It is so cold… How cold is it?

When most people think of Arizona, they think about the hot desert.  While Phoenix and Tucson and a few other cities have extreme heat, such is not the case where I live.  My town is at 4900 feet elevation. The next town is a mile high.

This past Thursday, we woke up to lots of snow.  We only get snow here two or three times a year, and it is never so deep we have to shovel a drive way.  Even so, we got six inches of snow on Thursday, and it was beautiful to see – from inside my house!

My husband and I woke up this morning to find our house really cold!  We played with the heater, and it simply would not go on.  It was 26 degrees outside.  It was very early, so we planned to wait a couple hours before we called a plumber.

When we started to make oatmeal for breakfast , we discovered that the stove wouldn’t go on.  Light bulb moment!  There was nothing wrong with our stove or heater.  We were out of gas!

We must use propane gas where we live.  For convenience and financial purposes, we are on auto payment and a level pay plan all year.  We also are on auto fill, which means that the propane company tracks the level and fills the tank when necessary.  When we checked the tank, it was at ZERO!

Still very early in the morning, we called the propane company’s “emergency” line. We tried repeatedly and tried a couple other numbers for the company, but no one answered.  Great!

Finally at 8 AM, we made contact with our local propane office. A receptionist answered, but she was alone in the office and could do nothing.  She called their regional office and the General Manager called me. 

Apparently they use a formula of sorts to determine when we will need gas.  It is based on the size of the home (ours is 2250 square feet) and the number of gas appliances in the home.  Although we’ve been with the company for years, for some reason those numbers were not in their computer.  She informed me that we had no delivery since APRIL!

Within an hour, the manager had arranged for someone to deliver propane to our home and relight all the appliances.  She said we would get 50 gallons free due to the inconvenience.  Our tank took 212 gallons to fill. If we weren’t on the level pay plan, it would have cost $742.57!

So, here I sit in my home office wearing a jacket, a wool scarf around my neck with a blanket covering my legs.  I am drinking hot tea and holding the cup to warm my hands.  It will take a couple hours to warm the house up.  I realize that am fortunate compared to all the people who lived in much colder weather for a long time after Hurricane Sandy and other storms.

The moral of this story, we are looking for a new propane company.

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For information about how you can Save Money on Your Health and Dental Costs AND Save on Hearing, Vision, Prescriptions, Roadside Assistance, Lifelock™ and much more, please visit http://ibourl.net/XpressSavings   (NOT insurance)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

I lived in southern California most of my life.  For the last 18 years, I’ve lived in southeast Arizona.  Both areas have mild weather, with few extremes.  Neither State has high humidity and little to no snow (except in the mountains).  Where I am in Arizona, it is nothing like Phoenix where summers are 100 to 120 degrees for weeks on end.

As my husband and I left home today for our daily walk at our local mall, and the cold air struck me.  It was the first time since February that I felt a real chill.  My car thermometer said it was 34 degrees, near freezing.  Because we seldom have extreme cold, I don’t have cold-weather attire.  This morning I was wearing jeans, a short sleeve blouse, a denim jacket and tennis shoes. I was shivering.  Tomorrow, I’ll wear my leather jacket, which is a little warmer than denim.

I have never understood how people tolerate living in extreme hot or extreme cold.  Although I would never choose to live anywhere that has snow storms and below zero temperatures, I can understand how wearing proper winter attire could make it tolerable.

On the other hand, I don’t see how people can endure living in punishing heat.  You can only remove so many clothes without being totally immodest.  In the Middle East, people wear thawbs and other “robe-like” garments to protect them from the sun and provide ventilation.  When it is 120 degrees, it seems to me that their thawbs cannot possibly keep them any cooler.  But then, I’ve never worn one.

Last year a record was broken in my city with the coldest day in the history of the area.  I had an appointment that day, so I had to go outside.  It was 8 degrees and windy.  My face hurt from the cold.  Remember, I do not own winter clothing.

The hottest temperature I was ever in was 117 degrees.  Before I went outside, knowing it was horribly hot I had to prepare my mind for the blast of hot air.

I was in Mississippi during the summer one year.  I walked out of my hotel room, and my glasses steamed up!  It was so humid; I could almost grab a handful of the air.

I’ve heard people say that they “get used to it,” both hot and cold.  If you live in extreme heat, I guess you learn to do your chores very early in the morning or late at night.  OK, so you can adjust your lifestyle, but your body cannot adjust to temperature, can it?

In the United States, there are few areas that do not experience very high temperatures, high humidity and/or freezing winters.  Since millions of people live in those areas, I imagine that for most, they’ve never experienced mild weather year round.  If that is all they ever know, are they simply mentally “used to it?”

I would be interested in feedback from those of you who live in areas with very hot summers, humidity and freezing winters.  How do you deal with it?

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To learn about Julie Klein and the Xpress Healthcare Business Opportunity, please visit http://joinxpresshealthcare.com

To learn how to Reduce Your Health and Dental Costs AND save on Hearing, Vision, Roadside Assistance and much more, please visit http://ibourl.net/XpressSavings   (NOT insurance)