It is mid-November, and the weather is holding true for this time of year.

One afternoon it is seventy and sunny and the next afternoon it is fifty and rainy.

The evenings are cold and damp, and there is a breeze blowing most of the time. My partner is still in the currency-saving mode, and he is being truly stingy with the heat. All of us have a small wood stove in the home office, which he is grudgingly burning when he feels it is cold. I don’t have the tolerance for the cold that he has. I rest in the apartment with a jacket on. My hands are cold and it is all I can do to suppress the shivers. For the last couple weeks, I have been plagued with muscle spasms. They are from head to toe and I never guess when they are going to hit. I can lay down and my stomach or ribs will cramp. Even if I am walking, my legs and feet will seize and the cramping will start. It is painful and I can’t find anything that will help them. Last week, I told my partner that if he would just turn on the gas furnace and put some heat in the house, I may not be suffering so badly. He wasn’t glad with me, despite the fact that he went downstairs and worked on the gas furnace. He said he had to have it cleaned and ran tests on before he could turn it on. My partner is retired, and he still tells me that he doesn’t have time. I gave him the choice of turning the gas furnace on, or I was moving in with my kid for a few weeks. I had heat that evening.

Hybrid HVAC system