Living Small

Reading the Meter

In our family, I am the one in charge of finances.  I think that is how it is with most couples -- the woman takes care of bills, bank accounts, etc.  For us it made sense for me to be in charge of it because when I was in grad school we had to put all of the utilities in my name and when we consolidated things after getting married, we did it at my credit union rather than David's (our checks still only have my name on them, and my old name at that).  Sometimes it gets a bit tricky, since the mortgage is in David's name only and the lenders won't discuss billing with me, but usually it works out just fine.

This is all lead-up to say that, when David opened the energy bill last Friday, he didn't actually look at it, but just put it next to my purse and took off for a weekend of ice fishing.  When I looked at it, I nearly fainted: $415!  Was it the grow light David constantly keeps on for the Meyer lemon tree he is nursing?  Now we do have high energy bills every month, particularly in the winter since our house is poorly insulated (if we had central air, they would be equally high during the summer), and the bulk of the bill is heating gas.  This month it was no exception -- the gas was about $380, so it wasn't David's grow light (besides, he has been using that for months).  But the bill was still twice what we pay in the coldest months of the year.

At that point, I read the bill pretty thoroughly to see what was going on.  The first thing I saw was a note that said there had been an increase in the gas recovery cost we were being charged.  For a second, I felt like an idiot.  Just about a month ago, a guy came to our house selling a program that keeps the gas recovery charge the same, regardless of increases made by the recovery company.  It sounded like a scam to me, so I told him I wasn't interested.  Perhaps I should have listened to him more closely?  But the increase in the charge was only a fraction of a cent, so it couldn't have made that much of a difference.  Then I looked at usage.  According to the statement, we had used an average of 11.9 ccf a day.  I have no idea how much a ccf of gas will heat a house, but the statement conveniently has comparison figures: the previous month and the same month a year ago.  In both months, we had used only 5-6 ccf a day, so this figure was more than double that, which couldn't have been right unless we had been keeping the windows open or there was something very wrong with our furnace.

I finally called the gas company yesterday, and was told to go out and read the meter.  Pretty simple and, when I told David, he replied that if he had been "thinking like a guy," he would have just gone out and done that.  So when I got home from work, I checked the meter and, sure enough, the reading was 277 ccf less than what was listed on my bill.  When I called the gas company back and reported the meter reading, she replied "they were way off!"  No apologies, but she did recalculate what we owed, bringing it down to what I would expect to pay in March.  Turns out we didn't need that gas recovery protection plan after all!

Growing Potatoes

Last weekend, David began winterizing the garden by taking down the hanging basket of annual flowers that had been on our porch all summer and fall.  It was a huge basket, with several different kinds of flowers and vines.  When he took it apart, he found a giant potato in the middle of the dirt  It turns out that one of the vines was a sweet potato vine, so the roots had grown into a sweet potato.  After checking in his gardening books, he determined that sweet potato and sweet potato vine are pretty much the same plant, so it looks like we will be eating the potato!

Cooking with Gas

For several months now, David and I have been stalking grills.  Weber gas grills, to be specific.  We have always been charcoal devotees, but recently had started to get burned out (so to speak) on the whole charcoal thing, mostly part where it takes close to an hour to get the coals ready.  It also didn't help that the grill we have had for a few years now needs some new parts.  When David went into the hardware store last spring to find the parts, one of the saleswomen planted the seed of a gas grill in his mind.  We read in Consumer Reports that grills tend to go on sale in September, so we decided that we would make do with what we had until then, and buy the new grill when it went on sale.  Week after week we went back to the hardware store, but they never went on sale.  Eventually, a sign appeared urging us to buy now because there were only a few 2007 models left in stock and the 2008 models would each be priced $100 more than the 2007.  So much for end-of-season sales.  So yesterday we finally bit the bullet and bought the grill.  David blocked off a few hours in the afternoon to put it together, and we cleared out the back of the car to haul it home.  We were pleased to find out, however, that the hardware store would put it together for free, and we would only have to pay $15 for delivery (well worth it, given that it wouldn't have even fit in the back of our car).  David was elated, and said that if he had known they would assemble it for us, he would have bought the grill months ago!

David's Milk

For most of the five years that David and I have lived together, we have each kept our own cartons of milk in the fridge.  He prefers whole milk and I prefer nonfat, and we have never found a happy medium.  Recently, however, David switched to two-percent, and when I ran out of nonfat last week, I just started drinking his.  After work yesterday, I stopped by the co-op to get some more milk, so I just got the two-percent that we are now both drinking.  Later in the evening, David said that he should have asked me to get milk for him when I got my own milk because he was almost out.  In fact, he was worried that he had been using too much of it in his cereal.  When I told him that I had gotten his because that was what I had been drinking, he was super-relieved to learn that he hadn't polished off the last carton on his own!

Clearing Out

David and I spent a lot of time working on our house this weekend.  On Saturday I cleared out some shelving in our dining room that we have wanted to get rid of since I first moved in with David.  It was a set of shelves for about a million CDs, built by David's former roommate, who was a carpenter.  The shelves were very useful, but since we only have about half a million CDs, half of the shelves were empty (too short and shallow to hold much else).  They were also pretty ugly, a purely utilitarian construction made of rough dark wood.  So I moved some stuff around, found a temporary home for the CDs, and we got the shelves out of there and into David's brother's truck.  The shelves had been there for the past five years -- prior to that, they had been upstairs in the second bedroom -- so a lot of dust had collected where the shelves used to be.  I got out the vacuum cleaner to clean up that area, and then, while I had the thing out (it lives in a closet in the basement and doesn't come out very often), I vacuumed the whole house top to bottom, including woodwork, moldings, and windows.  I even vacuumed the couch, which really needed it.  On Sunday, David replaced one of the outdoor stairs that had rotted through and I spackled up some holes and cracks in the walls.  We may even get around to painting one of these days, and our house certainly needs it.  Because we live there, day in and day out, I hadn't really noticed how grungy things were getting, and I think it has been a long time since that place was painted.  We bought it in 2004, but David had been living there as a renter since 2000, and I don't think it had been painted before he moved in because there are a lot of spots on the walls that have been spackled but not painted over.  So I'm guessing it has been at least a decade for the inside, and who even knows about the outside!

Swatting Flies

David and I don't normally walk home from work together, but yesterday we happened to be leaving at the same time, so we left together, he on his bike and me on foot.  We stopped by our favorite butcher to get some chicken for dinner and, when we got home, I went in the front door and he went around back.  I opened the back door to let him in and a whole bunch of flies came in along with him.  At first we thought there were only two or three, but there must have been more because we spent the rest of the evening chasing after them.  I guess it is getting to be bug season -- soon it will be swarms of those ladybug-looking things and box elders!

Getting the Call

Yesterday at work I forgot to turn my cell phone off and, when it rang at about 11am with an "unknown" number, I was curious enough to answer it.  It turned out to be the call I had been awaiting for the past month: Sears was finally calling to say that my microwave was fixed and ready to be picked up!  No, I haven't been holding out on you guys and microwaving behind your back (except for at work, of course); it really took that long to get the thing repaired.  I don't know if it was a really tough repair, or if they stalled on it because I won't be paying for the repair (my mom presciently bought the service plan for me).  Perhaps they fixed it weeks ago and were using it in the staff lounge until the next one came in for repair.  In any case, I'm just excited to be able to pick it up today after work -- the kitchen counter has been rather bare without it, though I have become quite adept at stovetop reheating.

My excitement about getting the microwave back, however, pales in comparison to David's excitement.  For about the past week, he had been urging me to call Sears to see what was going on.  I had resisted, not wanting to relive the terrible customer-service experience I had when the microwave broke in the first place.  After I got the call yesterday, I went up to David's office (yes, we do work for the same organization, but it's not nepotism -- we both worked here before we met!) to tell him the good news.  He jumped out of his chair and kissed me.  That's right, the man who resisted the microwave purchase in the first place,  the one who claimed that we didn't need and would never use a microwave, jumped up and kissed me!

Bereft

As I mentioned on Monday, I just got my first microwave in the last year.  Eleven months ago, to be exact.  Prior to that, I had felt very superior to people who had microwaves, believing I was better than them because I knew how to "cook for real."  And I did.  I am a very good cook, though in the past year and a half I have come to realize that I just don't like cooking as much as I once did.  This doesn't mean that I buy prepared foods or frozen meals (though I love my frozen veggies).  It just means that I now cook simpler foods in larger batches and eat a lot of leftovers.  I think leftovers are now my favorite food.  David was also initially opposed to the idea of a microwave, and predicted that I would never use it, but, during the past eleven months, I have used my microwave just about every day to reheat something I had made on a previous day, and David uses it occasionally as well.  Sometimes I'll cook one component of the meal -- say, my protein or starch -- and reheat leftover veggies for the rest of the meal.  I had even begun to fantasize about getting rid of my oven/stove and managing entirely with microwave, slow cooker, and David's grilling.

But last night my beloved appliance went on the fritz.  I had heated up a cup of milk, and it had finished heating.  I opened the door, took out the milk, and closed the door, and the microwave started right back up.  I could not, for the life of me, get the thing to stop without either unplugging it or opening the door.  I thought that maybe I could live with it that way for a while, just plugging it in to heat my food and unplugging it when I was done, but I found that, even though It appears to be running (light on, turner turning, noise, etc.), it isn't actually heating food.  So I called Sears, spent about a half hour on hold, arguing with machines, and talking to supremely unhelpful people, but the upshot is that, because my mom had purchased the service plan for me along with the microwave, all I have to do is drop it off at my local Sears for repair, which I will probably do after work today.

The question, of course, is how long will it take, and what will I ever do in the meanwhile?  I had prepared a leftover dinner to eat tonight (a re-run of Monday night's salmon, rice, and green beans), and I'm starting to wonder if I will have to eat it cold.  What did I ever do before the microwave?  Well, I reheated stuff in the oven, which used a lot more energy, took a lot longer, and heated up the whole house.  Fortunately, the temperature has dipped back down to the fifties, so I may be able to get away with it for a day or so.  I hope it doesn't take too long to fix the microwave!

Reading, Knitting, Foot Rubs, and Transitive Verbs

Over the weekend, I perfected the art of reading while knitting. I had heard of people doing this -- most notably uber-knitter <a href="http://www.wendyknits.net">Wendy</a> -- but never thought I would be skilled enough. I also kept wondering how one holds the book open with hands wrapped in wool. But it isn't as hard as I thought, as long as I am sitting at the dining room table and reading either a magazine (which stays open by itself) or a book that I can prop open by laying another book along the top edge.

[Involuntary digression: it took me a minute just now to figure out if I should use the verb <b>laying</b> or <b>lying</b>. I had never even heard of transitive and intransitive verbs until I studied German in college. Why is it that we are never taught English grammar, so we don't learn grammar until we study another language? In any case, transitive and intransitive verbs didn't make any sense to me for the longest time, until finally it just clicked. Yesterday at work I heard someone say that she wanted to go home and "lay down on the couch" and I just wanted to shout "LIE DOWN -- you need an intransitive verb there!"]

Back to the story: so I spent most of the weekend (when I wasn't spaving at Costco or drinking David's milk) sitting at the dining room table, knitting a sleeveless top and reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Alligators-Old-Mink-New-Money/dp/006078668X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0018490-4623839?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174995764&sr=1-1">Alligators, Old Mink, and New Money</a>, an auto/biography of Alison Houtte, owner of Brooklyn's <a href="http://www.hooticouture.typepad.com/hooti_couture/">Hooti Couture</a>. It was a fantastic way to spend the weekend but, by Saturday night, my back was pretty sore from leaning over the table. When I mentioned my sore back to David, he immediately came up with a solution -- I should give him a foot rub. Sometimes I wonder exactly how his mind works: I say my back is sore and, instead of offering me a back rub, he suggests that I give him a foot rub!

Winning A New Bathroom

Two Saturdays ago, David gave me a home-improvement assignment: <a href="http://www.talkradio1600.com/listingsEntryHeadline.asp?ID=483134&PT=">winning a new bathroom for our house</a>. He had just read in the <a href="http://www.mlive.com">Ann Arbor News</a> that <a href="http://www.covenantconstruction.net">Covenant Construction</a> is holding a contest to give away a bathroom remodel. All we have to do is write 200 words about why we need a new bathroom and send it in along with photos of the bathroom in question. If anyone needs a new bathroom, it is certainly us, so I sat right down to write our entry.

As I look at the <a href="http://www.covenantconstruction.net/bathroom_givaway">contest rules</a> online, however, I'm beginning to fear that our bathroom may be too crappy for this contest. To begin with, it is too small -- they are looking for a 12'x12' bathroom, and ours is probably 5'x8'. Who has a 12'x12' bathroom? That is huge! Second, they are only replacing fixtures, reflooring, and painting, not making any structural changes. Our bathroom, if we ever want to shower in it, will need some structural changes. Yes, you read that right -- we can't shower in our current bathroom. We have a gorgeous claw-foot bathtub, but it is under a sloping ceiling, so we can't stand up in it. The only alternative to raising the ceiling would be putting the bathtub on the other side of the bathroom and moving the sink and toilet to the bathtub's current location, which would require rerouting all the plumbing. I'm guessing they won't want to do that either.

Over the nearly five years I have lived in this house I have grown pretty accustomed to showering with a hand-held sprayer while sitting in the bathtub, and I honestly wouldn't mind winning a bathroom remodel that didn't involve installing a stand-up shower. Just getting some new flooring (ours is a nasty rental-unit linoleum), a new sink unit, and a paint job would certainly be an improvement!