Weekend Reading

Remember the time I let the fuel oil tank hit empty? (Hint: it was this morning.)

As a kid this was a fairly regular occurrence in our household – all of a sudden the house wasn’t as warm as it was yesterday, cold air was being pushed from the vents, then shortly afterwards one of my parents would be out at the side of the house draining a 5-gallon “emergency supply” into the tank.  Despite the fact that they were divorced and in two separate houses, they both felt as though monitoring the home heating oil level was just another way “the man” was trying to keep us down, I assume. This phenomenon was not exclusive to one household in particular.

When I was a kid I always assumed that knowing the contents of one’s oil tank must require some sort of herculean effort or complex mathematical equation. Imagine my surprise when I bought my first oil heated home and found out that there’s a gauge on there – just like the one in your car. Who knew?

In my adult life 50% of my homes have been heated by fuel oil, and I’ve never let the tank hit empty until today. I noted that we had 1/4  tank (60+ gallons) back in early December and since we have a fairly efficient home I said to myself at the time “I’ll call just after the holidays”. Last night just as I was falling asleep I had a brief moment of panic when I realized that I’d never made that call, but the house … she was warm.

And she on empty when I finally checked the gauge this morning. Not completely empty – the furnace was still pushing warm air out – so at least we won’t have to do anything insane like “bleed the lines” to get the furnace running again because I have no idea how one even does that .. but I’m sure my mom is an expert in it.

In a few moments Tom will be making an appearance in the backyard with our first ever “emergency supply” of diesel fuel to carry us through until Monday when we won’t have to pay the insanely expensive emergency surcharge for an after-hours delivery.

We are now the official owners of a bright yellow “Oh Crap! I let the fuel oil run out!” fuel can that will sit in the garage, taunting me with the fact that my perfect record of proper fuel oil supply monitoring finally came to an end. It’s the end of an era!

What’s next? I let the cable get turned off? (That would never happen – my Internet is on there. If my Internet were fueled by home heating oil then you can bet I would have just made that call in early Dec.)

Links I Loved This Week

1. 2011 Lesson #2: Don’t Carpe Diem (Momastery). A well-written and humorous take on motherhood and the irrational guilt we sometimes feel for maybe not cherishing every single moment of it. After reading this post I made a vow to myself to utter the word kairos to myself every time I leave chronos time  - and to be gentler on myself knowing that the two separate times can and do exist harmoniously.

2. Habitual Scrapbooking (Anna Aspnes). Reminding me that I have to make memory keeping a part of my daily routine – like brushing my teeth or preparing dinner. After a quick back-and-forth with Anna on Twitter, it was decided I need to just stop talking about it and do it.

3. Vintage Camera Night Lights (Swiss Miss). No explanations needed. (Oh how I want one!)

4. Stories To Tell (Daily Digi). I loved reading Katie’s list of stories she has yet to tell – and I’m so curious about a few of them. I recently started making my own list of stories I haven’t told yet and it’s not just a couple! Do you keep lists like this?

Have a great weekend everyone!