Same old, same old for me. The price of gas at the nearest gas station stayed exactly the same for yet another week.

Since I don’t drive a lot, it isn’t gas prices that bother me. I’m more concerned with the price of fuel oil come winter.

I finally got an appointment for a quote on a new furnace. (Everyone and his cousin is looking to install a new furnace this summer, so appointments for quotes are hard to come by.) Hopefully, by the time winter rolls around I’ll be set up with a furnace that uses less fuel oil, because I really, really need one. The furnace I have now is very big,  very old, and very inefficient. And very noisy to boot.  Oh, and the humidifier leaks water all over the basement floor.

I can’t use wood for heating anymore, either. I am, it seems, allergic to pine, and all the wood for burning around here is pine. A few years ago I started getting a very itchy rash on my scalp and neck (and my arms when I wore short sleeves) during the season when nasty yellow pine pollen is dusting everything. This year when the real Christmas tree was indoors I started getting a rash, too. Then, when it got cold and we used the wood stove to supplement the oil furnace, I got rash whenever I touched the logs. As long as someone else did all the log handling, I was fine; but next year I won’t  have anyone to bring in the wood and feed the fire for me. So you see, I really do need a new furnace, don’t I?

Can you guess what happened with the price of gas where Dorothy lives?

What about the prices where you get your gas? Up, down, or the same? And as long as we’re on the subject of furnaces, are you worried about heating costs next year, too?