Window and Door Summit

They say it's fall and that summer has flown. But has it? Ken and I wrestle with the temperature of our house like we've just started housekeeping or something. I walk by the thermostat and see that he's got the heat on, just when I'm ready to fling all the doors and windows open. Our house is very old and needs to be aired out properly. It smells like an old Granny's attic, especially when we get back from the beach and it's been shut up all week. The only windows that work in this house are the "modern" ones, so I have to be content to open them and all the doors, making us more susceptible to strangers walking right in and making off with the furniture and such. A few years back, I hired some people to paint the trim on the exterior of the house, something that grieved my personal pride. I've always been the one to paint any and everything we own. Alas, I conceded that I did not feel like climbing up twenty feet to paint the extensive eaves on our Victorian dollhouse, so I bit the bullet and hired them. On the day they put all the storm windows back on, I was not home. That cruel mistake will probably haunt me the rest of my life. They not only didn't clean the inside of the storm windows or the old original ones, they also painted shut every single window on our house. I start getting claustrophobic if I ponder it for very long. Before the big error, I used to take sawed-off closet poles to prop up most of them on balmy spring or fall days. Now I am caged up in here until the day we decide to take them down (by unscrewing about two hundred screws), clean all the windows and the storms, get dangerous tools and cut through all the painted-shut areas, then screw everything back on. I'm exhausted, just sitting here thinking about it. 

So I have to be content with opening up what I can. The other day, the heat had been on all night. I woke up covered in sweat, only to catch my husband turning on the air conditioning before he was leaving for work. I shrieked something about opening up the windows, since it was 52 degrees outside, rather than turning on the dollar bill machine. We had a heated discussion about how I'm prone to opening windows, even when the A/C or heat is running. I have to admit that it's true. And there's a serious problem with him needing four blankets and me needing just one (which gets heaved off after two hours anyway). I want the house at 65 degrees in the summer and pretty much 65 degrees in the winter. I think he's good with 80, just like his Grandmama Goldman was. These are not questions I asked, at what would have been the appropriate time. Now that all the kids are gone, these kinds of things surface just like an old shipwreck. 

When all's said and done, maybe I might have to actually communicate (and negotiate) better. And since he's a good old bird, maybe I'll just have to keep him.