Making Ourselves At Home

We're starting to get familiar with the area now, and don't have to carry MapQuest printouts everywhere we go. They're still helpful when we're going someplace new, but our neighborhood isn't so much of a mystery anymore. I've figured out my strategy for getting things done: watch the weather forecast for the one or two days per week when it's not supposed to rain, and run all my errands then. On rainy days, outings only consist of places where I can let Eva run around, like the community center. Of course, you can't always predict it, because sometimes it will look cloudy and threatening all day, and never spill a drop. And then the next day you'll have a freak hailstorm followed by a few hours of sunshine.

But rain or shine, it's always pretty chilly outside, and I'm slowly getting used to never leaving the house without a jacket or umbrella. Inside our apartment, it's pretty warm, and we've only had to turn on the heaters a couple of times so far. Each room has it's own thermostat, and the heaters run along the baseboard for the length of the room. You can't put any furniture or anything within a foot of them, for fear of fire or heat damage. The thermostat in Eva's room is broken, unfortunately. We set hers at 60 degrees, but the other night it got to 80 in her room because it kept blowing and wouldn't turn off. Dave finally had to flip the switch on the breaker in order to shut it down.