Baby, it's cold outside!

Headlines read: "Cold temperatures cause death, damage in South America". Hovering around 32° may sound like a pleasant day in winter to my hardy northern U.S. friends, but for here that's VERY cold. Central heating is nonexistent and some homes don't have any type of heat source because they generally don't need it. I'm not even kidding when I say some places can count winter days on their fingers.

We arrived home last Friday to a pretty chilly house. Both wall heaters were set on low, which we immediately cranked up to high. But honestly, they don't quite cut it. The heater back by the bedrooms works best if we keep one of the three bedroom doors shut so it only has to heat two rooms. Not a problem since we don't use the guest room unless we...duh...have guests. Much better to just keep our room and the study/sewing room warm.

The other heater is in the kitchen because that's where the gas line was located and where we had space to put the large corner unit we bought from our co-workers. I would have preferred having it in the living room, but it would have meant running the gas line...yadda, yadda, yadda...which we weren't willing to do since this is a rental home. What this means is that the kitchen is warm. REALLY WARM, especially when I'm cooking. And the front rooms are chilly to say the least. While in the living room, I ALWAYS have my fleece blanket thrown over my legs.

I'm also sporting my cuddle duds and two pair of socks AT ALL TIMES. Plus a sweater over my turtleneck. I'm not a fan of the cold and do what I have to do to stay warm.

Another adjustment is using only hot water when I shower. Because we have one of those instant water heaters (which I normally LOVE because we never, ever run out of hot water with it) which works by bringing the water up a certain number of degrees, but when it's really cold like this and the water in the tank on the roof is really cold, that number of degrees means we get hot water that's not really very hot. So a shower with just hot water in this weather is an adequate-but-not-really-hot shower.

Very thankful that (1) this super cold weather is an aberration and we should snap out of it within the week and go back to normal winter temperatures in the 40s and 50s, (2) winter here does not mean many-dreary-weeks-on-end-of-gray-days because the skies are CLEAR AND SUNNY with only an occasional -- very occasional -- overcast day, and (3) winter only lasts a month or so. Which is such a short time, it makes me think of when Tom Hanks character in Apollo 13 says:

"Catch you on the flip side".