Friday, January 17, 2014

Celebrate the Small Things: Batteries and Ice Packs

Still setting up wiring on left and carpet needs to be re-tacked
I almost hesitate to call this a small thing. My husband and I are enjoying a brand new fireplace, one that I never dreamed possible until now. It is gorgeous! I have spent untold hours this past week just staring at the flames and enjoying the toasty warm heat. Two weeks ago we were relying on an electric fireplace to supplement the heat downstairs, which was quite pretty to look at but a joke at putting out heat when the temperature dipped.

I live in a five-year-old, two-story home, with a natural gas furnace in the attic. You would think that is a marvelous thing at first . . . no furnace room in the basement to deal with, no furnace in the garage taking up valuable space. Imagine all that free space! But who would have thought a furnace in the attic would be a factor in heat distribution, which it absolutely is? Part of the problem has been the poorly designed duct work. It never occurred to us that duct vents in the ceiling would be a problem. Duh . . . heat rises! Consequently, our feet froze on the bottom floor and it was too warm on the top level. Great in the summer when air conditioning kicks in, but a disaster in the winter. Problem solved with our new gas fireplace.

Now here is the small thing I'm really excited about: BATTERIES. Due to a minor problem with the installation (a tile section arrived cracked and a replacement is en route), our pilot light has been operating on batteries for the past week. Once the tile piece arrives, the fireplace will be AC wired permanently. In the meantime, the delay has allowed us to operate the fireplace on batteries, which we were quite curious about since we were told the fireplace would operate in a power outrage. It does!

We occasionally get power outages in the Pacific Northwest that, if bad enough (as happened in the Midwest recently), can last up to two weeks. My mother was without power on the west side for this long, but had a gas fireplace that (operating without the AC fan) kept her quite warm. Just an hour and a half to our north in Spokane, an ice storm came through one year that put a large number of homes out of power for as long. Yay . . . we now have backup!!

Here is another small thing to celebrate this
week. ICE PACKS! I slipped on our driveway this week, hit my head and bruised my elbow. Thankfully, no concussion or anything serious, but I am black and blue and have a headache. It all started out as a walk on a bright, sunny day. I failed to see the black ice. Ee--eh! I'm back to using my tried and true treadmill . . .



Celebrate.... is the brainchild of Viklit at Scribblings of An Aspiring Author. You can join, too. Go ahead, sign up below and meet some terrific writers and bloggers!

What are you celebrating this week?





Copyright 2014 © Sharon Himsl


10 comments:

  1. Hope your head feels better soon from that fall!

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  2. So glad you didn't get seriously hurt! Yay for warmth in winter, and having a backup too! Woohoo!

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  3. Sorry to hear you bumped your head. I hope it's better by now!

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  4. A toasty warm fireplace certainly sounds worth celebrating. Hope you can rest by it to recover from your fall.

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  5. A new fireplace is wonderful, use it to rest from your fall!

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  6. Sorry you had a bump! Hurrah to fireplace though, it looks LOVELY

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  7. I would love to have an electric fireplace! They are amazing. I'd be staring at it for hours too, just basking in the warmth. hmmm.

    Hope you're feeling better from the slip.

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  8. Thanks everyone for your comments! I'm still toasty warm and loving it, but boy oh boy do I ever have a black eye. Hit the side of my head and brow bone. Headache is gone at least :) Have a wonderful weekend!!

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  10. I couldn’t resist commenting. Very well written! corso excel

    ReplyDelete

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You could call me an eternal optimist, but I'm really just a dreamer. l believe in dream fulfillment, because 'sometimes' dreams come true. This is a blog about my journey as a writer and things that inspire and motivate me.