Laundry Heating

The cold and rain continues for day twelve. Just when I thought we were almost headed to sunnier skies the rain started up again this afternoon. All this time being trapped inside has caused Shay to go into a doggie hibernation where she stays curled up beside me wherever I am. This is fine if I am sitting on my bed typing on my laptop, but if I am walking on the treadmill she is perturbed about having to snuggle on her dog bed by the drafty fireplace.

So far my favorite stuck-at-home-sick-of-the-rain job is folding warm laundry. I have discovered that if I take a hot load out of the dryer and throw it over me while I am sorting and folding it I can stay quite warm. I am more caught up on laundry than I ever am, with the exception of Carter’s clothes. I have begged her to give me all her dirty stuff, but despite the piles on the floor she claims they are all clean.

What she does not realize is I am really just looking for an excuse to snuggle under warm clothes.

The thing I hate about this time of year is the cross over from air conditioning the house to running the heat. As a child we never had air conditioning so we just went from having the windows open to closing them to at last begging my parents to turn on the heat. Of course our HVAC system is much more modern, so it can go right from cooling to heating with the setting of the sun, but somehow it seems wasteful to turn the heat on for just a few hours to heat the whole house when Shay and I are home alone. Running the dryer might be expensive as a heating source, but if I am doing it to dry clothes and using them as my way to keep a chill at bay then they are doing double duty.

The one strange thing about losing weight is that I am always cold. When I was really fat I was not hot, but I was never cold. Once I shed my extra thick layer of blubber I lost my ability to keep warmth inside.   I am not advocating getting fatter, but I do miss having feet that don’t need to have socks and fuzzy slippers on them at all times. For now I am just going to dry a few extra towels and keep folding and unfolding them. At least I can pretend to be productive while trying to stay warm.