Content warning: this week’s money diary contains talk of pregnancy, trying to conceive and pregnancy tests. If this feels like too much for you right now, please skip it. (Or just skip Wednesday, which is the offending day!)
This week I discovered how you cope when temperatures reach -27C: you stay home. You wrap yourself in layers and you turn the heat up and you drink probably more tea and coffee than is advised and you wait for the weather to go back to normal (and you worry a bit about climate change while you’re at it), but, mostly, you do nothing.
Monday
There’s nothing that quite prepares you for cold like we’ve had this week in the Midwest, and there’s no accurate way of describing it. It’s the kind of cold you simply cannot warm up in; it’s the kind of cold that permeates layers of clothing and settles deep inside your bones.
What I discover this morning is that it’s the kind of cold that causes the baby to burst out crying the moment his skin is exposed to the outdoors, when I bundle him up in a blanket and take him the 10 feet from the car to his babysitter’s house.
Once again, though, he doesn’t seem to understand that sweet, cosy relief is on the other side of Robin’s front door, and instead he weeps angrily at me as I pass him over the threshold. (I don’t go in to say goodbye , because I’m wearing my snow boots and they are, obviously, now covered in snow.)
Back home, I sit at my desk and I work and I listen to music and I cuddle the dog and I do what feels, once again, like endless loads of laundry. I don’t even order DoorDash because I decide it’s bad to make people drive around when the roads are icy (but then I wonder, should I be ordering more DoorDash when the weather is bad, because Dashers need to make a living too?!).
I do, however, order a birthday gift for Brandin ($55.62). His birthday is on Saturday so I’m cutting it a bit fine but I’m sure he’ll understand if it’s a few days late. My Kindle Unlimited subscription ($11.99) also comes out.
When the boys get home they don’t even ask to go over to the neighbours’, which just goes to show how cold it is, instead staying in and watching TV while Brandin makes pizza and I entertain Atlas. Ish. This mostly involves building towers out of blocks and vroom vrooming his cars around the place.
Annoyingly, having the heat on all day has rendered our upstairs hotter than hell, so once we go to bed we’ve to stick the fan on high and direct it right at our heads if we’ve any chance of sleeping. (The dry throat is another side effect that needs to be experienced to be believed.)
Daily total: $67.61
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