They warned us (a lot of good that did), and sure enough when I woke up the next morning my power was out. Temperatures hovered around 0 degrees so I stayed in bed and read…for two days…by flashlight…one book after another. Only got up to grab a sandwich to burrow under my covers with. By the end of the second day everything in my freezer was thawed. It clearly didn’t get freezing inside the house right away. It sure felt like it though. I thought a full freezer would be insulated enough to last a while.

By the third day I was getting desperate. My flashlight was dying (what me have spare batteries?), I was getting hypothermia,  I couldn’t get warm even under my covers, and the windchill had dipped to -25. I tried my neighbor, no answer. I went to my car but couldn’t get my garage door open (automatic doncha know), so I started the car and hoped the fumes would go out the back door of the garage. Before the car ever got warm I could see that wasn’t happening. Went back into my cold, cold house and wandered around crying like a baby for a while. Then standing looking out my front door window I saw a couple guys getting into a truck an ran out there like a mad woman. They helped me get the garage open and I got in my car and headed south. I seriously considered going real far south but drove just far enough that the trees weren’t covered in ice and rented a motel room. Once there, between my laptop and the television I got the scoop. Something like 73,000 without power and I find out the shelter was 2 blocks from my house! They should have been putting notices in mailboxes or going up and down streets with bullhorns or something to let us know.

Next day, I had decided to go to Michigan for Christmas after all. But I needed tires so I stop at Walmart and get told that they don’t even make 12 inch tires anymore and I’d need to go somewhere that might be able to special order 13 inch rims that would fit my car. Great, bad enough driving around this city on glare ice, I’m not heading to Michigan on bald tires. I headed home (only 53,000 still without power), still no power. I grabbed my cellphone because the last motel had screwed up phones and wouldn’t let me make a long distance call. I had this brilliant plan that I’d buy a car charger for the phone and sit in a motel parking lot and look up motels on my laptop and start calling them to find a cheap one that would allow my cats. Well, I got lost looking for a motel…yeah, yeah, I’ve lived here two years and still barely know my way around. So once I actually found my way into the city again, I stopped at the first one I came to and checked in. Called my daughter and she decided to come pick me up and take me up to Michigan. The motel was nice enough to charge me a half day rate for the two hours I spent there :p

We headed back to my house to pick up the presents and cats and low and behold, the power was back on! Only my dear beloved furnace wasn’t. So I left the cats with a space heater turned on and away we went. Had a nice warm few days in front of a roaring fire, spent lots of family time and headed back the day after Christmas with both my girls. It was terrible, black ice on the highway, vehicles off the road every few feet. Saw a nasty accident with an rv, but they weren’t hurt. We get to the Indiana border and it’s all dry road but then we hit a huge traffic jam and not one radio station would tell us what was going on. After I got home and got a furnace guy out (again) he said they had this hail/sleet/snow stuff that was so bad that they closed 69. I want to know how you close a highway. Did they just park a couple cop cars up at the head of the line? So a normal 2 hour trip took 4 and everything was still iced up everywhere.  The space heater had quit so I’m assuming the power had gone out again at some point. At least the poor cats survived.

I understand that the power company was overwhelmed but where the hell were the street people? I still have the downed branches here at the curb and not once did they come salt any of the smaller roads in the city, it was glare ice for days here until it melted on it’s own. So I was foiled on my vow to never again go through that ordeal of going back and forth over the holidays in crappy weather. But hey, at least it wasn’t me driving!

I threw away every single thing in my freezer which was a mess with venison blood all over it and most of what was in my fridge too. The Christmas dinner, the veggies from my garden that I froze all summer long. That totally sucked. But I’m home, it’s warm, the cats are glad to have me back, we are all glad to have heat. Heh, Happy New Year!

P.S. After I left my house and actually was driving around the city I was so upset that I hadn’t brought my camera. At the time just getting warm was more important but it was incredible really, ice everywhere with the sun shining on it, it looked like something out of Dr. Zhivago. Much easier to appreciate when you are warm again.

I’m thankful I’m not a turkey! Hope your day is wonderful and yummy 😉 I’m also thankful that my furnace is working once again!

It’s dead again. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to spring for a new one. I may just desert this house. It is a balmy 19 degrees here right now. Thus far, I have been without heat more than with it this winter. I’m freaking depressed. This house doesn’t even have the decency to have a fireplace.

First, a friend of a friend worked on it and charged me only $20. Before that it quit a couple times and then came back on. Whatever he did had it working for a week or so. Died again, the furnace guy comes (finally the second time I call him) and puts in a new circuit board. Good to go, until the next day when I wake up and something smells REALLY hot, and the house is cold. I wasn’t sure if I should call the furnace guy or the fire dept. Furnace man comes back, says the capacitor is weak and replaces it. Good to go again. Until the next day when it starts making really loud horrible noises.  So Friday afternoon I call the furnace man again and tell them it’s making awful noise. I made the mistake of telling them the furnace was working I guess because he did not get back to me. By Friday night it died again. I called them again Saturday and left a message, no return call. I guess I’m just stuck in the cold until Monday.

I could try a different company, but it’s so hard to know who is going to be fair. THe first company simply wanted to replace everything for a huge amount of money that I clearly don’t have. This company had good reviews and seem to be honest.

On the other hand, why waste my time with furnace guys when I can’t afford to buy one anyway. I’ll just ask Santa for a ticket to Mexico for the winter :p

Sometimes that’s a pretty hard thing. Especially forgiving myself. What do I need forgiving for? Being mentally ill, being so depressed that I couldn’t hold it together for my own kids. I know it was beyond my control so why can’t I forgive myself? I think I’m a pretty forgiving person, if it had been anyone else I would have complete sympathy. Well, I do hope I figure out how someday but I must admit I have no idea how, or why it’s so hard for me.

There are three essential parts to self-forgiveness. First of all, one must acknowledge the commission of an objective wrong and accept responsibility for that wrong. Secondly, one must then experience feelings of guilt and regret. Finally, one must overcome these feelings (i.e., self-forgiveness), and, in doing so, experience a motivational change away from self-punishment toward self-acceptance.~http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/share/320

I take full responsibility, I’m full of remorse and shame, it’s the overcoming part I’m having trouble with. So let me voice my regret; To my dear daughters, I’m sorry for all you lost when I became ill. It eats at me that I could not keep it together just when I needed to most. Melissa, it was worse for you. At least your sister was old enough to remember a time that wasn’t like that and a me that wasn’t like that. The worst is, that if I had to go back and do it all again, I don’t think I could have changed the outcome. The outcome has changed me irrevocably as it has both of you. I have always wanted only the best for you, you are my heart.

As to forgiving others, I think I’m pretty good at that. I don’t hold grudges (much). Yeah, I’m not perfect, but I think I’m pretty easy about that sort of thing.

Just to let you know I’m not a complete angel, I don’t forgive my “friend” with the prosthetic leg who stole my car. I still swear if I ever see him on the street I’ll knock him on his ass and steal his leg and see how he likes having his transportation stolen.

Perhaps I find it easier to forgive unintentional offenses, but then do the others really deserve forgiveness? I know it’s supposed to be for your own peace of mind but I’m not sure I’m capable of that. If they expressed regret, I could forgive easily. If they have no remorse, no they aren’t forgiven.

This is not good. I am doing just what the furnace guy did, put the fan always on, set the furnace on emergency heat. No heat. This is clearly not the same problem he said it was in March…or January…or December.  I am spending all of my time huddled in bed with my heating pad. Crap. Really. Maybe I should have bought that one I saw on Craigslist for $200. :p So I wonder what I’m supposed to do now? I’m thinking of deserting my house and dumping myself on family for the winter. Of course I can’t take the cats with me and I can’t leave them here to freeze or starve. I hope it warms up today because I’m too darn cold to do anything. It only got down to 37 degrees last night. I am not in a good mood, and Mir, I am not working on your Christmas present with my frozen little fingers :p

Edit: I didn’t think it was possible to be even more annoyed but by golly I am :p I skipped the Y this morning just to get home and call the furnace guy. Then, because my phone is a computer program, I sat down here ALL day in the cold waiting for him to call me back. I did hope I wasn’t going to have another freezing night. Bah! Heading to bed with my trusty heating pad.

My Chipin adventure ended October 1st. How did I do? I have $35 towards my furnace goal of $5000. lol… It seems that 99% of my readership is coming from people with brain tumors. I’d say it’s not surprising they have other things on their mind than my furnace problems. They clearly aren’t the blogging types either because they hardly ever leave comments.

So my informal review of Chipin is that it could be pretty darn cool and generate you some income if you actually have a blog people read. Yeah, I know, that was totally obvious.

For those of you who contributed, I offer a heartfelt thank you! As for the furnace. I could be in trouble here but I will do what the furnace guy did in April when he came for the third time last winter, set fan to always on and set the furnace to emergency heat. Guess that’ll run the electric bill up but I have no choice. If natural gas goes up the 40% I’ve seen predicted, I’m in trouble anyway. I’m already bundled up trying to be warm and I don’t think it’s below 60 degrees. I may try a solution I saw on CNN, although for that to work I think I need to be foreclosed on first which could take months. Then I can save my mortgage payment money and by my calculations I can then afford a furnace in 12 months! Awesome :p

Just so you know your money isn’t being squandered, it’s going to sit there in the furnace fund until I actually get one. That could be a while but I’m not touching it!

😉