Because I turned on the heat!

It's been so mild that last time by the time the house hit 63 inside, it was already starting to warm up. So we stuck it out (a day or a morning or whatever). So, I am proud we have been a little less anxious to turn on the heat. The kids are also getting older and I worry less about freezing them out.

But lord, reading some of the heat posts I am glad to be in California! For sure. I love my some heat a little too much. But it won't cost me an arm and a leg, so I am happy.

Anyway, today is freezing (65 downstairs and 63 upstairs) and the extreme warm weather has ended so I didn't see it warming up much on its own.

So I flipped on the heat today. & it feels good!

(I think the thing is it is hard to justify keeping it colder in the house than outside. So 63 is my freezing point. It will probably be warmer outside today).

I am still being more conservative than usual. I flipped it on to 68 degrees upstairs - took 15 minutes to warm up. & just flipped it on downstairs. Well, it just turned off actually. Took about 5 minutes to get to 68. Usually we start with the morning heat only. So my next personal goal is not to turn the heat on otherwise.

I could have maybe made it To Dec. 1, but I am going to be home all week. Blech. I'd rather have some heat. That's my other excuse.

My other personal goal is just to have lower gas bills than last year. The number to beat is $20 for November. I am pretty confident we have it in the bag, simply because it has been so warm this month. (& another reason why I rather just be comfortable. To tun the heat 20 minutes a day apparently doesn't cost very much!). To beat last December I will have to stay under $75 in December. I think we have been keeping the house enough cooler than usual that it will be easy to beat $75. Though, of course depends on the weather Gods.

(Oh - I just saw the weather - it was 37 degrees last night. That's winter weather - no wonder I am so chilly. I guess that is my breaking point. Whatever the thermostat says, it is just extra chilly today. The coldest morning, by far).

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Well, in other news, dh got a Wii Fit.

It's pretty fun. Problem is we were all fighting over it.

I liked the yoga and the strength training. The balance games were also fun (what the kids did). BUT I thought the aerobics was kind of stupid. For one you are supposed to run in place (I didn't even get my heart rate up - I couldn't quite figure out how to run in place and make it very worthwhile - I decided to run in circles around the room - which is really boring). They also had a step aerobics thing, but it was boring and again, VERY slow and easy. So yeah, not so impressed on the aerobics. But I guess I have enough aerobic outlets (aerobics and gym and such). The strength training was another story. It was kind of intense. The yoga was neat as well.

My dh likes to stay up until 1am most of the time, but he fell asleep downstairs, last night. I figured because one of the kids was up and woke me up around 1am. So when dh came to bed around 2 it woke me up. I asked if he had fallen asleep, and he said yeah. It was the yoga. That made me giggle because we took a yoga class in college and he fell asleep a couple of times. LOL. I was picturing him falling asleep on the Wii balance board thing. Hehe. But he said, no, he just got so relaxed doing yoga that he fell asleep shortly after while watching TV. I think that is so funny! Well, typical dh. I think we need a "no yoga at night" rule for him. We have a nice system - he takes the kids before 1 or something and I take them after 1. Not that it matters so much these days (they are rarely up at night). BUT for those nights when something is up, we both get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, at least. I wasn't very pleased to be up last night with LM, when dh wasn't even in bed, that is for sure.

Well, we'll try not to get too attached. Dh may want to sell sometime in December. People go crazy and pay huge amounts for this stuff in December. So we aren't too attached. Then again, dh had never seen a used Wii fit on sale, certainly not for so little, so I am not sure he wants to let it go. We may keep it but sell the Wii and be Wii-less for a month or so. We'll see how the market is.

I think I will be sticking with the gym and my aerobics class, BUT may work on the strength training/yoga.

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Oh yes, I almost forgot. I de-cluttered a bit in the Master closet. It's not really horrible in there (it's a huge closet but we keep it relatively un-cluttered).

So, somehow I found an hour, escaped the kids, and worked on it. I found things I had looked for before, but couldn't find. (Kind of weird and spooky since they were just there - I swear I looked through all those boxes before).

Oh yeah, and dh wasn't kidding. He spent something like $50 on used Legos, which seemed a bit much. (Christmas for the kids). But he kept mentioning he had to go through and sell some of it because it was too much.

Now I see! 3 boxes FILLED to the brim with Legos. LOL. Yeah, it's a bit much. I think he could turn around and sell most of it for $50, and just keep the good stuff. Hehe. I understand this purchase a little better now.

Anyway, this is what I came up with, with my hour purge:

*1 GIANT bag full of trash. An old/thrashed pillow, some old/thrashed shoes, bags of old under garments and panty hose and stuff (no idea why I was keeping it?), a pile of music tapes, etc., etc.

*For goodwill - a pile of belts from when I was in high school I assume. It is laughable how SMALL they are. My waist is probably a size like 10 or something and I used to be a size 0. I couldn't even get these belts half way around my body. I thought I struck gold, and then when I tried them on it was like, well, nevermind!!!! I also found a small fan, a baby gift, and 4 CD storage containers (rather large). & a walkman! Goodwill, Goodwill, Goodwill.

Beyond that, just kind of moved things around a bit to make more room.

There are still some doozies in that closet. I figure if I go through it once a year maybe we'll get there some day. For now, it's manageable and I am happy.

I would like to probably donate my wedding dress (I've seen the billions for sale on Criagslist so I rather just donate it to someone who could use it). But yeah, I no longer see the point in keeping it. & that is one BIG box in there.

I also have a 100-CD player/changer thing. & some OLD roller blades. That stuff is all up on the shelves so I am happy to leave it for now, with a mental note to take them down and take care of those, maybe in the next year. We've been in such a crazy purge mode I feel okay slowing down the pace a bit. I guess I was feeling accomplished so I didn't want to take it all down and feel back to square one. !!

I often wonder if we will ever be "done"
purging. Dh also rather try to sell some of this stuff. "Be my guest," I say. For me, I'd rather just be rid of so much of it. So we may try to sell the CD storage, but am not going to put a lot of time and effort to it - for sure. Next Goodwill pickup and all that stuff will be gone. Yay!

I also just found a lot of interesting odds and ends...

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Well, today we are meeting some family for lunch. & I guess we are going to be busy paint prepping.

We paid $1.76 for gas yesterday in the van. !!!!!!! Woohoo!