Antarctica called....

and it wants its weather back. It seems as if Mother Nature is playing the same song over and over this year. Snow. Cold. Cold . Snow. Snow and Cold. Regardless of the weather the work week goes on. Temperatures have yet to get so cold and the snow so bad that another snow day would be called. For that my checkbook is grateful. I'll take that morning commute being three times as long as usual if it means getting paid. One issue we are having at home though in regards to the cold is that when temperatures hover around zero degrees in the early morning our furnace is struggling to get the house warmed up. We have a programmable thermostat similar to this one: . It is set for 68 degrees from 6 am until 8 am, then 60 degrees from 8 am until 2 pm, then 68 from 2 pm until 10 pm, then back down to 60 overnight.  Friday morning we awoke to zero degrees outdoors and  I noticed that after running for over an hour the main floor of the house was still only 63 degrees. A discussion with adult son J and looking at the subzero temperatures predicted for the upcoming week and we are going to try something new. Instead of fluctuating temperatures we are going to leave the thermostat at 68 degrees around the clock. We are hoping that this means the furnace will have to run less to maintain a constant temperature. The natural gas bill I received for heat (stove and hot water) mid January included the two days of polar vortex temperatures in early January. It was more than twice the amount of last year's bill for the same time frame (2013: $111.11....2014:$230.80). We have covered the main floor windows with window insulation, covered our French style patio doors with a sheet the is secured at the bottom with a heavy draft dodger and a throw rug pushed up on top of that (this door is always drafty). Our front door is insulated as is our side door. A shower curtain hangs at the top of the basement steps to prevent cold air from immediately hitting the furnace. We've taken all the measures that can be done to keep the main floor as warm as possible. Hopefully our new plan of a constant temperature while the weather is so severely cold will help the bill.

In the meantime we wander around wearing hoodies and snuggies like a cape and cover up with multiple throw blankets when sitting down.  And when we get really cold we all huddle in the bathroom where despite the furnace vent being completely closed it is perpetually sub tropical hot.