Unintended Side Effects II: Unintended's Revenge

It's fricking freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth.

Mike Myers as Dr. Evil
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Ah, the good old days before I realized that Mike Myers only had five jokes and really wasn't all that funny. Heh.

We have been blessed with a truly lovely apartment. God's taken care of me and my business, and I'm able to provide what I think is a pretty nice life for my family. Yes, we probably should be in a house somewhere in the strictest of economic terms, but at this point, I'm not ready to buy anything yet. That subject's for another post entirely, though, so we'll just leave it at that.

Anyway, back to the point. Our apartment is lovely. We've got these awesome cathedral ceilings in the great room which we absolutely love; thanks to those ceilings, the room has the physics-defying quality of getting bigger the more junk you pile into it, which is perfect for the swank family. Another thing I love about the apartment is that we have no downstairs neighbors, because we're situated above the garages rather than another apartment. A third great perk is that we face west, and we get a great view of the sunset almost every night. We are well and truly blessed to be in this place.

As you may have noticed, however, this post is titled unintended side effects. Why, do you ask? Because as I write this, it's a full negative-freaking-five degrees in Terre Haute, Indiana. That's not the wind chill, mind you - that's pushing negative twenty at this point - that's the actual temperature. With the cathedral ceilings, we've got a whole lot of apartment to heat; with the unheated garages beneath us, we've got really cold floors; and with the wind howling in from the west like it normally does, the worst of the weather is pounding on our apartment. With these factors working against us and it being as cold as it is outside, our heater cannot keep up with whatever we have the thermostat set at. It just keeps falling.

We don't want the heat running 24/7 for obvious reasons, so we try to keep the house warm in the day and then crank the thermostat down at night. The family can pile under a bunch of blankets, the furnace can get a little break, and everybody wins. Except, of course, for daddy, who works until 3 AM every day. So as I sit here working tonight, I'm wearing the following things:

• Undapants
• Socks
• Sweatpants
• A t-shirt
• A hoodie, with the hood pulled up and drawn tight
• My '69 Cubs hat
• My fuzzy Dr. Seuss slippers
• Monstrous headphones, to keep my ears warm and allow me to listen to Phil Wickham without waking anyone up

I'm still cold. My hands aren't, of course, because my laptop houses a small nuclear furnace and heats up everything that it touches to uncomfortable levels (an unintended side effect of yesterday's unintended side effect is that my hands remain warm enough to type effectively thanks to my overheating lappy). The rest of my body is quite chilly, though.

Here's the part where I get all serious for a second, so if you're not interested in such things, turn back now: despite these minor little inconveniences of tonight, I'm still blessed with more than what 99.9% of the people on this planet have. The mere thought that there are people struggling to huddle together for warmth all across this country tonight - perhaps even here in Terre Haute - and I can sit here and complain about it being 64 in my apartment really kind of puts things into perspective for me. I've been given this colossal blessing here, and I'm still trying to figure out why I'm so lucky to have things like a bed, covers and heat when so much of the world can only dream of such things. Thanks be to God for the blessings He has given me and the promise of the greater blessings to come in His Kingdom.

In other news (because I've still got 3:30 left on my audio upload):

We were blessed with spending some time at the Clarks' tonight. We ate Little Caesar's pizza, which totally busted my diet. It remains among my favorite foods, though, despite having spent time as a Little Caesar's employee in my youth. We also played Cubs Monopoly - which is Monopoly where you buy Billy Williams instead of Boardwalk - which was likely awesome. I've had it since Holli got it for me as a Christmas gift in ought-seven, but until tonight I'd never played it, because she hates Monopoly. All in all, that makes for a good night.

Audio's done uploading, now I just have to wait for it to transcode. Hooray for getting paid to let a computer do something!

We ordered some books from Amazon last week. There were three books in the bundle, and it was enough that we got their Super Saver Shipping; it takes a little longer to get your stuff, but it's free and seemingly a good deal if you're in no hurry. One of the books was on back order, so they shipped the first two on Monday with the promise that they'd ship the other book when they got it in. The first two books are set to arrive on the 20th, which means it more likely will get here on the 21st or so.

This is all fine, because the shipping was free. I wouldn't be telling this story if something nonsensical wasn't being done, though. The third book, which was on back order, came in and was shipped out on Wednesday. Amazon shipped it UPS instead of USPS media mail to make up for it shipping after everything else. It's on a truck bound for Terre Haute from Indianapolis right now, and will be here sometime Friday afternoon - five days before the first part of the shipment will get here. We will never use Super Saver Shipping again, which I think might be the whole point of them offering it in the first place.

I think my audio's done, so it's back to work for me now.