numbers

Subtitled: you can take the mom out of the engineering firm, but you can't take the engineer out of the mom.

I occasionally drive my husband crazy with the way I manipulate numbers, looking for patterns in collected data. I think that the patterns in nature are an amazing proof of intelligent design. While not very theological, one of my little projects is tracking our electric bill in a spreadsheet and observing the trends of our electric use. I have noticed that since Adam put up our new siding, our electric use has been declining. To be specific, we have used fewer kilowatt-hours each month than we EVER used before while living in this house and while electric rates have gone up, our bill has actually gone down!

Take, for example, the recent December-January billing cycle: we used an average of 1867kwh over the last 6 years and this year we only used 1282kwh. That is close to 600kwh less than our average electric use and that translates into $$ saved. Very encouraging! While I'm tempted to think that we should have resided the house long ago, I'm very thankful that we got it done last year and that my "crazy" little habit helps me to realize that we are saving a lot because of it! And, in focusing on gratitude I can become more patient and joyful.