I’ve been very busy the last week or so working on Christmas gifts. And I’m almost done. Just need to get a couple more things finished before I can wrap and mail everything. I’m really pleased so far with how the gifts that I made have turned out – so hopefully when I get all the way finished I will still be satisfied with the final outcome. I’m looking forward to giving them to everyone. I made gifts for my siblings, and on Michael’s side of the family they started choosing names for Christmas gifts and we chose his little sister Mindy this year, so we went and picked out something we think she will really like with the boys. And we decided this year to try to make things simple with our gifts for the boys. Last year we got them each a gift, and a few gifts for all of the boys together, and by the time they were done opening everything on Christmas morning they were pretty tired out and a little overwhelmed, I think. So, we decided to make things a little more simple this year, and since they get gifts from our family, we don’t need to get a lot of extra stuff for them. Since this summer I started picking up a few things here and there when I found good deals, so now we have one gift for each boy – I just need to think of something for Courtland still – and a cute little beanie baby stuffed animal for each boys’ stocking. And today I found the last thing I was looking for for the boys. Since they all love to help us cook in the kitchen so much, and we only have one bar stool and a folding chair, that leads to a lot of complaining about the kids not being able to see when they are all trying to help in the kitchen. So, I found these nice little step stools, one for each boy – they are all the same color (so there won’t be a favorite), and they also nest on top of each other, so they won’t take up a lot of space when not in use. Perfect. Now I just want to find a little ornament for each boy – that’s one of our traditions that we do each year. And we’re about set. Oh, and I need to see if I can find a friend who will let me come over and use their scanner so I can scan our family photos (since my scanner broke), because we had new photos taken recently and I like to include family pictures in our yearly family Christmas letter.
One really great thing that we have to look forward to is Michael’s vacation – starting this weekend he gets a week off, then after working at the beginning of next week he will have Christmas off too (just because the clinic’s not open), so it should be really nice to have him around. And I think that for Christmas Michael and I are going to give each other a special house project that we really want to get done – so we may have a chance to do some work on those things while Michael has some time off. Well, Michael must have been tired – he fell asleep on the couch after the boys went down for bed around 8pm, and has only woken up a couple of times and then went right back to sleep for the last 4 hours. I’ve been finishing up on the Christmas gifts while he’s gotten some rest. Better get to sleep. I’ve got activity days tomorrow night, but at least it’s a little Christmas party combined with the other class, so I don’t have much prep for it, but I do need to sit down and try to prepare for the big Daddy Daughter activity in January that I am in charge of organizing. I went online and found some cute ideas, so I just need to get everything ready for that, and hopefully it will go alright.
Oh, and Eli is doing great with his speech therapy, having had his second session today (although he doesn’t really know it’s speech therapy, I don’t thing, he just knows he’s getting to stay up from naps twice a week to do fun activities and play special games), but he’s doing well, especially working on pronouncing words with ‘T’, ‘Th’, ‘S’, and ‘Sh’ sounds in them so far. It does make my week a bit busier – now on Thursdays we have preschool in the morning, speech and kindergarten, followed by piano lessons. But it all seems to work out.
Oh, and it’s supposed to snow tonight – only the second time here this winter -- and then the rain tomorrow’s supposed to melt all the snow. We’ve been hearing on the news about huge blizzards in the midwest, but I guess the snow’s supposed to go north into Canada and miss us for the most part. But it was cold today. I guess it’s winter now.
Maybe some of you who are more experienced home owners than us could give us some suggestions: We live in an area where there happens to be a really great deal on electricity, so people who can heat their house in the winter with electricity can save a significant amount of money on their utilities. But, of course, the furnace is gas. Short of changing out our furnace for something electric (a change that we know might be worth it in the long run, but that just won’t fit into our budget this year), we were trying to figure out how to save this winter. When it started to get cold we got some space heaters, and we’ve been pleased with them so far – keeping them downstairs in the daytime and moving them upstairs at night. We haven’t had to turn on our heat in the house so far since we got the space heaters. But Michael said that the high is supposed to be in the 20’s this week, and I’m sure that sooner or later we’re going to have to have more heat than just the space heaters. But, at the same time, I’d still like to try to keep down the heating in the house and use the space heaters as much as possible to save money. But one thing I really, really want to avoid is the possibility of pipes freezing in the house. So, what is the lowest possible temperature that we need to keep the house at in order to be safe from frozen pipes? Like, once it starts to get really cold outside and the temperatures stay low consistently, even if we can keep the main level of the house comfortable with the space heaters, we don’t want to leave the basement unheated, for the sake of the pipes, right? Michael was saying maybe 60 degrees, but the pipes should be safe at lower temps than that right? – as low as 40 degrees in the basement should be alright, right? But here’s the other question – our thermostat for the heater/air conditioner is located in the family room, so if we spend a lot of time in the family room and keep it warm with the space heaters during the day, and the thermostat measures the temperature in the family room, then how will we even know what the temperatures are in the basement? I guess we’ll wait and see how things go – maybe I’m just kidding myself about keeping it at a low temperature and I’ll be so freezing that we’ll have to warm things up more, but I would like to at least try mostly using the space heaters in the beginning at least. So, any suggestions would be helpful.
Well, better get to bed. Good night all.
08 December 2009
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3 comments:
I don't know too much, but I do remember I think it was Wymount or maybe another apartment told us over Chrismtas and Thanksgiving when you left you should leave your temp at 65 so the pipes don't freeze. That might be a little high, but I remember that is what an apartment told us one time.
I worked for a property preservation company for a few years. They did work on foreclosed on homes, so they were vacant. The heat had to be set at no lower than 55 to keep the pipes from bursting. Hope that helps!
I got this little digital thermometer from Walmart for less than $10 (I think it was $7, but I could be wrong). It keeps track the current temp, the high temp and the low temp and high and low humidity (I think). Then you could check it every day or two and try setting your thermostat at different settings. I would think that as long as the basement stays above 45, you should be fine, but that is just my guess. Also, my parents used to turn on a faucet in their laundry room (in the garage- so not heated at all) to just a drip, and the moving water kept the pipes from freezing, but if they forgot the pipes froze- which was a pain, but not a huge deal since it wasn't connected to the rest of the house water, and it was always in the same place and didnt cost thousands of dollars of damage. I think you need to watch out for pipes in a kitchen and bathroom that might freeze if they are on an outside wall as well. let me know what you find. Sorry that was so long.
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