The heat is on

In our apartments we have radiator steam heat (yes they are over 100 years old). The good news is that we don't have to pay for our utilities but the bad is that steam heat is a hard thing to manage. It doesn't have a thermostat so you can just set the degree temp that you want and let it go. No instead you have these little knobs that you can turn up or down. Even when they are all the way off they are sometimes still warm. We have covers on everyone of them in the apartment so don't worry the kids are still safe. During this time of year where the weather is changing it is increasingly difficult to regulate the temperature in our house.

I am almost always warm. I prefer to sleep in a less than warm room with loads of blankets on top of me. I would rather wear a sweatshirt and slippers in a cool house than be sweating. I hate to be hot and my body temp is almost always a little warm. Bret is usually normal temp and doesn't get that hot or cold except at night. Unbeknownst to me I am told that I sometimes take more than my fair share of covers during the night. I have this little habit of tucking the covers and then rolling over so they are pulled away from my loving hubs. Bret is a very heavy sleeper and the one thing that has been able to disrupt this sleep is waking up in the middle of the night FREEZING with no covers in sight. Besides trying to find some extra covers he also usually turns the heat up in our room. An hour later I wake up SWEATING like crazy and realize that the room is way too warm even though by this point my socks are off and the covers are thrown back all before I wake up. Something I never really understood about radiators before we had them is that they are not gradual. They are cold, medium, or hot and they immediately get that way. If you are freezing cold in the middle of the night and half asleep you simply turn the heat up and whala the room is warm within a couple of minutes literally.

So here we are pissy with each other for waking the other up and now fighting with the heater and not getting any sleep. So rather than continue with this ridiculous fight I grabbed my pillow and favorite blanket and headed for living room and the best couch in the world and had a peaceful rest of the night in a nice cool room. Bret came out at the crazy early hour that he gets up and ready for work and tells me that I am the stubborn one. Needless to say we are going to have to have a lengthy discussion on how to "manage" the heat in our room tonight. My plan is to threaten to open a window if he touches the heater again. Or better yet maybe we can have separate blankets so I don't hog them. Ahh the joys of married life and living in a tiny old apartment.