... And as Happy a New Year as is Possible Under the Circumstances

An interesting beginning to the New Year... I can say that Bob saved the day yesterday. I woke up at about 5:30 and I felt chilly. That's unusual for me as typically, I retain the heat from sleeping under the two hundred blankets with which Bob and I cloak the bed. (Over night, I almost always cast off sweat pants and socks as we sleep and when I stumble outside to let Robin eliminate I am enveloped in an invisible warm envelope.) In any event, it was only 60 upstairs- which is cold as the heat in our house reliably rises and the bedroom is often a good seven or eight degrees warmer than the kitchen. When I went downstairs, it was much colder and obvious that the furnace hadn't come on in a while.
I woke Bob up- such fun to be awoken on New Year's Day to a cold house. Bob tried the furnace and likewise, it didn't come on.... we made a fire in the wood stove.
The immediate tragedy of freezing to death warded off, Bob did some investigation with the furnace itself and found that the on/off switch had been tripped. (Probably be me as I brushed past the furnace in the utility room to flip on the outdoor flood lights at 3:00 am when Robin needed to pee...)

(Our little helper, rooting around for stray bits of dog food on the utility room floor.)
Anyway, Bob got the furnace working and we were happy for about a half an hour. Then Bob tells me that he went outside and checked the propane tanks and... they were all three empty! So he shut off the furnace (again) and we heated quite happily with the wood stove, planning on calling our propane supplier the next day.
The next day turned out to be a holiday (who knew?) and  we had to order on Tuesday. In the meantime, the weather continued warm so no big deal (although as an interesting aside, a good friend (Hello Sheldon!) had inquired about us heating with wood. I said, "Oh, with both Bob and I heating the studios with wood, we usually heat the house with propane. Running three wood stoves is a lot of work!" Little did I know.)
So on Tuesday, Bob orders propane and they came and filled the tanks and a general "hooray" arose from the denizens of The Bauhaus Chicken Coop as warmth would fill the land. The house was still warm from the continuing wood stove fire so it wasn't until early the next morning that we realized the blasted house was cold and the danged furnace wasn't firing and catching. It seemed to want to try, but something wasn't right.
Bob went on line and- intrepid guy that he is!- watched several videos about things that might cause the furnace to not start. He cleaned a widget and make a tweak here or there but still no luck.
Bob re-called the propane company and they dispatched a technician. The man arrived pretty quickly and looked at all the possible fittings and switches and I'm seeing dollar signs flash before my eyes as these guys aren't cheap. But he said the furnace looked in good shape and clean and went outside to test the hoses and line. There he discovered that the delivery man had SHUT OFF the gas coming into the house! He opened the valve and ta-da!! the furnace kicked right in. We aren't even being charged as the technician said that delivery guy must have mistaken our delivery to one that had a leak. So all's well that ends well and we're warm and happy. (The weather got cold right after this episode transpired...)

Yes, a shot of left over (from Lil' Robin's birthday party) balloons, now taken up residence in the downstairs shower stall.