One step forward, two steps back...

This is the first winter that I've ever actually tried to conserve energy. I have made a very serious attempt to turn our heat down. We are all gone for a few hours everyday, so I have the thermostat set very low during that time. Then when we are home, it bumps up a few degrees so that our teeth don't chatter. When we go to bed, we turn it back down again. We also bought LED Christmas lights this year--yes, I know the best thing to do would have been to give up the Christmas lights completely...but if I don't do baby steps, my husband will freak out. Plus, I gotta tell you...I like Christmas lights... Anyways, on our last power bill we saw a very real and awesome change! We lowered our usage some 300+ kwh compared to last Dec/Jan. This was the concrete proof I needed to keep me going. And that is when the heater broke. Oh, not just once...like 4 times. It has become almost comical...fix the heater, wait a couple of days, heater breaks...fix heater, wait, break... The first time we had a repairman come out and the last 3 my husband did some research and fixed it himself. We have no other source of heat and this week/weekend it has been -10 degrees Fahrenheit...colder if you count the windchill. Don't you just love the irony of it all? The last 3 years when I've had that thing jacked up to 69-70 degrees everyday, all winter long--it hummed along with no problems...I start to care about my consumption and try to save energy and it craps out...repeatedly. Oh well, such is life...

My husband said something that I thought was tremendously funny and ultimately appropriate a few days ago. He said "In our life I think it is safest to assume that Karma has some new, fresh hell waiting on deck at all times..." I should issue the disclaimer: Neither of us are negative people nor was this meant to sound negative...we both share a kind of dark humor...taking whatever comes our way, laughing at ourselves and whatever "new, fresh hell" comes along...knowing that the laughter is the only thing that gets us through some days and makes others that much more enjoyable...