Winter Storm

"I guess one out of three winter storm warnings in North Carolina need to be taken seriously." -Noah

Over the last few weeks we've had a couple "winter storm" warnings calling for snow and ice and winter disaster--the first two, we hardly even saw any snow from, but the last one hit us hard. If you have followed the weather in the East at all the last week, you will know about the main part of the storm that we caught a small corner of. It started to snow Friday morning (what fun! I actually enjoyed it!) and by the afternoon it was snowing even harder (2 inches per hour so I hear). At our house we probably received about 12" of snow by 8 pm that night. Everything shut down, it was great. We took this wonderful walk right before it got dark on Friday; it was so peaceful and quite and white. It looked like lights were on outside long after the sun "set" because of the glow from the snow covered earth. It was probably one of my favorite snow days in recent memory (in part because we were also warm and cozy, the army of heaters couldn't have arrived any sooner than they did).

Both Noah and I were looking forward to a cozy, relaxing snow weekend when we woke up Saturday morning. We had no where to be and nothing that had to get done and were hoping to revel in the feeling of being inside and warm while it was snowy outside. The snow was very wet and heavy so it was collecting on tree branches and power lines; three trees in the ravine behind our house came down during the night not to mention a countless amount of smaller branches all around us. However, the house was still warm and cozy and safe...until the power went out at 10:30 in the morning...

Noah borrowed a shovel from our next door neighbor to clear off the driveway and learned that 80% of our county was out of power. Our neighbor (Isaac) and his wife grew up here and said the last time a storm like this had been through was 1993. Isaac thought our street would get power back sooner than others because we are actually located in Mars Hill, but said even so, it could be a couple of days before it came back on.

Our house was loosing heat fast, so while Noah shoveled the driveway I piled all of our newly purchased house plants (thanks Dad and Val!) into the middle of the room and covered them with a couple of sheets in hopes they would not freeze if the power really did stay off longer than 12 hours. Noah called Steven (who owns the yoga studio in Asheville) to make sure he had power there. Steven said we were welcome to stay the night there if we had to. We packed up a some blankets and pillows along with books and computers and first went into nearby Weaverville where our favorite coffee shop-Wellbred Bakery-was miraculously open. We stayed there all afternoon in hopes the power would come back on at home. At 4 pm, we called Isaac to get an update and the power was still off. We drove into Asheville for the evening.

We ended up taking our self out to dinner at an Indian restaurant in town that we had been planning on going to for Christmas, set up camp in the corner of the yoga studio, watched a DVD of The Office and went to bed hoping that our house would have power in the morning. That dream was not to be. We drove back home to a cold house, called our friend Darlene who lives an hour north in Jonseborough TN, packed my school stuff and drove up to stay with her. It was wonderful to get to visit with her despite the conditions. The roads were clear and wet and the drive was actually quite beautiful.

I received a call in the evening from school letting me know we would be having class on Monday, but that it would start at 10 instead of 8. Just before going to bed, we heard from Isaac-the power was back on! (Yay! I thought, my house plants might just survive!-they did). Only about 2/3 of my class made it to school Monday, and we started late every day this week due to early morning black ice. Other than that though, the drama of the storm really ended for us after the power came back on at home, since we could be warm and cook and check our e-mail. It warmed up Tuesday and today, but all the snow is not yet gone. Some people in the area were out of power until yesterday or even today, which is crazy. It makes one realize how important alternate sources of heating are and just how dependent on electricity our society is.

All in all, the snow has made it feel like Christmas (although, just today we were commenting to each other that all the snow melting made us think it was spring...). But, we can now say we lived through and survived WINTER STORM 2009 when our grandchildren ask about it years down the road. We were tough-we packed up and left when the house dropped below 60 degrees...I will say the ratio of cold/snow/storm to warmer/melting/sunny has been about perfect for my winter weather storm threshold. Go North Carolina!

Heating Soap Box

Wow! So Christmas is this Friday. Crazy. Sometime life feels like it is on slow motion fast-forward or something like that. This is my fourth week of school, making my first of 6 months gone. We will be on Holiday break for a week before returning, which is a bit of a relief. I will definitely be spending a good part of the break studying! I am loving every minute of it though--even the not so fun minutes (basic muscle chemistry anyone?) and cannot yet believe that I will get to make a living doing this after I am done. It makes me feel very lucky.

So, moving on to my soap box/rant. We have had a major run-around with our property management company and the heating system(s) at our house over the last month. It is nearly resolved but far from over at this point in time. Our house has been cold since the day we moved in and, after learning the costs and logistics involved with getting kerosene and/or propane for the house (everything was empty when we arrived), we had decided to see how long we could make it with a few electric heaters. About 2 weeks ago it started to get cold enough that we decided to break down and buy a new propane canister for the upstairs propane heater ($110-the canister here is one of those 100 pound ones that is considered "portable" but I would beg to differ). We brought it home, finally figured out how to hook it up only to discover that the heating unit inside didn't work. We went back and forth with property management for about a week before getting them to confirm this malfunction ("we've rented this house for 6 years and have never had an issue with the heating system..."). They also informed us they would not be replacing it because they didn't think it would "make much of a difference" in the house temp...

With our options running out and the weather getting colder, we turned to plan three: the kerosene heater in the (unfinished/unused) basement. We had fought against this heating system because there is no duct system, the space is unused, and the part of the house that needs the heat is two flights of stairs up. It struck us as a terribly inefficient way to heat the house. This combined with the minimum $300 delivery fee was not our favorite, however, we had been left with no other options. We had the tank filled up last Monday only to come home, try to turn on the heater and discover that...it DIDN'T WORK! Noah basically went to the property management office and refused to leave until they scheduled someone to service the unit for later in the week. During this sit-in, one of the maintenance men basically admitted that they knew the person who lived in the house for four year prior (a student) never called when there was a problem and just stayed at a friends, meaning they basically knew the house was not up to snuff and could have cared less about it before renting it again. Ugh.

Thursday morning I was home when the kerosene repairman came to service the unit. After initially observing the set-up, he came in and said to me, "well the problem is easy, there is no kerosene in the tank." What?!! I'm screaming in my head They took our check, I have a receipt from the oil company for refilling it!!! I called the oil company and confirmed they made the delivery. The repairman suspected the tank or line had a leak in it, but since the ground was still frozen, could not be sure because we couldn't smell the kerosene. Overall, he said the set-up of the whole system was terrible and didn't even know how it had passed code. On top of this, he discovered that the unit in the basement was also broken and that it was so old the parts for it were no longer even made...I thanked the repairmen and asked him to tell property management everything he had told me and then started looking up online what my rights as a tenant were in North Carolina, ready for drastic action if necessary.

Fortunately, property management called after speaking to the repairman ("You've just had the worst luck with that house...are you sure the tank was filled up?"). She said they had contacted the owner and that we would be reimbursed for the kerosene. To make a long story a little shorter, they agreed to bring us up a few extra space heaters that day to help get us through until a new heat pump system could be quoted and installed, skirting around the possibility of compensating us some for our extra electric costs. But, whatever.(Thing is, when the heat pump guy came to quote the job, he said the house set up was not conducive to an easy/cheap system...we still have not heard back from property management what will happen next, for now at least we are warm).

With the extra heaters, we were happy to wake up to a truly warm and cozy house Friday morning for the first time since moving in, which was perfect because it started to snow, and snow, and snow...but that's the next post. Thanks for letting me rant about the ineptitude of our property management company and our "adventure" with heating systems, it's been a big deal the last few weeks.

Back to School

In a nut shell, after week one, school is great. The course is very condensed and will be intense, but will be manageable. I am in school from 8-5 both Mondays and Tuesdays and from 8-12 on Wednesday. In the morning hours, we are learning Anatomy and Physiology (starting with the musculoskeletal system). In the afternoon on Mon & Tuesday we are learning Swedish massage, with about one hour of lecture and the rest actually time "on the table." I must say, I already feel much smarter and more knowledgeable than I did last Sunday. Our first round of exams will be January (musculoskeletal) and February(Swedish & Anatomy and Physiology). We will start actually doing massages in the clinic the end of February. Six months will sure go quickly!! I do think I will be making new friends here by finding volunteers to practice massage one...

There are 20 students in my class from almost every background imaginable. Ages range from 18 to late 40s. Several people are commuting quite a distance every day (as much as 1-2 hours) and some are here just for the 6 months the course takes. Get this though, there is one other girl in the class who has lived in Driggs for the last 6-7 years! She was the first person I met Monday morning and we both couldn't believe it. We had never met before (although, determined we had likely seen one another in passing at a few places). She and her boyfriend moved out in August so she could take the course. She even had her Big Hole Music sweatshirt on...small world times two.

This week the studio Noah is at (Pilates Fusion by Stephen) had a "soft" opening for yoga classes. I think as far as weeks go it was a little up and down for him since the classes had little to no attendance (which was almost expected). But, at the same time, he met a lot of current clients, did a few private mini-classes for people coming by, and started getting the feel for the schedule etc. The plan now is to do a big grand opening the first of the year, with a modified schedule (from the one he has now), and lots of promotion. The owner of the studio is an extremely good guy and has put everything into his business and, although it is a start-up operation, we have a good feeling about the situation. (Check out how good he already looks as part of the Pilates Fusion team at http://pilatesfusionbystephen.com/2452/2494.html)

We had a Winter Storm Warning here the last couple of days-a chance of 3-5 inches of snow...it didn't pan out, although it sprinkled snow a little bit, which was kind of fun. It is getting colder though, but hey, it is winter after all. In fact, it will be sort of fun when it does actually snow a little here. For driving purposes though, I hope it chooses to do so on the weekends...