In an effort to save money this year, The Boy and I have agreed not to turn on the heat until January. This is ok by me, because I am going to be gone for awhile in December, so I'll at least have a week of warmy goodness to look forward to in the coming months. The Boy, however, is insane for agreeing to this. Then again, he doesn't have the Frozen Feet and Fingers disease that I was born with, so his capacity for cold is a little higher than mine.
Still. We have electric heating and it can get really expensive. And for now, doing my work in my jacket and scarf keeps me warm enough. The problem, however, is typing and using the mouse.
Obviously, when people created computers, they didn't think about those of us who would be working in cold rooms. Holy circulation issues. I can have 98% of my body be warm and happy, but my hands will still be ice cold.
I've got a lot to do and I enjoy most of the work I've got going on. I genuinely find the projects I'm working on to be fun and exciting, even a little addictive. I'm just having issues with the cold.
After coming back from the museum today, I climbed into bed (it was 19.00) because the boy had just woken up. We stayed in bed for two hours, just talking and giggling and going over project stuff. Neither of wanted to face the cold.
On the wall across the room from our bed, I put up a map of the world. We actually stayed in our bed and tried to name the countries of the world by squinting at the map from several feet away. Straining his eyes, The Boy would say, "Is that another country next to Tanzania or I'm I seeing things?" Miraculously, I made it through all of barely visible Africa and I only messed up twice (we later verified our guesses: I mixed up Sierra Leone and Liberia, and Zimbabwe and Botswana).
The great part is that this is how we "relax." We're big, big nerds.
In the end, I had a little daydream about a new type of computer, made for the hardworking person with little money and bad circulation. It would have a floating screen that could be suction-cupped to the wall, or suspended from the ceiling overhead. The keyboard could be propped across the body like a breakfast tray. And the mouse could be anywhere - just like it is today - but the signal would be able to communicate through the comforter and whatever other blankets one might be sleeping under. With this new computer, I could lie in bed and keep my hands under the covers, not exposing them to the terrible cold that has crept into our house in the last week. I would do all of my work either lying down or only slightly propped up, and there would be no need to get out of bed in the morning unless I wanted to fix myself some tea. Actually, I could just have a faucet next to the bed, my little water heater, and I'd be good to go. Why bathe, right?
I totally have the same problem - electric heating and freezing cold hands. It's been getting down below zero in Bretagne these past few nights, so we finally started turning it on in the bedroom at night, but otherwise it stays off during the day. I've even been thinking about bringing back plastic to cover the windows with, just to try to keep the heat in. I usually wear a longsleeve shirt, a hooded jacket, flannel pants and thick hiking socks, but still have the problem of freezing cold hands....so I'd pay good money for your magic computer!