Today is hard.

I know that I have much to be grateful for. I have a husband and we actually love each other, family and friend that I love - and they love me.

But today is hard. We pay for our electricity here and the house is heated with electric. We keep the thermostat on 15C/58F - in the living room. The rest of the rooms the heaters are on basically just enough to prevent the ice from actually forming. The things in my house are cold - furniture, utensils - my fingertips get colder from the keyboard. We are cold. As I write this I am wearing 2 pairs of socks, slippers, leggings, flannel pants, turtleneck, sweatshirt, cardigan and fingerless gloves. And I'm cold. By hanging a sheet in the living room doorway last week, I'm able to trap heat in the living room and it's not too bad. So that makes one room kind of warm.

Last month our hydro bill was $154. Apparently that was an estimate. This month the employee actually got out of his heated truck, walked 6 feet from the street and read the meter. So this month we are paying for what we actually used this month and last. And our bill is $657.

Our rent is $480. I'm on disability and Tom is getting unemployment. We are so beyond being able to pay that bill it may as well be a million dollars. The bright side, haha, is that after several people froze to death last winter after NB Power cut their power off, they changed the law and they can't turn your power off in the winter months. So spring will be a double edged sword. The bill will go down but we won't be able to afford to keep it.

We're the little people. We pay the outrageous taxes and banking fees. We're not vegetarian but we may as well be for as little as we can buy meat. If I don't get a drug card from social services I'll be hoping that every month a drug rep leaves enough samples of my medication.

Knowing that there are others, literally millions, who have it much worse and would trade places with my situation in a heartbeat doesn't make it any easier to deal with the situation.

Today is hard.