(January 3, 2015)
Over this past Christmas and New Year, I was lucky enough to get a couple of house sitting jobs.
On Christmas Eve I visited a friend for dinner and was invited to sleep on his pull out couch for the night. The next three nights I slept in a house with an ailing kitty cat who needed a little extra care. The temperatures outside had plummeted from the relatively comfortable 10 or 20 degrees F (-12.2 ~ –6.66 C) , down to below zero, so it was nice to have a warm place to sleep for those three nights. I then moved into a house with two cats and total luxury. I had fun using every different size and type of plate and bowl imaginable, and an assortment knives, forks, and spoons designed for serving specific types of foods. I cooked in an oven, and on a stove top, drank from wine glasses that rang with a beautiful tone when pinged, and were the size of my fist. I didn’t do any dishes because there was a dishwasher. I was also surrounded by some gorgeous Christmas ornaments and a beautiful Christmas tree. Ahhhhhh, what luxury.
During my stint in the second house, the temperatures plummeted even more, and in some parts of town, the temperatures actually reached –30 F ( –34.44 C). Now that is cold! and I was glad not to be in Mitzi during those extremely cold nights, but I also had a hard time being in a heated house.
Most people seem to keep their homes at around 68 – 72 F in winter (some set their heat at 80 F, can you imagine!!!), but I found myself turning the heat down to about 55 F at night. I didn’t want to go lower than that for various reasons relating to taking care of the house, but it was still too hot for me, so I would find myself closing off the bedroom from the rest of the house the best I could (and still have a way for the cats to get to me), and then opening the bedroom window so I could feel and breathe some cool air. I simply could not sleep indoors in those kinds of temps, I had to have fresh air. I also found it really hard to sleep under a sheet with blankets (too restrictive), so just gave up on that and slept under the cat’s quilt instead.
Yesterday (January 2, 2015) I was back in Mitzi and sleeping under my two sleeping bags (I don’t zip them up except in extreme cold). The temps were a nice balmy 20 F (or so) which is a perfect sleeping temperature. As I lay in the downy warmth, I watched coyotes pass by my car in the moonlight. I could see them so clearly against the pristine snow. I snuggled down and reflected on the simplicity of my life living in my car. Although I had enjoyed being in a regular home for 10-days, it had been so much work. There was always something to do, to clean, to put away, to wash, heat to manage, driveways to shovel, and it was just a constant stream of time-consuming jobs, and it grew tiresome very quickly.
Last night, I looked forward to climbing into Mitzi, and as I settled down, I uttered those wonderful words; “Ahhhh, home sweet home.”
Happy to be home, but thankful for the respite from the extreme cold.
A Free-Spirited Woman (The blog I owned prior to A Nomad for Nature).
