for the staff about current situations or items on order, as I always do when I am not in myself the next day. For some reason Nick doesn't or pretends he doesn't remember this and also doesn't know my schedule yet. Which has been the same four-week rotation for almost three years. I was also late because I delivered a loaf of bread and some acetaminophen to a customer I have become good friends with and I have offered to drop off things she may need on my way home at night because she has mobility challenges as a result of a fall. I have offered this to a lot of the elderly customers who live close to the store and who worry about getting around, especially in the winter.
Then Nick wails that he has no diesel fuel for the tractor and no gas for the generator. I suspect he has put the gas we keep for the generator in his car. Which is fine, I have been caught without enough gas to get to work when I have been too rushed to stop on the way or pressed for time unexpectedly because of bad weather. And I do like to keep our containers of fuel topped up as any organised individual would. He also says we are out of dog food, which I could have picked up last night on my way home as I practically drive right by the grocery store. So I gave him my debit card so he can go to the country gas station a few miles down the road and get the fuel as well as a small bag of food for the dogs. I will get a large economy-sized bag tomorrow night after work. I surrender my debit card all too often these days.

I am not usually a housecoat person or a slipper person. I don't have those flannel pajama pants to lounge around in. I am in the habit of getting dressed when I am up, almost always to go out to the barn. I don't own any slippers. I have a pair of deck shoes or loafers, that my daughter left in the closet after she bought herself a new pair one Christmas. They don't have that stupid fuzzy look that most slippers have. I will often wear two pairs of socks rather than resort to shoes in the house. I find sporting shoes in the house promotes unacceptable footwear behaviour from others. Slippers morph into sneakers which somehow change into boots from the barn.
I can write another chapter on how I interpret the behaviour of refusing to remove boots at the door and my philosophy around that, but my current point about housecoats and slippers is the lack of heat in our home. It is a large farmhouse which was once used as a bed and breakfast, with five bedrooms and two living rooms, one of which is at one end of the house and which has a ceiling the full two stories high. It is a lovely room highlighted by a floor to ceiling stone fireplace that takes up most of one wall. There is a second fireplace in the smaller living room which is off the hallway leading to the great room and which shares the same chimney.
There is a wood-burning furnace as well as an oil-burning one and with 60+ acres of uncleared land the plan from the beginning was to burn wood as our main source of heat. This is the fourth winter we have not had half enough wood to last until spring. Have I mentioned that before? I hate being cold and being cold in my house aggravates the tension and pain in my shoulders and neck. I can happily spend hours outside in the barn all bundled up but my hands and nose are cold below 22C (about 74F I think) and I get uncomfortable and irritable if the temperature drops below this. The first winter we had trouble getting wood that was seasoned/dry enough to burn well. Apparently we were lucky to get the wood we did get because there wasn't much around for sale. I forget if we left it too late or what happened but we didn't have enough and what we did have didn't heat as well as it should have. But at that point I was warm and fuzzy about Nick and the farm, and the wood thing was just an early hiccup then. We used the oil in the tank and ordered more and were unpleasantly surprised how quickly that ran out and how expensive an adequate supply of oil actually was. In the spans of days we were out of oil - we don't like automatic deliveries - we tried the electric heat and although the reality of the price of that could be avoided for several weeks, it was just as grim when the bill did arrive.