I got an e-mail from our church admin the other day that was sad to receive. It looks like one of the families that we adopted from the Katrina disaster has decided to go back to New Orleans. They have been back once and said EVERYTHING is gone. When I talked to her a few weeks after they got here, she said she would not go back. Actually 90% of the people I talked to said that, but it seems that North Central Texas is not for everyone. Actually she is the second to let us know that she is not happy. I understand part of their frustration. FEMA has been helpful, but they also have been very slow. Fraud is running rampant as people who were not even affected by this disaster are claiming benefits in the names of those who have (which is exactly what happened to the one family we adopted). You may recall that my care group at church helped out as much as we could donating things needed (furniture, appliances, clothing, food, computers, etc), provided transportation, and lots of prayers. I went to the alter with our family and prayed twice with them as they struggled with this situation. I am sad for them.
Many of the people displaced have never lived anyplace else other than New Orleans. It is the only place they know. Families had been scattered all over the US and the holidays have been difficult for them. Would you please keep these families in your prayers for me? I would appreciate it.
I took a photo of my mango plant that I started a few months ago. I know it does not look like much, but I understand it is a slow growing plant that can get to 30 feet tall and live 300 years. It is currently outside because it is going to be 80 today and is currently 65 degrees. For those using Celsius, that is about 18 now and about 26 later. It has been unseasonably warm in Texas so far this winter. We have had some cold days, but not as many as I would expect. I guess that will be good for our natural gas bill.
Speaking of bills, our 3 year contract is up with Direct Energy and we went shopping for the best rate. In Texas, electricity has been de-regulated and you can pick any company you like, much like you can for phone service. We were locked into a very good .079 per kilowatt hour but now that our contract is up, we are looking at nearly twice that. We have had Green Mountain Energy come by and offer us .145 kw/h and we heard that Starlight was offering .135 kw/h . We told the guy to come back after we researched it more. He said he would return a few Saturdays ago, but he never came back.
We got a notice from Direct Energy telling us our rate was .079 kw/h and my wife called about it. It was a horrible misprint and told us there was no way they could offer that to us, but did offer us service for .145 kw/h, which was the same or cheaper than the other companies. TXU which is the "primary" company, has a rate of .145 kw/h ... if you use a lot of electricity. We normally do not. During the summer is when we use the most, and that is simply because of the cost of cooling a home is large. We used to pay $150-180 a month in the summer, but I can expect that to be $250-300 a month now, and we have a small 1700 sq ft home. Oh well. Maybe I can get some solar panels to place outside to augment what we use :) I know one thing...my server will not be running as much in the summer. We are going to have to really have to start watching our energy use.
No comments:
Post a Comment