Dust (lack of), heating oil, etc.

One of the little details that I noticed almost immediately was the lack of dust in the house. I'm sure there is still dust, but compared to the apartment, it's as if there isn't any. In the apartment, everything was always covered with dust. Even after dusting, wiping, vacuuming, a new coat of dust would settle on everything in a matter of a couple of hours. I'm not sure what all the reasons are behind it. I thought maybe it was simply that Petersburg is more dusty, and that it was like this everywhere. Or maybe it's just the apartments. Or because it's right next to the main road.

I'm happy to discover that the dust in the apartment was probably an anomaly. After the move, I haven't noticed much in the way of any dust settling on things. This is probably a lot better for the computers, too.

Last week I set up our heating oil delivery service and the truck came in to top off the tanks today. It came to a little over 300 gallons... and $1,000. I hope our coming winter is mild...

Even though the sun came out today, I only moved a few items. I moved all of the book boxes from the bedroom into the front room, but when I tried to get the handtruck under the boxes, it wouldn't slide underneath. The boxes are no longer very stiff from being opened and restacked many times. So the bottom box won't tilt when the top box is leaned away. I'll just wait until I have someone else to help me.

I've been adjusting to the new cooking temperatures on our cooktop. I think that "medium" is really medium now (instead of medium-low in the apartment), and the lowest setting is still enough to maintain a good simmer.

There is open space on either side of the cooktop, which means much more freedom to use large pots and pans, even simultaneously. In the apartment there was a refrigerator immediately on the right and on the immediate left we had our toaster oven on the counter because there was no place else to put it. It was quite cramped. Now we have open countertop on both sides. Until I've lived with cramped quarters, I never realized how important open space is for cooking.

The girls are getting ready to go to camp. They leave around noon tomorrow on the camp boat to Vank Island.