Working 10-hour day shifts after a year of second shift has certainly proved challenging (and this weekend will be one of those challenges as we change the clocks in the wee hours of Sunday morning). And I do appreciate the long weekends, but not the 6:30 a.m. start times.

My “weekends” (Thursday, Friday, Saturday) get hectic— usually one day for errands and medical appointments, one day for chores, and (only quasi-joking) one day for cats.

I woke today at 5:30 a.m. in part because my cat Fog seemed to be in the middle of a panic attack, banging on my door and screaming, wondering why I was still in bed. I thought I might snuggle back under the covers when the garbage man rolled up and decided to bang cans and recycling around underneath my bedroom window.

Now that I’m on day shift and normally wake at the ridiculously ungodly hour of 4:45 a.m., 5:30 a.m. is technically sleeping in. And while the garbage man and his predawn ruckus used to piss me off when I went to bed at 2 a.m. after clocking out at midnight, “he” is merely a minor inconvenience now.

But I woke with a strange chill as I crawled out of bed— but I am always cold so I thought nothing of it.

I picked up Nan and 9 a.m. and as we were working in my dining room, I asked, “Are you okay, I’m cold.”

And she confirmed that it was cold but it was okay.

But I said no, that I couldn’t feel my toes and we needed to nudge the heat even though it was approaching 50 degrees outside.

But the thermostat read “56” even though the heat was set at “62.” And I realized that my fuel oil company, Deiter Brothers, had sent me an email that I would receive my automatic delivery fuel drop in the next day or two.

Obviously, we didn’t make it.

We were out of oil.

I confirmed it and called Deiter Brothers and brought Nan out to the sunporch where it was 60 degrees and sunny.

And the dog kept us warm.

After I took Nan home, I did a headcount on our personal and foster cats and sure enough everyone was someplace warm.

I folded some laundry on the porch, now a toasty 64, and the oil man arrived as I sipped a cup of coffee to stay warm.

And much to my surprise— I had enough summer prepaid gallons left to fill the tank. If I didn’t, my locked in rate would have been $2.399 a gallon. Which seems insane compared to the current price of oil.

This is only the second time in the twenty years I’ve lived in this house that automatic delivery let us run out.

So now we’re toasty again— thanks to the oil delivery man priming the furnace and getting us running again.

I shared some good laughs with Nan, got some good animal cuddles and appreciated the sunshine more than I might have otherwise.