What an ordeal!
Last night before SNAC (Sunday Night After Church) it was getting kind of chilly downstairs in our house. I didn’t think much about the why – especially when the crowd arrived and our house quickly regained its heat by body temperatures filling the place!
We went to bed without concern but when I heard Ella this morning at 6:30 I quickly realized something was wrong. I glanced at my alarm clock that has a built-in thermometer and read “57-degrees”.
I figured Jess must’ve turned off the programmed settings on the thermostat or something. I went downstairs and found the furnace “ON”, but not hot.
It wasn’t until after 2PM this afternoon that a service guy showed up and told us that we had a cracked heat-exchange and that it would need to be replaced.
We were also told that it probably couldn’t happen today.
I failed to mention that it’s been in the single-digits and low 10’s all day outside, so you can imagine the comfort level inside isn’t very comfortable.
Looks like we have a guy coming out tomorrow to replace the part and get us back to normal. In the meantime, Pastor Tim had an “emergency-use” Kerosene heater in his garage that he’s letting us borrow for now. We’ll try and get the house ROASTING with the kerosene heater before bed and then wrap up with lots ‘o layers as best we can after turning the heater off before we sleep.
If I wake up with a slushy (read: frozen boogers) in my nose tomorrow I will probably cry.

One of my students (thanks to his mom) gave me an incredible Survivorman gift tonight – it’s an episode on DVD and a “survival” flashlight and multi-tool. It’s the coolest.

When the teens left tonight I jumped online to see what else Mr. Stroud (Les Stroud – Survivorman) has been up to and found out that my hero has written a book, too!

I already added it to my Amazon wishlist!

ChristianPF.com is giving away some freebies for Christmas – check them out here.

Tonight we had our ARMY 6:12 Christmas Party. For a game tonight we did an old-school activity – we did a MADLIB! You remember – the “edit some nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. in the story” activity.

We re-wrote the ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas poem and here’s what we came up with:

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the BIRD, not a creature was stirring, not even a BALL.
The CATS were tucked, all snug in their HORSES, while visions of BLUE plums danced in their heads.
Then up on the CRUTCH there arose such a clatter.
I sprang from my HAT to see what was the matter.
It was St. Nicholas with his HAIRY belly, that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of TRACTORS.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work and filled all the UNDIES, then turned wtih a jerk. And laying his CHEESE aside of his nose and giving a nod, up the ZEBRA he rose. I heard him exclaim as he POOPED out of sight, “BLOODY Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

I think I like the original better!