Perspective

My husband finally called a professional to look at our heater. (It only took him four days of fiddling around while his flu, strep and bronchitis ridden wife and daughter huddled around a space heater with 20 something degree temperatures outside. If I had had a voice at all, I would have called, but no, I trusted him once again.) The HVAC guy found out that the compressor is shot, but our system does have an emergency backup. He switched it over to emergency mode and said that if I let him replace the compressor, he wouldn't charge me for this visit.

I'm hoping the emergency system will hang in there until my next decent project finishes.

Anyway, with one full day of warmth after seven days of running a temperature, my fever broke, and my voice returned. I do sound like a drag queen, but it's always good to keep people guessing. With both internal and external temperatures in a normal range, I finally feel up to doing something besides sleeping and occasionally moaning. My animals are terrible housekeepers. Even as smart as border collies are, they're terrible with dust cloths, and I know how my energy will be spent.

I started early this morning. No matter how hard I try to sleep late, my body will rise at 5:30. I started laundry. I put up dishes. I swept. I got bored and went outside for some fresh air. Smart decision. On the eastern skyline was an incredible sunrise of melting liquid gold. After days of seeing walls, dust and clutter, I gasped and broadened my view to take in a pink and blue sky, streaked with columns of wispy clouds, and naked trees drawn with bold charcoal strokes on an illuminated pastel background. Closer, each plant, each leaf, each twig seemed sharper and more detailed than possible. The cold chased me quickly back indoors, but I felt like scales had been taken off my eyes.

This is just an ordinary day, and it takes my breath away.

heaters, sunrise, housekeeping