I blame my parents...

That's the most important thing. Whatever happens, we should blame our parents!

When I was growing up, back in the "old days," the "energy crisis" days, my parents didn't heat the upstairs of our house. At all. The registers were sealed, and there hung a blanket over the doorway at the bottom of the stairs to ensure that no heat was "wasted."

So. Our bedrooms were cold. It was not unheard of to have a little drift of snow on the inside window sill. I once actually had a bottle of hand-lotion on my closet shelf freeze. But hey - they didn't have heated bedrooms as children, so they didn't see the big deal. Little snow will toughen you up! We didn't have friends over during the winter. But we had lots of layers of blankets! And one year, for Christmas? Since we'd kept our rooms clean? We each got an ELECTRIC BLANKET!! Oh, the joy!

My brothers grew up and got married and were forced by their wives to adjust to having heat in the bedroom. However, as I am still single, I've always kind of went with the cold bedroom. Now, don't get me wrong, I haven't frozen any hand lotion since I moved out on my own, but "cool" is still a good thing.

In my current apartment however, I don't have any windows in the bedroom, and it's very well insulated. It is ALWAYS the warmest room in the house, not the coolest. So I keep the other rooms cooler than I would prefer.

All of this lengthy discourse is by way of an explanation for why it took me until 10:00 last night for me to discover that we'd run out of propane. I came home from teaching my class and put laundry in the dryer, changed to my pajamas and sat down to knit. I noticed that is was cold, but kept thinking, "Woo-hoo, gonna be good sleeping tonight! That down comforter is gonna feel good!" I did at one point think that I was going to have to go to bed early to warm up, but it wasn't until I went to fold the clothes and discovered that they were still cold and wet that it occurred to me that there might be a problem!

So, I blame my parents. If they hadn't ruined me for sleeping in a warm room, I might have noticed the problem and alerted my brother BEFORE he went to bed. Both of our mornings would have gone better if I had, since he had to come over and fill the tank before I could have such things as a hot shower, stove, dry clothes.....

I'm off to visit friends in Kenosha, where I understand they have heat!

Keep knitting!

Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)