Last night I had to turn on the furnace. I was not a happy camper. The weather has been in the 50's for a couple weeks now and I had shut it off at the end of March. We don't use it much anyway unless we're sick, we usually use the wood stove, with the thermostat programmed to kick the furnace in if the house temp drops below 60, which it only did twice this winter, once when it got to 9 degrees outside and once at 17. Gotta protect the water pipes.

But with the sleet storm last night it just got too cold in the house. I didn't have any kindling or small wood in the house to start a fire with and I was not going to traipse all the way out to the woodshed at midnight in a sleet storm. Needless to say I've rectified that today.

I am really glad I took the time to zip up my greenhouse door though. It's just a little greenhouse, 3 feet tall by two feet wide and one foot deep. But it has my snow peas and spinach, chard, and lettuce starts in it. I had been hardening them off in preperation to transplant in a couple of weeks, but the weather had been so mild I'd left the flap raised a few nights running. Checked on them today and they are doing just fine, despite the bizarre weather.

It rained all morning, then around five it started snowing. Twelve miles away at the soccer practice fields it was only sprinkling and then after ten minutes the sun came out. Still cold, but at least the girls weren't getting drenched.

On the drive home the tops of Black Mountain and Sumas Mountain (which are really only foothills to Mt. Baker)were just blanketed with snow, but the valley was completely clear. Weird. it's gorgeous now, well, it was, the sun just set.

Things I did to be frugal today:
Hung a load of laundry on my drying rack, which I positioned over the hottest furnace vent last night.
Brought a load of kindling and small wood up onto the porch.
Folded newspaper into kindling sticks until I had a grocery sack full.
Resisted my son's attempts to convince me to run over to the IGA and get him a corndog during Rose's soccer practice. I made him one when we got home instead.
Didn't have to drive all the way to town because it is spring break and there were no dance classes this week.
Signed up for 2 more samples.
Started a fire, but left furnace able to kick in if the temps drop too low.
Baked a loaf of bread when I was baking chicken (in a covered casserole so the smell doesn't get into the bread) instead of using the oven two separate times.

Pretty good, so far.