I really can't stay...

But baby, it's cold outside.

About a week ago, I woke up to find that the house was unusually cold. I typically have the thermostat set at a not-quite-balmy 71 and when I checked, the actual temperature was 65.

Brrrrr.

I called Tom and he sent me to the basement where I found a switch that I flipped and then flipped back and the furnace clicked on and all was forgotten.

Sort of...

Tom and his brother showed up yesterday afternoon to change the switch because they believed it was faulty. They thought that by changing the switch, they'd be fixing whatever had caused the furnace to go off.

They left last night at 6:30 and the temperature in the house was 66.7. But the furnace was running and the temperature was slowly rising.

It got up to 68.3 before it stopped and sank back down to 67.9.

I went down and flipped the switch again. It came back on.

I called Tom and we talked for twenty minutes, during which time, the furnace turned off again. I flipped the switch yet again and it came back on.

By this point, it was 9pm. And I knew I didn't want to have to flip that switch every twenty minutes all night long.

So I packed Alyssa's lunch, gathered our clothes for the next morning. Put a coat on a sleeping Olivia and bundled Alyssa into her warmest pajamas, her boots and coat and we drove the three miles to my mom's where it was a roasty, toasty 80 degrees in her house thanks to the woodburner they have in their living room.

It was like old times. Both girls slept very soundly and I was only a bit restless, thinking of Tom driving back from the old house to our new house with a heavy-duty space heater in an effort to make sure our pipes didn't freeze in the night.

He said this morning that the thermostat red 64.5. Not warm but not freezing either.

So he's there today, waiting for a furnace repair man to see what the damage is.

For all the bitching I do, I will say that he always comes though in times like this. He's good to us, in his way and I need to remember that the next time I'm angry about something he doesn't even know made me angry.

He's a good man. He loves us and takes as good care of us as he knows how. Sure, he's a guy and he tends to horde his time selfishly but when we really, truly need him, he's there, making sure that even if it's cold outside? It's not so cold inside.

And for that and so many other things, I'll keep him. He's ours, mine and the girls'. And honestly, we're lucky to have him.