LIGHT MY FIRE

Today was a day of decision. I made the decision to stay in bed till noon - in order to keep warm. It was 56 degrees in my house when I woke up.

Once I made the decision to get up and brave the chill in the air, I dressed warm and went out to run some errands. It was warm in my vehicle - I know that!

As one of those "three's" I wrote about recently, my friend Doug came over to investigate the reason why my fan would run in constant mode in my furnace. It was beautiful, warm and sunny out that week, so I had turned my heat off. I enjoyed those 70+ degree days and opened the windows to get warm fresh air.

After he fixed the temperature dial, which caused the fan to run constantly, we discussed the weather and how nice it was now that Spring had finally come and warm weather was upon us. However, I forgot - this is OHIO. Wait 5 minutes or so and the weather will change!

In order to save money for the upcoming summer, the decision was made to turn off the pilot light on the furnace, which he said would save me between $8 and $12 per month in unnecessary gas bills.

In the past two weeks or so, the temperature outside has fluctuated so greatly, it's been hard to keep up with. Some mornings were so cold in the house, that I piled on the blankets and curled up to keep warm. Since the kitchen was the coldest room, I rarely went out there, even to get something to eat. I did more snacking than eating!

As I said, today was decision day. Sometime after 5pm, I called Doug, who was eating a good home cooked meal at his mom's house, and asked him if he would be so kind as to stop by on his way home and save me from my chilled and sore joints - especially my bad knee. Of course, as I asked, he was laughing hard and getting a kick out of our past decision.

About a half hour later, Doug came walking into my garage, again laughing, and proceeded to LIGHT MY FIRE. I turned the thermostat to HEAT and within a short time, my house was warm and comfortable once again.

As Doug was leaving, his phone rang and he proceeded to tell the person on the other end that he was lighting a pilot light that he had turned off about three weeks ago, and chuckled about it. So I said, "At least I'll be a good story for you to tell all your friends for a while - glad to give you a good laugh!" I thanked him, we had a final laugh about the whole thing and now I'm not worried about waking up with my hands feeling like ice tomorrow morning.

Doug - you're a great guy and I'm so glad you could LIGHT MY FIRE. I needed a good laugh today! We're suppose to have frost overnight - and it had better be the last one! I WANT WARM WEATHER - and lots of SUNSHINE! And as a patient person, I WANT IT NOW!